OSL contemporary
Exhibition Preview | Per Barclay
On view 26.09 - 08.11.2025
Per Barclay (Oslo, 1955) Lives and works in Turin and Oslo. Per Barclay is known for his site-specific installations and iconic oil rooms, immersive environments where reflective liquid transforms architecture into a space of altered perception His artistic career gained early visibility in 1985 with Nuove trame dell’arte (New Themes in Art), curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, and was consolidated when he represented the Nordic Countries at the 44th Venice Biennale in 1990. Trained in art history at the University of Bergen, and later at the Istituto Statale d’Arte in Florence and the Accademie di Belle Arti in Bologna and Rome, Barclay has since developed a practice that moves fluidly between sculpture, installation, and photography.
Over the past four decades, his works have been presented at major international institutions, including Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain (Nice), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), Fondazione Merz (Turin), and CAC Málaga. Barclay has also realized large-scale projects in historically charged sites, such as San Domenico Church in Arezzo (2014), Ca’ Pesaro in Venice (2015), Palazzo Mazzarino for Manifesta 12 in Palermo (2018), Carpintarias de São Lázaro in Lisbon (2019), and the Old Deichman Library in Oslo (2023).
In 2023, the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Oslo dedicated a major solo exhibition to Barclay, reaffirming his position as one of Norway’s most significant contemporary artists. His most recent projects include a site-specific installation in the former Church of San Barbaziano in Bologna, created in dialogue with Guido Reni’s La strage degli innocenti (The Massacre of the Innocents) (1610–11) and realized in collaboration with the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna and Art City Bologna. In the same year, he presents Abisso (The Abyss) at the Royal Palace of Caserta, transforming the historic Court Theatre into a vast mirrored environment that alters the viewer’s perception of space.