During this summer we already talked about sculpture parks, such as the beautiful Yorkshire one. Today we will deepen the last intervention designed by The Bjarke Ingels Group for the Kistefos Museum, the largest sculpture park in Europe located in Jevnaker in Norway. “The Twist” is the name chosen for a stunning bridge that connects a 10,700-square-foot art museum to the Jevnaker sculpture park, by crossing the Randselva two riverbanks. In its 1,000 square meters "The Twist" will host contemporary art exhibitions.
The museum building extends for 60 meters over the river connecting the north side with the south one. By accessing from the south entrance its possible crosses a double-height space with visual accessibility inside the building, while entering from the north visitors arrives in a panoramic space with a view of the old paper mill and the surrounding landscape. Don't miss our guide about Landscape Art.
“The Twist is a hybrid spanning several traditional categories: it’s a museum, it’s a bridge, it’s an inhabitable sculpture,” said Bjarke Ingels in a press release. “As a bridge it reconfigures the sculpture park turning the journey through the park into a continuous loop. As a museum, it connects two distinct spaces–an introverted vertical gallery and an extraverted horizontal gallery with panoramic views across the river. A third space is created through the blatant translation between these two galleries creating the namesake twist. The resultant form becomes another sculpture among the sculptures of the park.”
The Kistefos Museum was founded in 1996 by Norwegian businessman and art collector Christen Sveaas, that in 1993 decided to regain the shares of Kistefos Træsliberi, a Heen Pulp Mill near Hønefoss, founded by his grandpa Consul Anders Sveaas in 1881. Christen Sveaas has transformed the family paper mill in a former headquarters that includes an industrial museum, exhibition galleries and a sculpture park with works by important international artists such as Tony Cragg, Anish Kapoor, Marc Quinn, Jeppe Hein, Philip King, Llya Kabakov and Lynda Benglis. Read more about these artists in our article: A Comprehensive Guide on Minimalist Art.
To inaugurate the new building an exhibition, scheduled until November 17th, titled "Hodgkin and Creed - Inside Out" where for the first time artists as Howard Hodgkin (1932-2017) and Martin Creed (1968) will celebrate their common conviction that art could offer a framework to express our complex emotional lives.