There's an empty spot on the sofa, and visitors are lining up to take it. In a temporary installation that opened in central Oslo on September 29, two wax figures sit side by side. One represents Jeffrey Epstein and the other, Queen Mette-Marit of Norway. Guests are invited to settle in between them and snap a photo. It's a piece that has since gone viral.
© Antony Jones/UK Press via Getty ImagesThe work is titled "The Beginning of the End," and it recreates a photograph that surfaced in the Epstein files. As reported by our sister website HOLA! Spain, the image shows Mette-Marit seated beside the late financier at his Palm Beach home, where she spent several days in 2013.
The art installation is part of a long-running project by Morten Viskum, who's done several installations of notorious figures in pop culture, like Epstein, Donald Trump, and more. The work tends to feature him in the lead role. In this instance, upon closer inspection, it's Viskum in the role of Epstein.
"The image of her on his sofa is burned into my retina. It's the first thing I think of when it comes to him," Viskum told NRK.
© Knut BlomstrømAn artist who courts the uncomfortable
Viskum, 61, was born in Denmark and has built his career in Norway, where he's become one of the Nordic art world's most established provocateurs. He has a long institutional track record and runs his own contemporary art space, the Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, which he founded in a former cellulose factory in 2002.
"I do this every year, and in 2016 I did one of Donald Trump. And when the Epstein files were made public, I thought this would go down in world history as one of the most spectacular events we've ever seen," he told NRK.
© Per Ole HagenTiming, location, and a queen who didn't see this coming
The location of the art installation is already a political statement. It sits at Huitfeldt Gate 19, a short walk from the Royal Palace and the Storting, Norway's Parliament. Across town this week, the Storting's oversight committee is holding its long-anticipated Epstein hearing, questioning current and former government ministers about the late financier's network in Norway.
Mette-Marit has not been called to testify; lawmakers say the royal house falls outside the committee's remit.
The art installation also lands days before King Haakon VIII opens his first parliamentary session as monarch, with Queen Mette-Marit and Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra expected to be at his side. Norwegian media read the placement as deliberate, and a way to make the work speak directly to the country's political moment.
When Viskum began building it, Mette-Marit was still crown princess. By the time it opened, she was already queen.
© NRKWhat Mette-Marit has said about Epstein
The queen addressed her friendship with Epstein head-on in a televised interview with NRK, framing it as trust misplaced. "For me, it's extremely important to take responsibility for not having looked into his background more carefully. And to take responsibility for having been so manipulated and deceived," she said.
The released documents revealed that she had Googled Epstein at a point when he already had a sex-crime conviction. Mette-Marit said she has no memory of what she found.
"I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out on my own. I wish I had the rest of the email correspondence. I don't know what I found, or whether it was information he asked me to Google," she said. "I wish I remembered what it was; it probably would have made things much easier for me now. But if I had found information that made me realize he was an abuser and a sex offender, I wouldn't have put a smiley face after it."
When the interviewer pointed out that Epstein's conviction was already on his Wikipedia page, she held firm: "I didn't know he was a sex offender or an abuser."
© NRKMette-Marit also pushed back on readings of their emails as flirtatious. "It was a friendship. He was, above all, a friend of a friend of mine. If the question is whether the relationship had any other character, the answer is no," she said. When the journalist suggested the messages carried an intimate tone, she replied: "I don't see it that way. I see it more as a friendly tone."
The then-crown princess acknowledged that some encounters left her uneasy and ultimately ended the contact. "Epstein behaved toward me in a way I didn't like… he put me in a situation that made me feel so unsafe that I called home to Haakon," she said, a cryptic remark the Norwegian press later dug into. Even so, she stayed in touch with him afterward because "he was so manipulative that he took advantage of the fact that we had a friend in common."
She expressed deep regret for the harm done to Epstein's victims and said she hoped the episode wouldn't erode trust in the monarchy, which was already weathering the trial of her son, Marius Borg Høiby.
A crown that's holding, and a picture that won't go away
Since King Harald's death, polls suggest Norwegians have rallied behind their new king and queen. But Viskum's interactive installation is a sharp reminder that some images can outlast headlines. This week, anyone in Oslo can step inside a photo that has rattled millions.
© The Grosby Group
