{"id":91850,"date":"2026-05-25T16:14:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T16:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/91850\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T16:14:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T16:14:17","slug":"review-paula-rego-dance-among-thorns-at-munch-in-oslo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/91850\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: \u201cPaula Rego, Dance Among Thorns\u201d at MUNCH in Oslo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"An<\/a>Paula Rego, Oratorio, 2009. Wood cabinet; cont\u00e9 pencil and pastel on paper; Papier m\u00e2che and fabric; overall: 332 \u00d7 349 \u00d7 81.9 cm. \u00a9 The Estate of Paula Rego, courtesy The Estate of Paula Rego and Victoria Miro. Photo: Courtesy The Estate of Paula Rego and Victoria Miro<\/p>\n

Art that involves children can be complicated to absorb when you have none of your own. My press pass gave me one of the earliest looks at the Venice Biennale last week, and I would never have predicted that the Japanese pavilion by Ei Arakawa-Nash<\/a> would be such a hit among my colleagues, because it involves hauling a heavy-looking baby doll to various stations around the room. But it turns out that many people really like babies, and grant them all kinds of aesthetic and behavioral leeway. My own taste favors stuff more like the installation by Paula Rego<\/a> (1935-2022) that appeared in the 59th Venice Biennale\u2019s main exhibition, \u201cThe Milk of Dreams,\u201d which featured mirrored images of childbirth and child abuse, alongside a menagerie of grotesque and traumatized dolls.<\/p>\n

\u201cDance Among Thorns\u201d at MUNCH in Oslo is the first comprehensive museum presentation of the Portuguese-British artist in the Nordic region, and Rego\u2019s largest survey since a 2021 Tate Britain retrospective. The exhibition brings together over 140 works across seven decades of practice, from early abstract political collages to the grotesque papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 tableaux of her final years. A central section traces a previously undocumented engagement with Edvard Munch<\/a>: curator Kari J. Brandtz\u00e6g<\/a> noticed compositional and thematic links between Rego\u2019s The Dance (1988) and Munch\u2019s Dance of Life (1898-1899), among other works.<\/p>\n

The Dance is one of Rego\u2019s best-known works, a masterpiece in which a group of compelling and varied characters dances on a moonlit seaside cliff. Their clothes, faces, proportions and coloring are all strange in compelling ways. This is especially true for the woman in white on the far left, who is larger than the others and who dances alone. It is likely a self-portrait of Rego, whose husband Victor Willing<\/a> died while she was painting it. This aspect looms even larger when you compare it to Dance of Life, which Rego saw at the Tate in 1951 at age 16. In it, two figures swirl together, almost consumed by a red dress, the intensity of their love standing in relief against the lonely, lascivious people surrounding them. They live in their own world, much the way these two painters did.<\/p>\n

The exploration of the links between Munch and Rego led to the discovery of Drought (1953) by Rego\u2019s son, Nick Willing. This never-before-exhibited work is impressive for an 18-year-old, and owes much to Munch, particularly his Inheritance (1897-99), \u201cwhich shows a seated woman crying with a skeleton child, all painted green, in her lap,\u201d per a 1951 letter by Rego to her mother in which she calls it her favorite in the Tate show. Drought borrows the subject but has more in common with The Scream (c.1910), for it features chunky strokes of red and yellow, and twisted alien features.<\/p>\n

Also in this show is Rego\u2019s monumental Oratorio (2008-09), a three-meter-high wood cabinet with eight pastel panels surrounding a tableau of handmade papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 orphan dolls. This was the work I saw in Venice so many years ago, and it has only grown more relevant since 2022. How nice it would be to exist in a world of consensual, everlasting love where children are always cherished.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaula Rego: Dance Among Thorns<\/a>\u201d is on view at MUNCH in Oslo through August 2, 2026.<\/p>\n

More exhibition reviews<\/p>\n

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