This exhibition presents the installation Baton Sinister (2011) by internationally renowned artist Bjarne Melgaard, along with a carefully selected group of his earlier paintings.
The installation was first shown at the Venice Biennale in 2011 and marked the end Melgaard’s project Beyond Death: Viral Discontents and Contemporary Notions about AIDS. The work was acquired by The Savings Bank Foundation DNB, Norway, and deposited at Haugar Art Museum the same year. The paintings in this exhibition are on loan from some of the most significant private collections in Norway and have rarely or never been shown publicly.
The paintings refer in many ways to the subject matter found in the installation, and the exhibition is as such a substantial contributor in outlining the first three decades of Melgaard’s career.
A new book about the artist by curator Erlend Hammer accompanies the exhibition. It will be published in December 2022 by Uten Tittel (Not Yet Titled Press), Oslo.