In 2024, several new artist-run and alternative exhibition spaces were launched in Stockholm and Malmö, in part out of frustration with the established art scene. Indeed, as many have noted, contemporary art seems to have become stale with ideological rigidity. Meanwhile, the Swedish National Museum offered a fresh take by reading contemporary art through the lens of the Romantic movement’s critical reception of Enlightenment ideals in the 19th century.
In doing so, the National Museum proposed a healthy alternative to the single-mindedness of the nearby Moderna Museet, which this spring follows up earlier large-scale presentations of Arthur Jafa, Nan Goldin, Laurie Anderson, Rashid Johnson, and Vaginal Davis with a major Mike Kelley retrospective. In the press release, Kelley is said to have “probed the core of the human experience.” Yet, isn’t he best known as a chronicler of the dark underbelly of American culture?
Noam Chomsky famously noted that the best way to undermine critical thinking is to limit the spectrum of available opinions while allowing for a lively debate within that spectrum. Accordingly, the best way to create a passive and obedient art scene in Sweden would be to Americanise it while ignoring artists from less desirable “rogue states.” The fact that no one, to my knowledge, has addressed Moderna Museet’s NATO-centrism in the 2020s is a case in point. Moderna Museet and other Swedish institutions’ wholehearted appeals for Ukraine, but lack of support for the Palestinian cause, is another. Manufacturing consent, as Chomsky would call it.
Meanwhile, the Swedish right-wing government has proposed a merger of Moderna Museet with Public Art Agency Sweden and ArkDes (Center for Architecture and Design). According to the commissioned report, which was published yesterday, the merger will have administrative gains, while maintaining the autonomy of said institutions. Yet, many fear it will lead to an unhealthy concentration of power, and compromise artistic integrity in the name of increased efficiency. In true right-wing populist spirit, the government is adamant to rush the proposal, and thus minimise public scrutiny of a political decision with potentially far-reaching consequences.
Looking at the upcoming spring, the most exciting shows seem to take place outside Stockholm. I’m thinking, for example, of Lars Fredriksson (1926–1997) who is slated for a large presentation at Malmö Konsthall. Fredriksson was a former radio engineer who moved to France in 1960 and became a pioneer of early video and sound art, experimenting with electronics as well as more traditional media. Yet, he has remained so little known in Sweden that when one of the exhibition curators, Jonas (J) Magnusson, told me about him fifteen years ago, I thought he was making him up. I look forward to this opportunity to improve my knowledge of Swedish-French art history. Malmö Konsthall will also host the Danish-Swedish group exhibition Drain the Öresund, curated by Post Brothers.
Contrary to many critics, I appreciated the radical deschooling aesthetics of Documenta 14 (2017) in Kassel and Athens. Among the most memorable artists were Vivian Suter and her mother, the collage artist Elisabeth Wild. Equally captivating was Rosalind Nashashibi’s documentary about the two women’s life in a ramshackle bungalow in the Guatemalan rainforest. Since then, Suter has been widely exhibited in Europe and the US. Now it is time for Moderna Museet Malmö to feature her paintings, which she often leaves outdoors and installs so that it feels like walking into a jungle of canvases, torn by the elements. Suter will exhibit in the large Turbine Hall, which seems like a splendid idea.
Apocalypse. From Last Judgement to Climate Threat at the Gothenburg Museum of Art also looks set to be quite the affair, with hundreds of works by artists from the 16th century to the present, including Albrecht Dürer, Hariton Pushwagner (1940–2018), and Cajsa von Zeipel. One need only look at the press image by the English artist John Martin – The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum (1822) – with its inferno of gushing lava, to be reminded of how pre-modernist painting excelled in emotionally affecting imagery. Perhaps the Norwegian self-proclaimed kitsch artist Odd Nerdrum is on to something, after all? The museum will also feature a solo exhibition by Monira al-Qadiri. Incidentally, the Kuwaiti artist’s visually spectacular work will also be presented at Kiasma in Helsinki.
Gothenburg is also host to this spring’s most disappointing non-event: Gothenburg Konsthall will be closing while moving to its new premises, which opens in 2026. Unfortunately, the fact that the new venue will be located far from its current central location next to the the Gothenburg Museum of Art feels a bit like a demotion. Luckily, Röda Sten Konsthall and Hasselblad Center will remain open, the latter hosting a promising thematic group show, Bugs and Metamorphosis. Glitching Photography.
For a long time, it looked like Ulla Wiggen’s acclaimed retrospective at Fridericianum in Kassel and EMMA in Espoo wouldn’t be shown in her home country. But now it’s happening – at Västerås Art Museum. The fact that none of the larger museums were interested in hosting one of Sweden’s most internationally celebrated artists of the 2020s seems odd. Good for Västerås for making Wiggen’s work available to the interested public. The exhibition will include paintings from six decades, from the early technological motifs to her more contemporary irises.
Further north, in Umeå, Bildmuseet will exhibit the Cuban artist Belkis Ayón (1967–1999), whose work has been featured in numerous exhibitions around the world since she sadly took her life at a young age. It’s a rare opportunity for Swedish audiences to immerse themselves in Ayón’s ghostly imagery executed in a special printing technique.
Of course, there are noteworthy exhibitions in Stockholm as well. For instance, Valeria Montti Colque’s Chilean Pavilion from the Venice Biennale will take on a new form at Bonniers Konsthall. I found her show to be one of the most authentic in Venice, but will it be possible to recreate its subcultural energy in Bonniers’ rather stiff white cube setting? Competing with Bonniers as the city’s most influential kunsthalle is Accelerator, located in a refurbished underground laboratory. This spring, the Swedish duo Goldin+Senneby will present a project about multiple sclerosis (MS) culminating in a novel by their long-time collaborator, American writer Katie Kitamura.
Kummelholmen is a more rough and ready institution located in a former boiler centre. Working with limited means, it’s staged excellent shows in the past. Let’s hope for a repeat as they have invited the rising Malaysian-British art star Mandy El-Sayegh to create a new show of her painterly and spatial assemblages on-site. Mint is another of Stockholm’s smaller kunsthalles known for creating elaborate presentations in the basement of the Workers’ Education Association building. This spring, it will be showing the Greek artist Marina Xenofontos. Index, for its part, is putting on a debate-fuelled exhibition about cultural policy, Call It Museum.
Konstnärshuset, located in a Venetian-style building in the posh part of town, has a new artistic director, Ashik Zaman (he previously shared the directorship with Alida Ivanov). Zaman’s spring program will focus on contemporary photography, but it starts out with a show featuring abstract painters like Stanley Whitney, Sigrid Sandström, and Katarina Andersson.
Also in Stockholm, Liljevalchs Konsthall will feature the Sámi installation artist Carola Grahn, while Moderna Museet’s summer show will be a retrospective of Sámi superstar Britta Marakatt-Labba. Meanwhile, the National Museum will take yet another step into the contemporary world with a show by the postmodernist trickster Ernst Billgren. In addition, the museum’s long-awaited Bonnard and the Nordic Countries is due to open next month. All in all, a promising exhibition season in the shadow of a disconcerting political proposal, which we’ll have reason to come back to.
On a final note, Sweden’s Nazi past will be scrutinised in artist and author Andreas Gedin’s new book Christer Strömholm och nazismen (2025), about the extreme right-wing views held by the famous photographer in his youth. Also, Millesgården will celebrate Carl Milles’s (1875–1955) 150th birthday with the largest show of his work to date. Arguably Sweden’s most successful sculptor of the early 20th century, Milles had a well-known, yet often downplayed, belief in Nazi ideology. It’s unclear to what extent the exhibition will highlight the artist’s political views, but from what I’ve been told, they will not be swept under the rug.
