UiO's campus at Blindern boasts a varied collection of sculptures. Some enhance the strict modernist architecture, others challenge it.
They reflect the history and inner life of the university in different ways, and several of them are groundbreaking in their genre.
Map overview
Sculpture List
Jon Gundersen – "Velle"
Water gives life to artist Jon Gundersen's stone form "Velle". It conveys playful interactions between form, place, and people.
The sculpture fountain has a source or spring as its theme, and it is the stone itself that serves as the source.?
Nina Sundbye – "Hurry up, Grane, my steed"
The sculpture depicts Henrik Ibsen's perhaps most well-known character, the loud and defiant wildling Peer Gynt.
The artists' rough handling of clay expresses youthful zeal, perseverance and development, which goes well with the university's lively outdoor environment.
Arnold Haukeland – "Air"
Arnold Haukeland's "Air" is commonly considered the first monumental non-figurative outdoor sculpture in Norway.
The free-standing sculpture represents both power and strength, and can also be associated with movement and airiness. It is a tribute to life and nature.
Median Figure
This dark bronze figure depicts Athena, the Greek goddess of science. It was originally placed on the UiO campus in the city center, where it fit well into the neoclassical style.
Now it resides at Blindern, where the sculpture's soft forms contrast with strict archtectural lines and concrete.
Ingebrigt Vik – Nils Henrik Abel
Ingebrigt Vik's portrait of mathematician Nils Henrik Abel shows the genius but frail and sick mathematician, with a weighed-down and emaciated head and slender body.
The sketch for the sculpture was initially intended for University Square, but it was first erected 60 years later at Niels Henrik Abel's house.
Aase Texmon Rygh – "Broken shape"?
"Broken shape" has an aesthetic language firmly rooted in geometry. The sculpture is in? the basic shape of a cube, with a cylindrical hole.
The square is broken at the top, however, and the parts are shifted relative to each other. The purpose is to capture the inner essence of things; their power and tension.
Dyre Vaa – Ivar Aasen
Dyre Vaa's bust of Norwegian philologist Ivar Aasen stands on the green area between the institutes for linguistics, literature, culture, and Nordic studies. It shows Aasen as an alert and relaxed elderly man.
The bust reflects sculptor Vaa's interest in romanticism and impressionist art: The expression is rough, and you can see something reminiscent of small brush strokes in the bronze.
Stefanny Hillgaard – "Play of thought"
The Bulgarian artist Stefanny Hillgaard created quite a stir when she first introduced her abstract artistic language to a Norwegian post-war audience.?
The sculpture "Play of though" gives symbolic form to an intellectual play in graceful balance,?appropriately located outside a building where philosophers and historians of ideas wander the halls.
Erwin L?ffler – "Split shape"
"Split shape" consists of two seemingly heavy main forms that interlock with each other.
The inner dynamics between the two parts is reminicent of abstract figures in an embrace, harmonising well with the sculpture's location in front of the Faculty of Social Sciences.
Photos: Thomas Tveter/UiO art collection
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