Exhibition

Don’t Be Afraid. An Exhibition about Death 

Big, black-clothed figures — Sandra Mujinga, "Nokturnal Kinship", 2018 © Mujinga, Sandra/BONO
Photo: Nasjonalmuseet / Ina Wesenberg

Can art help us understand death?

The exhibition invites us to reflect on how death shapes life – and how art can help us understand death. It includes artworks by Nan Goldin, Adolph Tidemand, Sandra Mujinga, Iver Jåks, Utagawa Hiroshige, Fin Serck-Hanssen, Maria Pasenau, Sverre Fehn, and many more.

Death is something we all have in common, but our views on what happens when we die differ widely. Our attitudes towards death are shaped by the period we live in, our beliefs, culture and individual experience.

"Don’t be afraid. An exhibition about death" brings together roughly a hundred works from the National Museum’s collection. Not all of them deal with death directly, but those that don’t are there to establish links, between eras and idioms. They are presented in an exhibition architecture, by scenographer og artist Théo Demans, that is an experience beyond the ordinary.