THE NORWEGIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION GIVES RECOGNITION: The exhibition of Konrad Mägi’s works opened in Lillehammer turned out to be the biggest surprise of the year

The solo exhibition of Konrad Mägi’s works entitled Konrad Mägi – Estonia’s Great Painter, which was opened at the Lillehammer Art Museum in Norway in November, has attracted a great deal of attention among the public in Lillehammer as well as from critics.

The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) selected the Konrad Mägi exhibition as one of Norway’s eight most important art events of the past year along with the opening of Norway’s new national museum. The exposition of Mägi’s works is referred to as the biggest surprise of the year.

Many people stress how surprised they were since until now, Konrad Mägi has been relatively unknown in Europe on political grounds and for reasons of cultural policy. Art historians also admit that Mägi’s oeuvre was hitherto unknown to them.

‘I was really surprised when I saw his paintings and I immediately decided that his works have to be exhibited in Norway,’ says the German art scholar Nils Ohlsen, Director of the Lillehammer Art Museum. ‘The way he uses colours and structures his paintings is fantastic. He interprets nature in an entirely unique figurative language.’

Additionally, numerous reviews have appeared where Mägi’s very original and individual pictorial language, virtuosity, use of nontraditional and intense colours, and exploration of the border areas between reality and poetry are highlighted. Mägi’s nature paintings are noticed first and foremost, and they are characterised as being mysterious and abundant.

Nils Ohlsen curated the Konrad Mägi exhibition. Dozens of paintings from all of Mägi’s creative periods have been brought together to this exhibition. The works are from the Art Museum of Estonia, Tartu Art Museum, Enn Kunila art collection, and the collections of numerous private collectors. The exposition is the continuation of the exhibitions of Mägi’s works that have been held in recent years at the EMMA Museum in Espoo, Finland and the GL Strand Museum in Denmark, which have similarly attracted the attention of the public and have earned laudatory responses.

This exhibition will remain open until 2 April 2023.