The editor-at-large and host of our art podcast KONST, Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar, picks his highlights from the week (in no particular order).
Magasin III: Mona Hatoum/ Valfrändskaper/Chris Burden
Since its inception in 1987, Magasin III Museum for Contemporary Art has focused on supporting artistic creation and experimentation. In addition to enjoying current exhibitions, visitors can now also learn about the processes involved in preparing future exhibitions, the creation of new works and the care of a collection when not on display. For Stockholm Art Week, the space presents Mona Hatoum, Valfrändskaper, and Chris Burden.
Black Iris @Alma
Black Iris is a new and unique platform on the Swedish art scene, which consists of 21 artists, and will produce exhibitions and open up for new collaborations between artists. The purpose is to find new ways of promoting great art without involvement by any third party where all profit goes to the artists. During Stockholm Art Week, new constellations are created, for the very first exhibition, A Drug Named Love.
Loyal Gallery: Michelle Blade
In The Blue Horse, Blade is documenting time, closely examining the stillness, strength, and persistence of the natural world. She’s showing us states of being human in flowing flux as she contemplates and intersects these different times, creating a form for memory by infusing colour and texture in this group of twelve acrylic and ink on cotton poplin canvases.
Nitty Gritty Art in Store, More is More
Playing with the preconceptions of the phrase ”more is more”, the exhibition introduces the artists in the dynamics of a bustling setting. Presenting work by 15 artists — several previously exhibited in Nitty Gritty’s ongoing exhibition series Nitty Gritty Art in Store — in addition to introducing nine artists new to the platform.
Market Art Fair
The leading contemporary art fair in the Nordics showcases the rich breadth and diversity of the Nordic contemporary art scene. The 16th edition of the fair brings together 38 selected galleries, representing over 70 exciting artists from 7 countries. Market Talks presents ideas and debate and the outdoor exhibition Market Extended shows large scale installations and sculptural works.
Art and Theory Publishing @Villa Dagmar
The EXISTING SYSTEMS exhibition refers to the artistic practice where various methods and systems are a way forward towards developing new ideas and works. It includes photography, painting, and drawing and the participating artists — Peter Hagdahl, Jenny Källman, Sophie Tottie, Ulla Wiggen, and Harry Woodrow — are involved in recent and future book publications from Art and Theory. On view until June 15.
Nordiska Galleriet Art: Johan Barrett
The Stockholm-based artist and graphic designer has participated in group exhibitions in LA, London, and Oslo. His first solo exhibition — All We Have is Now — at Nordiska Galleriet presents four new larger works and eleven new drawings where the artist examines the notion that life, that which is worth living, always takes place elsewhere.
CFHILL: Kennedy Yanko/Lena Svedberg/Ten by Ten
CFHILL presents three parallel exhibitions in the art space: solo exhibitions by Kennedy Yanko and Lena Svedberg, and the group exhibition Ten by Ten. New York-based artist and rising star Yanko has made her mark on the art world with her sensual sculptures mixing scrap metal and her signature paint skins. For her first solo show in Scandinavia, she presents four entirely new works inspired by the process of Hilma af Klint. With her skill, dedication and extraordinary sensibility, Lena Svedberg transformed political world events and disgusting social injustices into concentrated, well-directed artistic rage. The new exhibition presents drawings and works on paper from what has been described as one of Sweden’s most important artists. CFHILL’s recurrent exhibition Ten by Ten offers a diverse selection of iconic artworks, from different times and places, highlighting the great leaps in art history. This edition will include works by Anders Zorn, Victor Vasarely, Carl Larsson, Fanny Brate, Charlotte Gyllenhammar, and Maria Misenberger.
Moderna Museet: Björn Lövin / Egill Sæbjörnsson
From the 1970s, Lövin engaged persistently in an exploration of the changing society, revealing the gap between the welfare state, consumerism and the groups excluded. Several works in the new exhibition, The Surrounding Reality, examine the relationship between individual and collective, between image and reality. His immersive installations or environments, constructed out of carefully chosen details that together formed fictive worlds in which visitors could move around, made him one of Sweden’s first installation artists. The Film Club at Moderna Museet also presents Egill Sæbjörnsson.
Andréhn-Schiptjenko: Annika Elisabeth von Hausswolff
The exhibition The Pink Drill presents von Hausswolff’s most recent body of work, The Hole is a Noun, which reflects on the contradictory categorization of an object defined by its absence. With photography as a point of departure, sourced from private photo albums and news archives, The Hole is a Noun consists of a series of images which have in common that they depict a hole of some sort.
Bonus tips: Nybrogatan.
— On this street, you meet artists, curators, collectors and party-crashers at Alma, Villa Dagmar, Teatergrillen, or Nordiska Galleriet, says Kretzschmar.