SOL / Pulse sculpture
"The concept is meant to appeal to heart and mind. I want contemporary art to create a dynamic, giving the people living around the sculpture a chance to take part in it. What I loathe, is passive stone sculptures the developer crams in at the end."
Today Pulse works as a symbol and leading star for a sculpture complex in motion. Modahl wanted to achieve a symbiosis of contemporary art and modern habitation where the core idea was to communicate with the inhabitants.
Displayed as a key land art site in "Destination Art", a land art/site-specific art reference work. This book is the first ever comprehensive critical guide to land and environmental works, sculpture parks and site-specific installations worldwide.
Destination-Art.org
Genesis, unge Olav
A giant youth emerging from a pool of water on St. Marie plass, is a site-specific celebratory landmark in Sarpsborg, Norway. It reaches back in time to reference the city's founding father while acknowledging the continual evolution and redefinition that cities and nations must undergo as they face the future. The specificity of Finn Eirik Modahl's Genesis combined with its universal aspects and commanding presence will provide it with a lasting appeal.
More on this project:
Det norske kongehus
Stortinget
Konglo
The copper sculpture is inspired by René Descartes ideas of the pineal gland. He regarded it as the principal seat of the soul and the place in which all our thoughts are formed. The head chakra here is in the shape of a pinecone. It is placed on Sotra right outside Bergen, Norway. Sotra can trace its name back over 3000 years.
National monument Elektra
The Norwegian sculptor Finn Eirik Modahl has created a new major Norwegian National Monument — a giant obelisk of glass and stone, overlooking magnificent fjords and mountains. The monument "Elektra" is located in Tyssedal in Norway.
"The giant megalith of Granite and glass is fantastic", the Sculpture Magazine writes in a report. The stone part is taken out 18 meters inside the mountain. And it's cracked into form. Not cut. The glass part is made of 999 handcut 6 mm glass plates. With neon inside, it glows in the night with a green light. Like the color of a mountain lake. It was unveiled in 2000.
The monument was commissioned by the Norwegian Council for Cultural Affairs, Tyssefaldene A/S and the Norwegian Department of Culture.
Kraftmuseet
Seeds
"Seeds" is a site-specific sculpture at Norway House in Minneapolis, reflecting the center's core ideas of connection, culture, and community. It speaks to universal themes of inclusion while tracing the historical, present, and future ties between Norway and Minnesota, offering an optimistic vision of growth, renewal, and new beginnings. Its monumental pinecone form draws on the shared natural heritage of both regions, suggesting protection, continuity, and a collective responsibility for the future. The shimmering, mirrored surface underscores nature's vitality and resilience. Through its dialogue with viewers and surroundings, "Seeds" invites personal interpretation and reinforces the relationship between people, place, and art.
The sculpture is a sister sculpture to "Konglo," located on the island of Sotra outside Bergen, Norway — both created by Norwegian artist Finn Eirik Modahl. "Seeds" was unveiled by Her Majesty Queen Sonja of Norway on October 15, 2022, during the grand opening of Norway House's expanded campus.
More on this project:
The Royal Court of Norway
Norway House
Javel
"Javel", the 23 meter large sculpture is strategically situated by the road leading from the city center to the theater Kilden in Kristiansand. It hangs roughly on the hewn cliff at the side of Kilden. The contrast between the materials of the rugged, matt rock face and sculpture's shimmering reflective surface of polished steel is dramatic and beautiful. From a distance the work looks like a smooth shiny undulating line. But as one approaches Kilden the abstract sculpture turns into something readable. The serpentine line of steel spells out a word "Javel". It is the ultimate symbol of a wish for a binding bridge between the people and art.
Kilden.com
Director at Bomuldsfabriken Kunsthall
Bomuldsfabriken Kunsthall is one of the leading venues for contemporary art in Norway. The exhibition hall presents a wide variety of exhibitions of contemporary artists - putting on 16 major art exhibitions each year. In addition it houses a collection of artwork by 40 well known Norwegian artists.
Installation Löplabbet
Performance/installation art at Bergen Kunsthall, 1999. An exploration of art/commerce.
In cooperation with Löplabbet, Geir Karl Karlsen.
Curator VU08
Jump
The artobject shaped as an oversized springboard was made for Halale Carol. The idea was to focus on collaboration between architects, entrepreneurs, artists, the local community and politicians to develop the industrial plant into something new and a meeting place for people and ideas. The main feature of a springboard is to give an extra boost, while this spring-board's size requires multiple people cooperating to get the board swinging. This is the most obvious parallel to the situation the project is a part of – art and architecture boosting the processes of urban development.
More on this project:
Vice
Halele Carol
Proletkult - Backstage
By the Way - a street level window gallery, combined with storage facilities for the city park services. All traces of the art gallery were ripped out to put further emphasis on conceptual art.
Take one
Performance projects in cooperation with Geir Karl Karlsen spanning from 1995 to 2001. Performed at Henie Onstad Art Center, Høstutstillingen - annual national collective art exhibition, and Bergen Kunsthall.
John Cage vs. Phineas Cage
Sculpture/Installation. Based on Aristotle's Poetica - with a start, a middle and an end. The start and the end were fixed, everything in the middle was based on fuzzy logic giving out quotations from everyday publications, television, conversations, etc to profound quotations like the view on art by Robert Longo. It could be a travel within the mind of John Cage to the personality disorder of Phineas Cage.
