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Northern Lights

Jan 26–May 25, 2025

The exhibition “Northern Lights” presents 74 landscape paintings by artists from Scandinavia and Canada produced between 1888 and 1937, among them masterpieces by Hilma af Klint and Edvard Munch. These artists all share the boreal forest as a common source of inspiration. The seemingly boundless expanses of the forest, the radiant light of endless summer days, the long winter nights and natural phenomena such as the northern lights gave rise to a specifically Nordic form of modern painting, which to this day exerts enduring appeal and fascination. The boreal forest, which stretches south and north of the polar circle, forming one of our planet’s largest primeval forests, was increasingly represented as a spiritual landscape. The exhibition provides an opportunity to trace the development of Nordic landscape painting in modern art through selected works by Helmi Biese, Anna Boberg, Emily Carr, Prince Eugen, Gustaf Fjæstad, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Lawren S. Harris, Hilma af Klint, J. E. H. MacDonald, Edvard Munch, Ivan Shishkin, Harald Sohlberg and Tom Thomson, in the process discovering artists likely still unknown to many visitors.

Accompanying the exhibition, a new digital installation by contemporary Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen (*1987) is on display. In “Boreal Dreams”, the artist explores the effects of the climate crisis on the ecosystem of the boreal zone by conceiving virtual worlds based on scientific data collected through fieldwork and on gaming technology.

The exhibition “Northern Lights” is organised by the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen / Basel and the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo/New York. Curated by Ulf Küster, Fondation Beyeler, in close collaboration with Helga Christoffersen, Buffalo AKG Art Museum. “Boreal Dreams” was commissioned by the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel and is supported by the New Carlsberg Foundation and the Danish Arts Foundation. The project manager for Boreal Dreams is Iris Hasler, Associate Curator, Fondation Beyeler.

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Boreal Dreams

The Fondation Beyeler has commissioned contemporary Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen (*1987) to create a new digital installation, which will premiere alongside the exhibition «Northern Lights». With Boreal Dreams, the artist explores the effects of the climate crisis on the ecosystem of the boreal zone by conceiving virtual worlds based on scientific data collection from field work and gaming technology.

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as well as further patrons who prefer to stay anonymous.

The catalogue was printed with the support of the Berta Hess-Cohn Stiftung, Basel.

Northern Lights International Exhibition Committee:

Camilla and John Lindfors

Gina and Erik O’Neill

Christine Standish and Christopher Wilk

The Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, Bareva Foundation/Claudia Steinfels, Charles W. Banta, Ben and Louisa Brown, Jan Petter Collier and family, Maire and Carl Gustaf Ehrnrooth, David and Angela Feldman, Lars Förberg, Kristine Furuholmen, Alice and Jeremy Jacobs, Jr., Nadja Laine, Øystein Moan Family, Helena and Gert W. Munthe, Oreck Family Foundation, Christine Sabuda and Christopher Bihary, Christian and Theresa Sinding, Stichting Pamina, Alexandra and Michael Storåkers, Anita and Poju Zabludowicz

The exhibition is generously supported by:

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