Research From Edvard Munch to the Present

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In line with our research ambitions, we work across disciplines with two overarching thematic areas:

Technopoetics – Art and Nature in the Age of Technology

The Technopoetics group explores the complex relationships between art, nature and technology – past, present and future. 
The term ‘technopoetics’ is derived from the Greek tekhnē (art, skill) and poiēsis (to create, to bring forth). The group seeks to deepen our understanding of how art and museum practices reflect and shape the interdependence between people, nature and technology in both modernity and contemporary culture. 

We examine how artistic, curatorial, conservation and educational practices can engage with themes related to ecology, technology and their associated cultural and social dynamics.

The Politics of Visibility

This research area investigates the mechanisms and conditions that govern what is made visible in art and museums. 

Which aesthetic, ideological, political, economic, cultural or social factors determine what is highlighted – and what remains hidden? How is artistic and institutional freedom shaped by external pressures, historically and today?

Through exhibitions, research, conservation and mediation, MUNCH has always had the power to shape public values and direct attention toward specific artists, histories, knowledge, perspectives and audience groups. We examine how artistic, curatorial, conservation and educational practices are conditioned by and executors of the politics of visibility.  

The focus areas are developed through two interdisciplinary research groups.

These thematic areas bring together MUNCH’s research environments to examine how Edvard Munch’s work, modernism, contemporary art, museum practices and audiences are both influenced by and reflective of ecological, technological and sociopolitical frameworks.

The focus areas build on MUNCH’s professional strengths in conservation, art history, curatorial practice and education, and reinforce the museum’s research in response to pressing contemporary challenges. 

Our continuous work in managing the museum’s collections, archive and library forms the foundation for both exhibitions and research. These resources also benefit researchers and students worldwide.

MUNCH’s research activity is rooted in – and contributes to – the further development of our collection, archive and library databases.

MUNCH has a responsibility to document the works we manage and actively works to trace the provenance – or ownership history – of works in our collections, especially those in the Stenersen Collection.

We follow ICOM’s Code of Ethics and the Washington Principles, which commit museums to investigate artworks with uncertain ownership, particularly those potentially affected by events around the Second World War. 

Provenance research strengthens collection management and ensures that the museum operates in line with current ethical standards.

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