Nicolai Tangen knows everything about destroying silos. The former hedge fund manager runs the Norwegian Sovereign Fund, the largest of its kind in the world (Tangen is often referred to as “Norway’s trillion-dollar man”), and is well versed in breaking down barriers in the organizations. But when my boat pulls into the dock in its hometown of Kristiansand, on Norway’s southern coast, I can see that at least here Tangen is nurturing the pleasure of preservation.
tangen has helped transform a pre-war grain warehouse on the island of Odderøya (a military fortress converted into a park) into one of Scandinavia’s most ambitious art museums and filled it with the largest private collection of Nordic modern art in the world. Kunstsilo, a much-discussed eight-year, £50m project that has combined public and private funding, will open its (huge) doors next month.
Arriving by boat under the milky northern lights, Kunstsilo appears through the late spring snow like a colossal Lego piece. Designed by Arne Korsmo in 1935, the structure once housed about 15,000 tons of grain. But, having served local factories for three-quarters of a century, it was abandoned after it closed in 2008. “It was just a problem of abandonment,” Tangen says as he shows me around. “It was an eyesore. “Now it’s beautiful.”
At 57 years old, Tangen has the vigor, poise and confidence of a man used to navigating the upper echelons of power. In normal life, one day he could be dealing with the Ministry of Finance and the next day skiing in the mountains. His easy smile and his weekend attire (today a mix of loafers, black jeans and a Jermyn Street plaid jacket) belie a firmness.
Tangen grew up in Kristiansand in the 1970s, just as Norway’s oil boom along the Stavanger coast changed the nation’s fortunes. Her father was a successful local businessman. But it was her mother, an art historian, who sparked her interest in the visual arts. “We traveled around Europe and saw these museums. Bored to death, right? And suddenly, bang!, she penetrates.”
Later, as his career in finance took off in London (he founded AKO Capital (the initials are those of his eldest sons), managing a fund now worth $23.1 billion), his flirtation with collecting became “a kind of obsession”. But in 2003, she took a two-year sabbatical to study for a master’s degree at the Courtauld Institute of Art. He first immersed himself in the art of Norway before broadening his focus to production from other Nordic countries.
Kunstsilo has been transformed by the Spanish-Norwegian studio Mestres Wåge Arquitectes, in collaboration with the creative studio MX_SI. Its Norwegian functionalist facade has been softened with cream tones. Inside, 30 silos have been cut out, like truncated tubular bells, leaving a spectacular central void that can be used for light and sound installations and concerts. Twenty-five galleries spread over three floors house some 3,300 square meters of exhibition space. At the top of the building, 360-degree views are captured through glass prisms. Below, the boardwalk will become another space for shows (and swimming) when the city changes pace in summer.
The Tangen Philanthropic Organization AKO Foundation He contributed £15.5 million to the renovation and donated his personal collection of around 5,500 works (valued at around £40 million) to join the city’s cache of regional pieces. “It’s a gift to a foundation, and the foundation lends it to Kristiansand for eternity,” Tangen clarifies. “Art can never come back to me.”
Some locals opposed the project. Norway, with its strong tradition of social democracy, embraces janteloven, a code of conduct that disapproves of expansive displays of prosperity. “Norwegian people are wary of wealth,” says Tangen. He is undeterred by criticism, presumably hardened by the conflict of interest controversy that surrounded his appointment to head the sovereign fund in 2020. After demands from the Norwegian parliament’s finance committee, Tangen agreed divest its stakes in AKO Capital. Although he now resides in Oslo, she spends holidays at her summer home in southern Norway. “As an investor and as an art collector, you want to be contrarian,” she says of the current trend of large private donors connecting with public institutions.
Inevitably, as with so many institutions, people argued that Kunstsilo was a poor use of public funds. “It is, then, the Kunstsilo or nursing homes, the Kunstsilo or daycare centers. That’s how they portrayed him,” says Tangen. However, there have been many people in Kristiansand who “sacrificed a lot” to support the effort, she stresses. “The mayor had to resign because the whole political situation changed.”
The geographic spread of the collection covers art from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, dating from the 1910s to the 1990s, and aims to tell a story of engagement between Nordic artists and the outside world. One particularly striking piece is a 17th-century hay barn, first transported, log by log, by the installation artist Marianne Heske from a valley north of Oslo to the Pompidou Centre. Elsewhere, glazed organic forms made by mid-century Danish potter Axel Salto are combined with pieces by contemporary British ceramist Edmund de Waal. Tangen believes visitors will be “surprised by the richness, depth and breadth.” “It stands out locally and globally,” says Karin Hindsbo, director of London’s Tate Modern. “You can see from Nicolai’s collection that he is a scholar.”
Tangen explains that his approach to collecting was strategic from the beginning. “It’s not a collection made by a guy with random ideas. “It is a scientific collection.” The academic approach, informed by specialists from each of the Nordic countries, was similar to conducting due diligence in business, she says. “It’s like reading about a new company.” His intention was to form “a personal vision of Nordic modernism. A little less figuration. And no one has really collected and brought together the art of the entire Nordic region in one place.”
His taste leans toward color and abstraction. “Realistic painting is not for me. The obvious is boring,” she says. As a result, “some so-called specialists or professors would say that postwar language and figurative art are underrepresented.” He is completely unfazed. Norwegian figuration, he replies, is “generally sad…poor shipyard factories, loneliness and unhappiness. So I think it’s a very liberating space to have it in the collection.”
However, the inaugural exhibition of 600 works, curated by art historian Åsmund Thorkildsen and titled Northern Passions —presented through themes such as home, nature, machines, faces and masks—ends with a touch of Nordic film noir. “The last room will tell the English and mainland people what this Nordic experience is really about,” says Thorkildsen. “Very dark, very gloomy. These are steep hills, deep valleys, it is so dark that the forest is almost black. “That’s where we come from.”
Kristiansand, Tangen says, “is not Las Vegas. It is peaceful and relatively religious. “A small traditional town.” With a current population of 112,000, the city was founded by Christian IV in 1641 using a distinctive grid street system called Kvadraturen (The Quarters). At the center end of that network, the historic neighborhood of Posebyen enchants tourists with its quiet streets of 19th-century white clapboard buildings. There is a feeling that all roads lead to the sea. In 2025, Kristiansand will host the Tall Ships Races. Boats can be rented to explore the surrounding archipelago of islands dotted with cottages. and in Michelin star restaurant Underdiners eat under the waves.
The country’s southern coast, known as Sørlandet, is often described as the “Norwegian Riviera.” And, although temperatures peak at around 21 degrees in July, the number of visitors to Kristiansand during peak season can run into the millions. Families converge at the city’s zoo and amusement park, themed around the pirate Captain Sabertooth, a phenomenally popular Norse Jack Sparrow. “We are the number one holiday destination for domestic tourism during the summer,” Kristiansand mayor Mathias Bernander tells me.
The opening of Kunstsilo is part of a cultural transformation, a reboot that took a step forward in 2012 with the construction of the Kilden concert hall next to Kunstsilo, whose vast wooden facade is reminiscent of the hull of a ship cutting through the water. Bernarder hopes Kunstsilo will help attract visitors, both domestic and international, outside of the summer season.
It’s a sentiment Tangen shares. He says giving his collection to Kristiansand has allowed him to give something back to the region and compares the project to “David versus Goliath”: the region versus the capital. “I think there is enough in Oslo,” she says. “I’m a big believer in revenge of the nerd. “I love the friction.”
Despite this, the donation was not an easy process. “I had some copies of Rolf Nesch, on whom I did my master’s thesis. When I put them down I cried. I looked at them for 20 years, every day,” he recalls. “I learned from my mother that you should give away the most precious thing you have. Otherwise, what’s the point? He hopes the gallery promises to be “the kind of thing I wish had existed when I was young. It would have been there the entire time. I would have loved it”.