5 SHOWS is the new Artissima twice-monthly feature that recommends 5 exhibitions not to be missed in various geographical areas and cities around the world, chosen from the viewpoint of curators and directors of important institutions who live and work in these contexts. A different way to find guidance in the discovery of global contemporary art, from a personal and always up-to-date perspective.

The second focus is on Norway, with a selection by Tominga O’Donnell, Senior Curator/Head of Contemporary Art at MUNCH in Oslo.

Here are the 5 exhibitions currently on display that they have chosen for our readers:

Almost Unreal. MUNCH Triennale
MUNCH, Oslo

Up to 22.02.2026

Working in many different formats, the 20-plus artists featured in Almost Unreal open portals to other realities: parallel universes, mystical realms, alternative ways of seeing. They appropriate and hack existing technologies, such as music boxes, holograms and weaving looms. They create new worlds using advanced gaming engines and generative machine learning tools.
As in the previous edition of the Triennale, this year’s overall theme centres on art and new technologies. The title of the 2025 edition, Almost Unreal, refers to the time we live in, in which the division between the real and the unreal is becoming increasingly fluid.
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Deviant Ornaments
National Museum, Oslo

Up to 15.03.2026

Queer sexuality in art is nothing new. Through everything from historical manuscripts to contemporary works, the exhibition shows the abundance and complexity of queer expressions from the Islamic world.
In the exhibition you’ll see a broad spectrum of works and techniques, which depict or hint at diverse sexualities in different ways: from the explicit to the coded and ornamental. Historical tiles, textiles and illustrations are displayed side by side with contemporary installations, paintings and sculptures.
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Imagine New Stories, Write New Rules
NITJA, Lillestrøm

Up to 1.03.2026

A little book entitled Manifesto Ferviente, written by the Argentinian anthropologist Mercedes Villalba, is part of A Sketch for the Future: a series of publications by Calipso Press that addresses urgent matters related to our common future. This is where the title of the exhibition is derived from. Using fermentation as a metaphor for imagining alternative ways of production and living, Villalba’s book is a poetic call to action.
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Grammars of Light
Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo

Up to 10.05.2026

Grammars of Light brings together the work of three contemporary artists—Cerith Wyn Evans, Ann Lislegaard, and P. Staff—who explore the potential of light as an artistic medium. Their immersive environments, architecturally scaled video projections, and luminous sculptures—fashioned from repurposed consumer, medical, and industrial lighting—transform the museum’s galleries and stimulate the senses. Perception is impacted in unexpected ways, and essential questions are raised about how we see the world as a thinking, feeling body.
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Ann Lislegaard: ANIMOID
Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden

Up to 19.04.2026

The exhibition offers insight into a groundbreaking artistic practice that has, in several ways, influenced the development of contemporary art. Drawing on a longstanding interest in science fiction, Lislegaard creates immersive works that explore space, gender, time travel, and interspecies communication. This will be her first major presentation in Norway in nearly two decades, filling the Prisma Galleries with around ten key works spanning from the 1990s to the present.
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If you want to discover the institutions explored so far, here are the previous episodes:
Emirati Arabi Uniti | China