Scan Magazine | Gallery of the Month | Norway
Photo: Kari M. Blanchard
Photo: Nina Marshall
built and with a lovely 200 square metres of lush space to showcase painting upon painting. “It is a place with a very special atmosphere and makes for the perfect backdrop for exhibitions. It is a real treat to open an exhibition here, making the vernissage a very special occasion both for the artist and the guests,” says Blanchard. The gallery is closely knit with Labro Art, an organisation founded by Arne Gyttrup in 2006, preserving and championing art from the area. Due to Gyttrup’s enthusiasm as an art lover and his good relationship with the owner of the hydro-electric plant, Glitre Energy, he was a driving force behind the restoration of the beautiful, old brick-built power plant building from 1910, and still today behind the art lectures given at Labro Art’s premises, and even
Artist Inger Karthum. Photo: Sonja Sandbakk
the establishment of the art gallery. His gallery cooperator, local artist Oddvin Ørbeck, who is still going strong aged 95, is worth mentioning here: Ørbeck has a very special place in the local art history from the region. He has been an important resource in the Kongsberg art society and will be one of three artists, alongside Henriette Emilie Finne and Roar Kjærnstad, exhibited this year, celebrating the first ten years as a gallery.
Numedalslågen The river Numedalslågen has carried many a log down its rocky streams on its way to a sawmill. For centuries, using the river as nature’s own highway was crucial to many communities in Norway. Entire generations built their lives around the sawmill industry. The rivers once enabled the transportation
of timber from impassable and hard-to- navigate landscapes onto the sawmill. Still, the rich history of the people, the places, the tools and the life surrounding these places, lives on. A lot of this can today be seen at Labro Museums. It is a rich part of Norwegian history that is being communicated at Labro today. Labro means ‘the bridge over Lågen’ – the bridge over the river. Visiting and exploring the old power station and sawmill is like stepping back in time. “Even back in 1538, when the first German miners, called in by King Christian III, arrived in the district, they founded the first recorded silver mine in the area, close to the Labro waterfall. The adit to this medieval silver mine is still seen in the entrance to the Glitre hydro-electric power plant,” Blanchard explains. Issue 134 | March 2020 | 121