In Stockholm, the Tech scene supports art

Ólafur Elíasson, “The transformative space just before now”, 2026. Courtesy i8

The event is very concentrated, with only 54 galleries and around 150 artists, but this makes it pleasant to navigate. Prices range from EUR 300 to 300,000, but on average works are under EUR 50,000, while stand prices hover around EUR 9-10,000. There are no sections, "because we are a democratic fair," explained the director, "we want the galleries to benefit from each other, so if there is an established gallery, we place it next to an emerging one, if there is a gallery with a large following in Sweden, we place it next to one that is here for the first time. We don't want big galleries in front and small ones behind. Also because it does not reflect their true status: there are some young exhibitors who already have a higher international recognition than the established ones. Think of Coulisse Gallery, which opened in 2022 and has already exhibited at Frieze and Liste. At the fair, it showed works by Jonatan Pihlgren (Sweden, 1993), created following the death of a friend of his, but inspired by spring and rebirth, rich in references to contemporary culture and rock and underground music (€2-25,000).

Most of the galleries brought painting and sculpture into dialogue, creating small, curated exhibitions. Prominent at the entrance was a large sculpture by Benjamin Orlow (Finland, 1984, lives in London), one of the three artists we will see next week at the Venice Biennale in the Nordic Pavilion, with a work that anticipates the production presented by the London gallery Season 4 Episode 6 (EUR 69,000, it is destined for an institution).
Not to be missed was Olafur Eliasson, presented by the Icelandic gallery i8 with a new group of works made from pigments mixed with alcohol and a sculpture made from zinc recycled from the atmosphere (prices from 25,000 to 195,000 euros). "There is a good collector base in Stockholm that buys well," said gallery owner, Börkur Anarson, "although in recent years the contraction has been felt." By the second day, the gallery had sold half the stand and was in negotiations for the sculpture.

"There has never been a real crisis, apart from the years around 2010-11," commented Danish gallery ownerBo Bjerggaard, who opened his gallery in 1999. Since then he has been representing some of the area's most famous artists such as Per Kirkeby, on the stand next to Tal R, who will have an exhibition at the Millesgården Museum in Sweden in the coming months, and other younger artists such as Rasmus Nilausen and Emily Gernild (prices from 10,000 to 120,000 euro).

Other internationally renowned artists wereNathalie Djurberg andHans Berg at the Belenius stand (they also had Isabella Ducrot, the only Italian artist at the fair together with Romina Bassu, while Giorgia Garzilli was exhibited outside the fair at Spazio Libero), and then Miroslaw Balka and Ann Edholm from Nordenhake, which this year celebrates 50 years, with a very strong presentation on conflicts and violence in the world (prices from 42,000 euro for Edholm up to 60-150,000 euro for Balka).

While most of the local galleries have already been active since the 1990s, the last five years or so have seen the emergence of new galleries, which were also present at the fair with fresh proposals. For instance, Ross Sutton from New York, who opened an office in a downtown flat due to the high number of Scandinavian collectors among his contacts, showed artists from the African diaspora such as Rita Mawuena Benissan from Ghana (a work on fabric was offered at $15,000).

Issues came all the paintings by Simon Wadsted (Sweden, 1994), who paints curtains and façades as an excuse to experiment with painting and materials (2-12 thousand euros). Saskia Neuman presented Kasper Nordenström, influenced by Arte Povera and process painting (7-10 thousand euros), together with Matti Hoffnel, a ceramist who has just graduated (3-4 thousand euros). Also almost all sold.

Another interesting artist was Hannah Heilmann at the stand of Wilson Saplana in Copenhagen, with works in which small discarded objects from everyday life are used to mark the time the artist - a young mother - spends caring for her son, away from the studio (2 to 4 thousand euro). Her works were in dialogue with Jytte Rex, an 84-year-old artist who has made feminist art history in Denmark and is deeply admired by young people (8-12 thousand euro). "One feels today a kind of return to the landscape (a very strong genre in the Nordic tradition, ndr) as a kind of nationalist romanticism" - this is how gallerist Christina Wilson commented on the local scene, - "it is a kind of escapism from the too scary scenario of the global world". At her stand there were also photographs byInuuteq Storch, an artist from Greenland who represented Denmark at the last Biennale, which is already in the collections of the Moderna Museet and MoMa (5-9 thousand euros).

In short, a scene to be discovered, to which the British Museum also recently dedicated an exhibition, 'Nordic Noir', which closed on 22 March. On display were more than 150 of the approximately 400 works on paper that the British museum has collected in recent years thanks to funds from Ikea. The Buffalo Art Museum also chose to focus on the Nordic countries with a horizon of no less than 60 years, purchasing works from the area thanks to funds raised by the American museum in the Nordic countries. A scene that, according to the two museums and others, has long been ignored (the Guggenheim dedicated an exhibition entitled 'Sleeping Beauty-Art Now: Scandinavia Today' to it in the early 1980s), but where a structured, solid and dynamic art ecosystem exists.
Just think of prestigious public institutions such as the Moderna Museet, which will be 70 years old in 2028 and which has just reorganised its collection to escape chronological order and put modern and contemporary works in dialogue in thematic exhibitions, or private initiatives such as the Bonniers Konsthall, which also, like the exhibition, is 20 years old this year and shows the avant-garde of Swedish art. At the moment, another name worth mentioning is on display here, that of Ingela Ihrman, with her large sculptures interpreting the animal and plant world.