Edi Hila, Broken Horizons, Moderna Museet Malmö, Malmö
I don’t know when our current brutal era began, but Edi Hila’s People of the Future (1997) offers one possible answer. Lamenting the deah of eighty Albanian refugees murdered by the Italian military that same year, the triptych served as an introduction to his retrospective in Malmö. With an ambivalent perfectionism shaped by life under totalitarianism, Hila has painted the main themes of the 2000s – predatory capitalism, migration, the pandemic. In old age he has turned inward. What lies on the other side of doubt? Is death the only thing we can truly believe in? The only truth?
The exhibition is on view until 12 April, 2026.
Lina Selander, One is Equal to One, Marabouparken, Stockholm
Comprising a dozen video works, Lina Selander’s show was a labyrinth of broken images, audio glitches, and bleeding projections. A giraffe moved with jerky steps. A child gently caressed her cat. A snake slithered over a bombed-out city. I recoiled, closing my eyes. If we see the world through images, and images create a distance, how can we come close again? Selander reminded us that we can still feel our way among the fragments. After all, what is art but life playing with death? A film showing a facade with flickering lights stayed with me, transmitting its unknown message.
The exhibition runs through 8 February, 2026.
Jonathan Monk, Something to See Something to Hide / Nothing to See, Nothing to Hide, Landskrona Konsthall, Landskrona
Like all other artists, conceptual artists must trust their intuition and admit that dumb ideas often become the best works. I think Jonathan Monk managed this very well when, at the invitation of the artists Conny Blom and Nina Slejko Blom, he hung old thrift shop curtains all along the glass façade of Landskrona Konsthall. Indeed, to highlight the modernist glas architecture by covering up the windows seems rather thick-headed. But it was also a clever way of conveying that Landskrona should provide the funding needed to show something other than second-hand findings. Hidden among the lush autumn foliage, this was a quietly beautiful show.
For this year’s contributions to the Advent Calendar, see here.
