The museum’s first exhibition, titled Postcards From the Future, gives a taste of things to come – especially the pieces from its evolving permanent collection, for which 60 per cent of the acquisition budget will be spent on work by women artists
Trondheim is known for many things – its Viking history, its vast Gothic cathedral, its picturesque rows of traditional wooden houses, nestled along the banks of the Nidelven River and painted in glorious shades of orange, yellow, green and red. But only recently has Norway’s third largest city garnered a somewhat surprising reputation as a contemporary art destination.
This began with the opening of Kunsthall Trondheim in 2016. An international arena for contemporary art, located in a former fire station, the institution has hosted exhibitions by Korakrit Arunanondchai, Emilie Louise Gossiaux and Sin Wai Kin among others. Now, the city has a new museum to cement its artistic ambitions: PoMo (short for Posten Moderne), located in a large, elegant Art Nouveau building that was once the city post office and has now been beautifully restored by Iranian-French architect and designer India Mahdavi in collaboration with Norwegian architect Erik Langdalen.
The museum’s inaugural exhibition, aptly titled Postcards From the Future, gives a taste of things to come, not only in terms of the institute’s evolving permanent collection – wherein a minimum of 60 per cent of the acquisition budget will be spent on acquiring work by women artists, director Marit Album Kvernmo explains – but also in terms of who might feature among its upcoming programme of twice-yearly temporary exhibitions. It also offers a peek inside the personal collection of the museum’s founders – Trondheim residents and keen collectors, Monica and Ole Robert Reitan – who have lent some of their own artworks for the opening, resulting in an eclectic and entertaining series of encounters.
The first of these is a number of expressive Franz West sculptures dotted about PoMo’s ground floor, each made from welded sheets of aluminum overlaid with lacquer. Their different pastel shades – pink, mint green, pale lilac – look particularly pleasing in the vicinity of the museum’s playful pink shop (inspired by the colour of local salmon) and sweeping orange staircase (a direct reference to one of Tronheim’s riverside houses). A quick clamber up these terrazzo-lined steps reveals the main exhibition spaces, spread across three floors and comprised of rooms of all shapes and sizes. Some smaller areas hold just one artwork: a side room confronts us with a hanging male figure – Louise Bourgeois’s The Arch of Hysteria (2004) – whose tortured state is heightened by this lonely setting; while a walk along a connecting passageway with a view onto an outdoor terrace reveals a vast blow-up sculpture by Kuwaiti artist Monira Al Qadiri evoking a petrochemical molecule.
Other highlights include a beguiling gold figurative bust by US sculptor Simone Leigh (part of PoMo’s permanent collection), satirically charged works by German artist Isa Genzken, and a triptych of iridescent sculptures by Belgian artist Ann Veronica Janssens. While historic gems from the Reitans’ own collection range from a revered series of Piranesi prints depicting imaginary prison interiors to a roomful of exquisite prints by Norway’s own Edvard Munch, and a satisfying selection of Irving Penn culinary still lifes.
Hidden in the eaves of the museum’s top floor lies what is perhaps the most welcoming museum reading room in existence, hand-decorated in Norwegian Rosemaling (an ornate Scandinavian folk painting technique) and decked in chic pixelated carpet, punctuated by sofas and armchairs. Like the Ugo Rondinone rainbow sculpture that sits on the museum’s rooftop, and spells out “our magic hour”, this room perfectly encapsulates the museum’s founding purpose, Kvernmo informs me during a tour of the building. “Above all, we want to serve our community,” she explains. “We want locals to feel enticed to come in here on a whim, to take a magic hour for themselves to discover art or sit and read. If you want to make your museum a place that people from all over the world want to visit, you have to start at home.”
Postcards From the Future is on show at PoMo in Trondheim until June 22 2025.
