Guttormgaards arkiv (the Guttormsgaard archive) is an independent art institution built around the lifelong collecting practice of the artist Guttorm Guttormsgaard (1938–2019). The archive spans from major names such as Hannah Ryggen and Edvard Munch to Japanese woodcuts, rare avant-garde magazines and handwritten Bibles and Qurans. It is located in the former dairy of Blaker, 30 min away from Oslo by train. Their exhibition programme reflects a particular interest in artistic publishing and experimental approaches to collecting, history and pedagogy. When Guttorm Guttormsgaard wished for “a broader and more inclusive history of art,” he wanted to change both what was included under the rubric of art and how art was presented. 

For the exhibition Passing Motherhood, curator and art historian Ellef Prestsæter, the artistic director of Guttormgaards arkiv, prepared a selection of wooden toys and figures made by Soviet prisoners of war in Norway, still an insufficiently covered topic of Norwegian history. As Prestsæter writes in his essay “Beautiful Objects of Resistance,” approximately 100,000 Soviet prisoners of war were brought to Norway by the German occupiers between 1941–45, and held in more than 500 camps across the country. Objects such as wooden birds and aluminum cigarette cases were crafted by the Soviet prisoners as a means of exchange for food and clothing. Prestsæter proposes to approach these objects of complicated origin through a series of collective “handling sessions” over the course of the exhibition. In such sessions, every audience member is treated as an active contributor to the past, present, and future of the objects in the spotlight.

-        Yaniya Mikhalina