The fall of 2010 marks the opening of the unprecedented exhibition Thrice upon a time. This is the largest exhibition to date with artworks taken exclusively from the Magasin 3 collection. It is presented in three parallel chapters featuring a total of 202 works, all of which have not previously been shown at Magasin 3. 66 artists ranging from Absalon to Zetterquist fill the exhibition spaces with photography, drawing, painting, film and sculpture. Key works by established artists are shown alongside pieces by artists who have not previously exhibited in Sweden. Together these works give an unsurpassable insight into the Magasin 3 collection.

In the three different parts curators Elisabeth Millqvist, Tessa Praun and Richard Julin each present their own perspective on the collection. Art history, the artist, and collecting are their respective focal points.

Elisabeth Millqvist investigates art history and the two classic genres of portraiture and landscape – motifs that never lose their fascination for artists. What do we search for in portraits, what do self-portraits reveal and can landscape also be read as a form of portraiture? This presentation is a fresh look at how artists work with portraiture and landscape today.

Architecture as well as physical and mental interiors are central to Tessa Praun’s selection of artworks. She explores the artist’s work process and gives it a presence in the form of relayed imaginings, views from the studio and borrowed source material.

Richard Julin takes a look at collecting with his exhibition design creating a spatial journey of exploration. The works are gathered associatively and evoke an atmosphere where the collector’s enthusiasm and the history of the objects are in focus.

Magasin 3 Director David Neuman, comments:

“We would like to make the importance we place on collecting more evident to the public. In the near future parts of the collection will always be accessible through permanent exhibitions. ‘Thrice upon a time’ is the start of a new direction for us at Magasin 3. With the contributing artists born between 1849 and 1978 the exhibition not only stages the meeting of for example Karin Mamma Andersson and Ernst Josephson but above all reflects contemporary art history.”