BJARNE NESS
CURATED BY ERLEND GRYTBAKK WOLD
12.11.24 - 12.01.25

Where did you hear about Bjarne Ness? - The question is interesting. But I don't think I can answer you. You know, Bjarne Ness is like a guiding star, an ideal for many in my generation. Especially for those of us who have their background in Trondheim and Trøndelag. For us, Bjarne Ness has in a way always been there.

- Roar Wold

What is it like to look up to someone, and how are we shaped by our role models? Erlend Grytbakk Wold works with the traces and remnants of modernism, a form that has influenced both art and culture for generations. He has a personal relationship with this heritage and is concerned with how it has shaped our contemporary world.

In the exhibition in prosjektrommet Erlend Grytbakk Wold (b. 1986) has chosen to show drawings, sketches and etchings by Bjarne Ness (1902-1927) from the art collection of Roar Wold (1926-2001), who is also his grandfather.

Bjarne Ness was born in 1902 in Trondheim and grew up in the working-class neighborhood of Lademoen. He showed a great talent for drawing from an early age. Despite his short life – he died of tuberculosis at the age of 25 – Ness managed to leave a significant mark on Norwegian modernism and is considered one of the most promising artists of his generation.

Roar Wold was no more than a year old when Bjarne Ness died in a hospital in Paris. He grew up in the same part of town as Ness, and went to school just across the street from the childhood home of his great idol. As a young man, my grandfather admired Bjarne Ness head over heels. The kinship must have been experienced as strong on many levels. They were both sick in their youth, and drawing was a good companion when they were bedridden. When Roar was two years old, his mother died of the same disease that took so many young lives in the interwar period, namely tuberculosis.

Roar Wold collected everything he could come across by Bjarne Ness throughout his life, and the last addition was acquired at auction at Blomqvist in 2000, the year before he passed away.

I was fourteen when my grandfather died suddenly on a cold February night, and our relationship was like that between grandson and grandfather. In my later teenage years I became interested in art, and looked a lot to my grandfather for inspiration. In high school I wrote a special paper on Bjarne Ness, and through my grandfather's art collection I had the opportunity to see sketches and drawings up close.

He was born to be a draftsman, and when I think of him, Degas' words come to mind: "One can become a painter, but one must be born a draftsman."

The exhibition is supported by the Norwegian Artists' Remuneration Fund.

The quotes in the text above are from Roald Wold in conversation with Arvid Møller, from the book Roald Wold Pictures 1941-1996 .