Until the new Norwegian National Museum opens in 2020, the National Gallery will also be showing contemporary art. The “Faithless Pictures” exhibition, opened on 9 February. (Editor's Note: Time magazine identifies the individuals in the photograph. Taken by White House photographer Pete Souza in its namesake, the White House Situation Room, at 4:06 pm on May 1, 2011.)

From Vibeke Tandberg and her staged portraits of herself as a young bride, Hito Steverts search for the past as brothel model, to Alfred Jaar’s non-photo about Osama Bin Laden’s death and Mike Bouchet’s porno fragments. 

“The number of pictures increases, but what we see decrease”, says Sean Snyder, one of the artists. Society is in the midst of a technological revolution. The stream of images and the balance of power are now changing because of the ubiquity of the smartphone camera and the immediacy and reach of social media. These are new times, and art is posing new questions. In each their own way, the works presented at the “Faithless Pictures” exhibition address the vast amount of imagery that surrounds us, the visual torrent that seemingly represents our lives, our times, our world – the news clips, holiday photos, and flickers from the depths of the internet that meet us in a fragmented world of half illusion and half reality.

To new worlds and unseen connections  “While previous generations wanted to lay bare the cultural codes underpinning society, the current generation relates to visual culture in a lighter vein,” says the exhibition’s curator Andrea Kroksnes. “It’s no longer about the problems of depicting the world, but about creating new worlds, about imagining unseen connections or changing the order of things. And where will this journey continue? Perhaps some of the works at the exhibition can point out the direction.”

The power of the image over reality  In the “Faithless Pictures” exhibition, the featured artists comment on how image influences both reality and our own self-understanding. The techniques span from appropriation, bricolage, interventions, to visual activism within photo and video. 

The exhibition features the following artists: John Baldessari, Mike Bouchet, Bernadette Corporation, Thomas Demand, Stan Douglas, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Ida Ekblad, Matias Faldbakken, Harun Farocki, Jan Freuchen, Cyprien Gaillard, Isa Genzken, Rachel Harrison, Jenny Holzer, Alfredo Jaar, Barbara Kruger, Michel Majerus, Helen Marten, Allan McCollum, Josephine Meckseper, Katja Novitskova, Trevor Paglen, Maria Pasenau, Richard Prince, Josephine Pryde, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, Sean Snyder, Hito Steyerl, Sturtevant, and Vibeke Tandberg.

In addition to the entire ground floor of the National Gallery being filled with contemporary art, the museum’s permanent exhibition on the first floor will include works by the contemporary artists Andrea Fraser, Louise Lawler, Torbjørn Rødland, and Fredrik Værslev. The exhibition will run until 13 May.