The smaller players are stepping up as the heavyweights are idling. This is one way to describe the Swedish autumn season. The National Museum has financial difficulties and will not present any new exhibitions, and neither will The Gothenburg Museum of Art, Sweden’s third largest art museum. Meanwhile, Moderna Museet will be renovating its large exhibition hall; in the remaining space, it will present the same Lotte Laserstein retrospective that was just on view at the Malmö branch. Meanwhile, in Malmö, the Swedish sculptor Lars Englund will give way to the Swedish textile artist Moki Cherry (1943–2009), both of whom were fairly recently featured in large presentations at the museum in Stockholm. Talk about being stumped for ideas… Since taking over as director in 2019, Gitte Ørskou has focused on democratic leadership, sustainability, and diversity, but the museum’s artistic profile is beginning to feel shaky and uneven.
A natural focus point will be the Gothenburg Biennial (GIBCA) in September. The twelfth edition looks to be a comparatively modest setup, with twenty-five artists showing at Gothenburg Konsthall, Röda Sten, and two other venues. In return, curator João Laia has promised a vibrant show with a lot of humour – a far cry from the didactic focus of the last two editions, which were both curated by Lisa Rosendahl. It will also be young, queer, and trendy, with artists like Rasmus Myrup (DK), Sandra Mujinga (NO), and Tarik Kiswanson (SE), to mention a few of the Nordic participants. In any event, GIBCA remains one of the most important biennials in the Nordic region, and crucial for the local art scene on Sweden’s west coast.
Recently, the kunsthalles and smaller museums have taken their cue from Black Lives Matter, and are focusing on BIPOC artists. Yet, when the same names recur everywhere, isn’t the result just as homogeneous and predictable as it used to be? Indeed, this autumn’s solo shows offer few surprises: Lisa Tan at Accelerator, Oscar Lara at Tensta Konsthall, and Sirous Namazi at Magasin 3, all in Stockholm; Loulou Cherinet and Mandana Mogghadam at Bildmuseet in Umeå, to name a few. Each of these exhibitions could just as easily be shown at one of the other venues without anyone raising an eyebrow, a conformism that all the smug rhetoric about art as ‘resistance’ or ‘struggle’ does little to hide.
Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm is going for something slightly different with a two-person show featuring virtuoso painter Sara Vide-Ericsson and the neo-Surrealist Tilda Lovell. Much like the Finnish duo nabbteeri – showing at Färgfabriken, also in Stockholm – they will present large-scale environments in a show where nature is not just considered to be subject matter but a co-creator; nature returns as utopia or dystopia, projection surface, or even artist. Somewhat relatedly, at the Centre for Photography and Film in Stockholm, Anders Alm and Erik Holmstedt will take on the human and societal consequences of mining in their respective hometowns, Kiruna and Malmberget, in what looks to be a promising show.
Two notable events in Stockholm will be September Sessions and Stockholm Gallery Weekend. The first is a new festival taking place in September, bringing together a number of small and large institutions led by the small-scale venues Index and Mint. The second takes place in November, and convenes some thirty commercial galleries on the initiative of the Swedish Art Gallery Association and the magazine Artlover. The full programme has not yet been released, but a prominent feature in September will be Index show about Miss Universum (Miss Universe), the outspoken alter ego that artist Catti Brandelius adopted between 1997 and 2005, and who was also part of the pop group Doktor Kosmos. Mint will focus on international contributions with a solo show by Austrian sound artist Armin Lorenz Gerold and a performance programme curated by Cathrin Mayer from Vienna. But why are Stockholm’s public institutions and commercial galleries so keen on keeping a distance from each other? Was a collaborative event with the best venues in town not an option?
Malmö Gallery Weekend takes place on the same weekend as September Sessions. Last year, I was surprised that Malmö Konsthall opened its major survey of the local art scene, In the City Grows a Field, the week after the gallery weekend. Why not coordinate the events to maximise public interest? To me, the show seemed more concerned with patting the local art scene on the back than challenging the audience and raising the bar for contemporary art in Malmö. Today, the city has no commercial gallery scene to speak of, while the artist-run initiatives claim that they are being brought to their knees by gentrification and high rents. In this situation, I think the city’s public institutions should be able to contribute more cutting-edge programming.
This autumn, notable events include a solo presentation by Swedish artist Ingela Ihrman at Malmö Konsthall and the group show Happily Ever After at Malmö Art Museum. Twenty-five artists, ranging from Nordic celebrities like Joachim Koester, Superflex, and Ulla Wiggen to more untested names, will adress how “emotions are increasingly exploited for profit and control.” The theme is not super original, but may well be worth revisiting.
Indeed, a number of upcoming group shows suggest that the political doom and gloom of recent years is about to be replaced by a more reflective approach. Marabouparken in Stockholm will put on a group show centred on the intersection of art, text, and literature, while Lund Konsthall returns to Harun Farocki, among others, to discuss the inadequacy of visual representation with Ways of Unseeing. If these exhibitions sound a bit belated, I am – again – more intrigued by Index’s group show Bodies and Antibodies as well as Mint’s The Isolated Bone. The latter is part of a large-scale collaboration between curator Emily Fahlén and artists Andjeas Ejiksson and Iris Smeds that revolves around questions of crime and punishment, reality and testimony. The former brings together young Danish artists Cassie Augusta Jörgensen and Maja Malou Lyse with Malin Hallgren and Erika Stöckel in a reflection on the body, gender, and identity – classic subjects in art, with a renewed relevance in the popular debate.
On a side note, Jörgensen will have her first ever institutional show at O – Overgarden in Copenhagen this autumn. Also at Overgaden, Rasmus Myrup will show work relating to his participation in GIBCA. Danish artists of the moment making their way across Øresund might be a new trend.
For those interested in where art is headed next, the gallery scene often has more to offer than the institutions. In Stockholm, regrowth is happening at galleries like Saskia Neuman, Andy’s, and Issues, all newly established venues showing emerging Swedish and international artists. Belenius Gallery has also renewed itself, showing both younger and older artists alongside occasional historical presentations. This autumn it will show, among others, the Surrealist Elsa Thoresen (1909–1994, another Dane), as well as the figurative painter Sally J Han, who was recently part of the gallery’s acclaimed show You Were Bigger Than the Sky, You Were More Than Just A Short Time, curated by Ashik and Koshik Zaman.
Finally, highlights from the artist-run scene include the second part of the Swedish artist Joline Uvman’s trilogy Auto Bios Grapho, which started out with a promising exhibition about graphs at the microgallery StudyForArtPlatform this spring. Also, the magazine Nuda (run by Frida Vega and Kunstkritikk contributor Nora Arrhenius Hagdahl) will resume exhibition activities in its Stockholm office with a series focusing on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925). First to bat is Swedish Linnéa Ndangoya Palmcrantz and Norwegian Tim Høibjerg, the latter recently having shown work at artists-run venues in Oslo like Melk and Podium.
