Oljefondet

Sverre Bjertnæs: Oljefondet. One painting in a room of its own. Its title is borrowed from Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the invisible account behind the national self-image.

To the left of the last room, a space of its own is given to a single painting: Sverre Bjertnæs's Oljefondet (2026), an oil two metres tall and framed behind glass, hung alone for an intimate, unhurried look. The title is the everyday Norwegian name for the country's sovereign wealth fund, the enormous, mostly invisible account that quietly underwrites the nation's comfort and its image abroad. The painting belongs to a group of three Bjertnæs built around the dry, headline-worn language of Norwegian money, alongside Den svake krona (The Weak Krone) and Arbeidende kapital (Working Capital). Under a deep, modulated green field, half-figures surface and sink. The longer you look, the more it presses a plain and awkward question: whose money is this, and what is it for?