After 4 weeks open to the public the total number of visits to the 11 venues of the exhibition in Bergen was 16,000. This number includes the national and international art professionals and media that visited the preview days of the exhibition 29 August – 30 August 2103. The number of visits is based on actual counts of visitors in the 11 venues of the exhibition.

"We are very happy with the number of visits to the exhibition so far, especially because we know that a good share of these are visitors that come back to see the works for a second or third time. We are glad that there are visitors who are ready to spend time with art, to invest a little effort in walking around the city and searching for the works, rather than consuming quickly and immediately. Our entire communications and mediation approach is about the logic of patient research, as opposed to the entertaining and populist festivalisation so prevalent in our times." (Ekaterina Degot & David Riff, curators of Monday Begins on Saturday)

"The number of visits half-time into the exhibition period shows that we managed to reach and engage a local audience as well as an international art crowd and broad media interest. The total number, including sold tickets, will be released after the exhibition is closed in late October, and an evaluation of the process of building up Bergen Assembly as an institution and the exhibition Monday Begins on Saturday will be worked on during the first part of 2014. I am very pleased with having obtained such a high number for the first edition of the triennial so far, and hope that the discussions in the upcoming weeks will focus on the artworks and the exhibition’s content. I applaud also our mediation program who have managed to develop several intriguing formats and gives families and visitors the opportunityto take part in guided tours and  conversations with professional guides every weekend. Round 1500 school kids were already guided through the exhibition parcours." (Evelyn Holm, Director of Bergen Assembly)    



Monday Begins on Saturday is the title of the first edition of Bergen Assembly, and takes the form of an international exhibition, publication, and symposium. It is a critical meditation on the potentials and pitfalls of the evermore ubiquitous yet at the same time elusive notion of “artistic research.” as a multi-venue exhibition and book, co-published with Sternberg Press, as well as a guidebook to the exhibition and symposium with participating artists and international and local voices from the art scene. The triennial emerged out of the Bergen Biennial Conference in 2009. Thus the Bergen Assembly – An Initiative for Art and Research is the outcome of this long process of reflection and deliberation. This model was proposed by an advisory board consisting of participants from the conference. Breaking away from the quick turnover cycle of perennial exhibitions, the aim was to allow more time for artistic research and thinking in the lead-up to the actual exhibition. Furthermore, in lieu of a conventional curatorial model, the advisory board named two curators to convene an assembly of artists, cultural producers and other intellectuals to create the inaugural edition, with the aim to address possible futures rather than simply summarizing or diagnosing present conditions.

Monday Begins on Saturday will be open to the public until Sunday, October 27, 2013.