Fredrik Værslev (b. 1979, Moss, Norway) lives and works in Drammen and Vestfossen, Norway. In 2024, Andrew Kreps Gallery presented Værslev's fifth exhibition with the gallery, the solo show Fredrik Værslev’s New Curtain Bangs. In 2023, Værslev's work was the subject of the solo exhibition titled Fredrik Værslev: Platting, at Haugar Kunstmuseum, Tønsberg, Norway. Værslev's work was also recently included in the group exhibition, EVERYBODY TALKS ABOUT THE WEATHER, Fondazione Prada, Venice, 2023. In 2018, the Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, presented an extensive survey exhibition of his work titled Fredrik Værslev, As I Imagine Him. Other past solo exhibitions include: LE RENNE, Fonds regional d’art contemporain Bretagne, Rennes, France, 2022, Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst, Delmenhorst, Germany, 2019, Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo, 2019, TAN LINES, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland, 2017, travelled to Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany, 2018, and Fondazione Giuliani, Rome, 2018, All Around Amateur, Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway, 2016, travelled to Le Consortium, Dijon, France, 2016, Museo Marino Marini, Florence, 2015, CAC – Passerelle, Brest, France, 2015, and The Power Station, Dallas, 2014, among others. Værslev is held in the permanent collections of Astrup Fearnley Musset, Oslo, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, Le Consortium, Dijon, France, Malmö Konstmuseum, Malmö, Sweden, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, and Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo, among others.
"Louise Lawler / Fredrik Værslev", 2024
Published by Lenz, edited and with an essay by Pavel Pyś, designed by Lorenzo Mason Studio
Fredrik Værslev’s Garden Paintings first appeared in 2011
The works, which consist of wooden planks mounted on steel supports, at first look deceptively like found objects, like standard industrial pallets. Upon closer study they are obviously handcrafted, not manufactured.
One of the most original and recognised voices in contemporary painting, Norwegian artist Fredrik Værslev navigates between different pictorial traditions. In his practice, he focuses on the process of painting, demonstrating the possibilities and relevance of the medium today.
Fredrik Værslev has a solo exhibition at Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst. Titled Fenstermalerei, the show is open August 31 to October 20.
Fredrik Værslev has a solo exhibition at the Kunstnerforbundet in Oslo, Norway from August 15 to September 15.
Fondazione Giuliani is pleased to present Tan Lines, a solo exhibition by Norwegian artist Fredrik Værslev. Værslev’s practice is a reflection on the act of painting as the result of a creative process dominated by the tension between careful planning and randomness. Interested in upending definitions, convictions and the limits of the pictorial medium, the genesis of his paintings is largely the result of a perpetual encounter/clash between control and chance. After having conceived an artwork with absolute rigour, Værslev often alters it through the intervention of fortuitous circumstances (exposing it to the weather, leaving it in nature or public places), or asking friends to freely modify and complete it, pushing the idea of appropriation to an extreme. In Værslev’s paintings, abstraction and figuration coexist, traditional materials alternate with the industrial, painting and graphic design merge, as well as the planned gestures of the artist with the accidental ones of fate.
Astrup Fearnley Museet is proud to present a solo exhibition by the Norwegian contemporary artist Fredrik Værslev.
The present exhibition shows 10 series from the last 10 years of Værslev’s artistic production. Værslev himself has determined how the paintings should be displayed, which make the exhibition an artwork in itself. The individual works become elements of a larger installation, whose structure avoids all obvious, orthodox solutions. Without introducing new walls or coming into conflict with the existing architecture, Værslev has hung the works in parallel formations that reflect the shape of the museum building, but in an unconventional way.
The complex relationship between image and reality has long been one of the most important topics in art.
In this exhibition, the National Museum shows works from the last four decades by close to forty prominent artists. Using a variety of approaches, they all address the surfeit of images we see all around us.
The visual deluge that supposedly represents our lives, our times, our world. News clips, holiday snaps, flickers from the depths of the internet. A fragmented intermediate world, half illusion, half reality. Excerpts and selections. And in the midst of it all: glimpses of truth. Images with the power to change the world.
The large-scale abstract paintings of Fredrik Værslev confront established conventions, definitions and limitations within the medium of painting. Using both traditional and industrial materials and techniques he creates compositions that draw influence from diverse sources including Abstract and Minimialist painting and graphic design. His exhibition at Bonner Kunstverein will present a series of new works that are co-commissioned with Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen and Fondazione Giuliani, Rome.
