World's Largest Museum for an Artist? Munch Gets New Digs

Munch's most famous work, 'The Scream' is moving to a new, more secure home. Terje Pedersen NTB/AFP
Munch's most famous work, 'The Scream' is moving to a new, more secure home. Terje Pedersen NTB/AFP
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World's Largest Museum for an Artist? Munch Gets New Digs

Munch's most famous work, 'The Scream' is moving to a new, more secure home. Terje Pedersen NTB/AFP
Munch's most famous work, 'The Scream' is moving to a new, more secure home. Terje Pedersen NTB/AFP

To Edvard Munch, they were his children. And like any doting father, he hated the idea of them straying too far from home.

Now, more than 26,000 artworks from the master expressionist's "family" -- including his best known piece, "The Scream" -- have moved under one roof in the enormous and custom-built MUNCH museum on the shore of Oslo Fjord.

Gone is the old, rundown and poorly secured Munch Museum in the Norwegian capital's outskirts -- from where a version of "The Scream" and another masterpiece, "Madonna", were stolen by armed robbers in 2004.

On Friday, the new museum opens to the public smack dab in the heart of Oslo, in a luxuriously spacious modernist building that has sparked much controversy.

"This might be the biggest museum for a single artist," museum director Stein Olav Henrichsen says as he gives a tour of the building.

With 13 floors covering more than 26,000 square meters (280,000 square feet), the new building offers five times more exhibition space than the gloomy museum that until now housed Norway's national treasure.

A bachelor who had no children, Munch (1863-1944) bequeathed his work to the city of Oslo. He had originally intended to leave it to the Norwegian state, but changed his will at the last-minute to avoid the art falling into unwanted hands.

- 'Degenerate art' -
At the time, Norway was occupied by the Nazis, who considered the pioneer of expressionism to be a maker of "degenerate art".

Rising from the shore of the fjord and next to the city's iconic opera house, the new museum aims to make up for a historical injustice by finally giving the world-renowned artist the building his admirers feel his oeuvre deserves.

Half a million visitors are expected each year -- with the museum hoping for more than a million -- to view the 200 works on permanent display across 4,500 square meters.

Amid some of the recurring darker themes like angst, despair and death are less depressing ones exploring love, self-portraiture and landscapes.

Pallid and sickly naked bodies mix with fiery red strokes depicting mops of hair or sunsets.

And of course, there is "The Scream". The museum owns several versions of the iconic artwork: one painting, one drawing, six lithographs and several sketches.

It also features other masterpieces such as "Madonna" -- both it and the stolen "Scream" were recovered by police two years later -- "Vampire" and "The Sick Child", as well as some lesser known Munch pieces.

Among the latter are sculptures, photographs, a film, and two massive paintings -- "The Sun" and "The Researchers" -- which had to be lifted into the museum during construction through a hole in the façade.

"Munch wanted to have a museum. He talked about his children (referring to) all his works and he wanted them to be together as a collection," says curator Trine Otte Bak Nielsen.

"I think he would be very happy to see what we have made now."

- 'Brutal building' -
The building itself, dubbed "Lambda" because its slanted top resembles the letter of the Greek alphabet with the same name, has been the subject of controversy.

That shape has riled some, while the luminous glass windows promised in the designs are largely hidden beneath what some say resemble monstrous metal shutters.

Back in 2019, art historian Tommy Sorbo slammed the project as a "pollution" of Oslo, a "coming catastrophe". He maintains that opinion today, "at least for the exterior and the entrance".

"The lobby looks like an airport, a warehouse, a hotel or a commercial building," he told AFP.

"There is absolutely nothing in the choice of colors and materials to indicate that the place houses one of the greatest artists in the world."

Management has shrugged off the criticism, saying the museum should provoke people in the same way Munch's art did at the time it was made.

"The building suits the collection very well because it's a monumental building, it's … a brutal building," Henrichsen says.

"You need to actually have an opinion about it."

So will the much-decried "metal shutters" be enough to dissuade the thieves?

Over the years, Munch's works have been the object of several high-profile heists.

Perhaps the most spectacular was that daring 2004 midday armed robbery.

"This is the probably most secure building in Norway but you won't feel it when you come here. The security is very delicate and we want to focus on the art experience," Henrichsen said.

"I can assure everybody that there's not going to be a robbery here."



Mexico Awaits New Response from Google on Dispute Over Gulf of Mexico Name Before Filing Lawsuit 

The Gulf of Mexico branded as Gulf of America is pictured through a magnifying glass on the Google Maps app on a computer in Bogota on February 11, 2025. (AFP)
The Gulf of Mexico branded as Gulf of America is pictured through a magnifying glass on the Google Maps app on a computer in Bogota on February 11, 2025. (AFP)
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Mexico Awaits New Response from Google on Dispute Over Gulf of Mexico Name Before Filing Lawsuit 

The Gulf of Mexico branded as Gulf of America is pictured through a magnifying glass on the Google Maps app on a computer in Bogota on February 11, 2025. (AFP)
The Gulf of Mexico branded as Gulf of America is pictured through a magnifying glass on the Google Maps app on a computer in Bogota on February 11, 2025. (AFP)

Mexico said Monday it is awaiting a new response from Google to its request that the tech company fully restore the name “Gulf of Mexico” to its Google Maps service before filing a lawsuit.

President Claudia Sheinbaum shared a letter addressed to her government from Cris Turner, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy. It says that Google will not change the policy it outlined after US President Donald Trump declared the body of water the Gulf of America.

“We will wait for Google’s response and if not, we will proceed to court,” Sheinbaum said Monday during a morning press briefing.

As it stands, the gulf appears in Google Maps as “Gulf of America” within the United States, as “Gulf of Mexico” within Mexico and “Gulf of Mexico” (Gulf of America) elsewhere. Turner in his letter said the company was using “Gulf of America” to follow “longstanding maps policies impartially and consistently across all regions” and that the company was willing to meet in person with the Mexican government.

“While international treaties and conventions are not intended to regulate how private mapping providers represent geographic features, it is our consistent policy to consult multiple authoritative sources to provide the most up to date and accurate representation of the world,” he wrote.

Mexico has argued that the mapping policy violates Mexican sovereignty because the US only has jurisdiction over around 46% of the Gulf. The rest is controlled by Mexico, which controls 49% and Cuba, which controls around 5%. The name “Gulf of Mexico” dates back to 1607 and is recognized by the United Nations.

In response to Google's letter, Mexican authorities said they would take legal action, writing that “under no circumstance will Mexico accept the renaming of a geographic zone within its own territory and under its jurisdiction.”

The renaming of the body of water by Trump has flared tensions between Mexico and the US at a pivotal time for the neighboring allies.

Sheinbaum has had to walk a fine line with Trump amid threats of tariffs and Mexico and other Latin American countries have braced themselves for promised mass deportations, the brunt of which has still not been felt.

Along with the legal threat to Google, the Mexican president also announced Monday that Mexico and the US would hold high-level meetings this week on trade and security in an effort to maintain a “long-term plan of collaboration” between the two countries.

It's the latest round of talks between the two countries in which Mexico hopes to hold off a larger geopolitical crisis.