Art

London’s Must-See Art Installation: Art on the Wharf text Yasmine Mubarak Once defined by its silhouette of skyscrapers and trading floors. Canary Wharf has turned into one of London’s most surprising creative districts. What began 35 years ago as an ambitious plan to change the docks into a financial district has today transformed into a lively neighbourhood where art, architecture, and nature coexist seamlessly. Not to mention, home to a must-visit art installation. For many Londoners, Canary Wharf remains a part of their daily commute. All fast- paced footsteps, shining towers, and a wide selection of lunch spots. But for travellers, it’s your next destination: a place where wellness meets innovation, and where every corner offers a moment of inspiration. A visit filled with art installations and inspiring architecture.   A Contemporary Artwork on the Thames – The Whale That Leaps from the Wharf The area’s name goes back to the ships that once docked there carrying fruit from the Canary Islands. Today, the district is home to London’s largest collection of outdoor public art, with more than 100 sculptures and installations throughout its parks, plazas, and promenades. Among them is the striking Whale on the Wharf, located on Walter Street, just a short walk from the design-forward Vertus Edit – a must stay. Whale on the Wharf is created from five tonnes of plastic waste that were pulled out of the ocean, and transformed into a four-storey-tall whale leaping from the water. From a distance, it is an impressive sculpture — a celebration of nature’s grace. But as you step closer, you see the surface telling us a different story. A surface made out of the plastic of bottles, an old skateboard, single-use plastic items, and other discarded items. Behind the art piece are the architectural duo Jason Klimoski & Lesley Chang, who collaborated with the Hawaii Wildlife Fund to collect as much ocean plastic waste as they could find to create the sculpture. It’s a beautiful art piece to see, a statement regarding the millions of tons of plastic waste swimming in our oceans. Sparking a debate about our not-so-beautiful impact and consequenceson the planet.   Reflections and Geometry A few steps away, across the road, stands The Knot by Richard Hudson — a sculpture that shifts as you approach. From a distance, it blends seamlessly in with the surrounding architecture. Up close, it draws you in with its polished, looping formand reflects your own image, the sky, and the skyline all at once. Be aware that standing in front of it, it reflects your thoughts. Hudson, known for his fascination with nature’s organic shapes. Was intrigued by the infinite curves, and rectangular structures of the city surroundings. It’s an artwork that invites personal reflection — both literally and metaphorically. Where Calm Meets Creativity Perhaps what makes Canary Wharf’s art installation so compelling is the sense of calm that runs beneath its surface. The art installations encourage you to slow down- to walk, or why not take a morning run, following the curated 1 km, 3 km, or 5 km art routes that guide visitors through the district’s key works. Families can join in too, with a dedicated children’s art trail designed to inspire young imaginations. Exploring these installations feels almost like a contemporary art treasure hunt. With over 100 pieces waiting to be discovered, you find yourself wandering through plazas and green walkways. The walk makes you stop and notice art in the everyday – from the sculpted architecture to the blooming planters. It’s an experience that feels restorative; a gentle detox for the mind and body. If you are wondering where you should stay during your visit, the Virtus Edit is a hidden gem. It offers a perfect base. Rising among greenery, art sculptures, and riverside walkways, it blends contemporary design with an emphasis on wellbeing. For Scandinavian travellers, it offers a familiar sense of minimalist comfort — a home away from home in the heart of the city. From here, it’s even easy to reach Soho, Southwark, Greenwich, and beyond, while enjoying the slower pace and wellness-focused energy that Canary Wharf now embodies. A Legacy of Public ArtBetween the two exits of the jubilee line, hides a green oasis of calmness, water springs, even a few ducks had found their nest. In the pathway of Jubilee Park lies Fortuna, a large bronze sculpture from Helaine Blumenfeld Obe. Blumenfield wanted to connect with the large number of people who visited Jubilee Park. Not to mention, for the bronze sculpture to say something about the human condition of turbulence, hope, community among many other emotions. Public art in Canary Wharf doesn’t just decorate its spaces — it defines them. In a district dominated by architectural ambition, these works bring warmth, humanity, and colour to the landscape. Here, even the bridge of the DLR is an art piece by artist Sinta Tantra. In addition, on Montgomery Square, Julian Wild has created a large red sculpture in a flamboyant doodle of steel. Art became central to the area’s identity already in 1999, when it hosted The Shape of the Century: 100 Years of Sculpture in Britain. It included a number of sculptures that became the start of a permanent art collection, since then the collection hascontinued to expand and is now the UK’s largest, free-to-visit, outdoor, public art collection.   A New Kind of London DestinationIn just three days here, it’s easy to see why this once-corporate corner of London is now a magnet for creative minds and curious travellers alike. I’m almost reluctant to write this dearly about it — it’s the kind of place you’d rather keep secret. But between the art, the cuisine, and the ever-present greenery, Canary Wharf offers a refreshing alternative to London’s classic tourist haunts.    For those who appreciate art in its purest, most public form, this is your next must- see destination. As school groups gather around the Blue Whale, locals sip matchas by the docks, and sunlight glints off mirrored

The relentless forms of Claudine Monchaussé Written by Natalia Muntean Photo by Isabelle Arthuis – Fondation d’entreprise Hermes For over six decades, driven by a “relentless necessity,” Claudine Monchaussé has spent her life getting closer to an image that has burned within her since she first touched clay. At 89, her first major exhibition outside France, “Sourdre,” at the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès’s La Verrière in Brussels, finally brings her work into the light. Curated by Joël Riff as an “augmented solo” show, the exhibition places her potent stoneware sculptures, born from the telluric force of the pottery village La Borne, into dialogue with artists across generations, including Germaine Richier and Marie Talbot, creating a conversation around universal symbols and the act of creation.  Natalia Muntean: Your work is described as being driven by an “inner pursuit” and a “relentless necessity.” Could you describe the sensation of that creative impulse and how it guides your hands when you begin a new piece?Claudine Monchaussé: I always had a fire burning inside me that I wanted to put to use with clay. In the first years, I didn’t quite understand what I was doing, but there was an image that stayed with me. I spent my entire life wanting to be as close to it as possible. It isn’t my hands that guide me, but rather, my intuition. NM: You have lived and worked in La Borne for over 65 years. How has the spirit and tradition of that place specifically shaped the energy and form of your sculptures?CM: I came to live here with a potter/ceramist who divided his time between Paris and La Borne. At the time, in 1959, there were still traditional potters. I loved their simple, functional work. La Borne has centuries of pottery tradition behind it; there is a telluric force here. I never wanted to make pots, nor did I ever try, but I always felt that clay would be my medium; it was essential to me, visceral. Some people paint. I work with clay.   Photo © Isabelle Arthuis – Fondation d’entreprise Hermes NM: After working in relative solitude for decades, how does it feel to see your life’s work being brought together for this major exhibition, your first outside of France?CM: I am very grateful to the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès and Joël Riff for inviting me to exhibit. The works come to life, and the exhibition reveals the connections not only between them but also with the visitors. I have always felt somewhat overwhelmed by my work, but seeing so many pieces together moves me and brings me a sense of serenity. NM: You have said you never had a choice but to make your work, that it is a “relentless necessity.” Does the act of shaping the clay feel more like a process of discovery, of uncovering a form that already exists, or one of creation from nothing?CM: In my studio, I meet people from all over the world, and every person has been able to relate to the forms and symbols in my work. No matter what language they speak, they are able to access the ideas that I have experimented with. It probably speaks to the fact that everything already exists somewhere. I’ve never left my studio and yet somehow, thanks to many encounters with people, it is as if I have travelled the entire world several times and am the bearer of many civilisations. NM: When you finish a sculpture, do you feel its journey is complete, or does it only truly begin once it leaves your studio and meets a viewer’s gaze?CM: I have always been very demanding with my sculptures. Until now, they have only been seen by a very small circle of people who have come to me to discover them. I always think of someone when I make them, someone I have seen and known for a long time, or even someone I have never met.

Karla Black on material, chaos and the function of art Written by Natalia Muntean Photo by Simon Vogel “For me, culture is no different from nature; there is no hierarchy,” says Glasgow-based artist Karla Black. Known for her fragile, pastel-coloured installations made from materials like plaster, cellophane and makeup, Black has long explored the physical and emotional charge of matter itself. A Turner Prize nominee and Scotland’s representative at the Venice Biennale in 2011, she continues with her current show at Belenius Gallery in Stockholm to blur the line between painting and sculpture, insisting, as she puts it, on “the difficult, messy, chaotic characteristic of human behaviour” that keeps art alive. Natalia Muntean: Your work often resists explanation in words. When you begin preparing for an exhibition, where do you start? With a material, a colour, or with the space itself?Karla Black: The first thing that happens is that a desire arises in me. Maybe I want to mix paint into a particular colour, or touch a certain material like polythene, or scrabble around with some powder. In this sense, I think that my work begins with an exercising of the unconscious, which is experimental.  La Biennale di Venezia NM: You have described your sculptures as having “functions” rather than “meanings.” In the context of the Belenius Gallery show, what kind of functions or consequences do you hope these works might have for visitors?KB: The ambition that I have for my work in general – to force the institution or the gallery to present what art really is – the difficult, messy, chaotic characteristic of human behaviour that is so necessary to allow and to preserve. I hope that my work practically accomplishes something – it forces what art really is into the arena of the gallery and of the historical canon, something that has been very much missing in recent times, as art fairs and commercial galleries and therefore, the prominence of the transferable object has so prevailed. I want to make the real thing, not just some sort of dead historical, immovable object. It should also be ‘difficult’ to move around the powder without damaging it, and to encounter the possible stickiness of the vaseline, etc, I hope people feel this. NM: Pastel colours play a central role in your installations. How do you think their softness shapes the atmosphere of this exhibition?KB: I use colour like I use form. In a way, colour is a material for me. It is really the tone of the colour that is important. Just like the sculptures are almost objects or only just objects, so the colour is only just colour. I never use primary colours because I am mostly trying to get as close to nothing as possible, or as close to white as possible. NM: Each of your exhibitions carries only your name as its title. What does it mean for you to strip away all other framing and let the work stand on its own?KB: It’s a feminist stance. It is also a statement about the importance of abstraction. The ‘great name’ of the artist, as used in museum shows and monographs, is traditionally of male artists. The name itself as title is a representation of the fact that the interaction of me and the space is all there really is.  NM: When you step into the finished space at Belenius, what do you feel the works are doing here?KB: Hopefully, they are embodying a ‘real’ creative moment in an increasingly hermetic, sealed-off, commercially driven art world that prizes the transferable object above all. Hopefully, they don’t appear too ‘finished’ or  ‘clean’  and they are therefore allowing space for the process, for the mess to be felt by people in the pristine gallery space itself. NM: What is the most recent material, colour, or gesture that truly surprised you in your own work?KB: The use of the mirrors is a surprise to me. I never really expected to work on a surface that is attached to a wall. There was always mark-making on my sculptures, and there was an aspect of the sculptures that kept getting thinner and thinner. Although it is a surprise, it also feels like a natural progression. I think I can only make works on 2-dimensional surfaces if those surfaces are either reflective or transparent because, somehow, the work still needs to involve space or the 3-dimensional. NM: Do you see your work as more about exploring the world, or about creating a space separate from it?KB: Both, I suppose. The world is the world. I think my work is part of nature. For me, culture is no different from nature; there is no hierarchy. NM: What do you hope people take away from your show? KB: An impetus towards physical response. Photo by Capitain Petzel

Gavin Gleeson’s Partial Parade Offers a Playful Pause Written by Natalia Muntean “Too far Jacob” Gavin Gleeson found painting at twenty-seven. Or perhaps, painting found him. “I was in Paris, working a remote job, and I had taken a few drawing classes, but I just decided to pick up some paint for the first time and did a little watercolour. That was really the first time I painted,” he says. Born to Irish parents and raised in Kentucky, Gleeson grew up between worlds. “Growing up as a first-generation Irish American definitely gave me a sense of feeling a little bit abnormal,” he says. What began as a peek into painting became a path of its own, leading him away from business and into an intuitive studio practice where, he explains, “I like coming into the studio as if it’s an improvisation session.”  He never imagined it would carry him as far as a master’s degree at the Royal College of Art. Now presenting his first solo exhibition, Partial Parade, at Saskia Neuman Gallery in Stockholm, Gleeson translates how he experiences the world into canvases, inviting the viewer to join him in a “playful pause.”  Muntean Natalia: You picked up a brush at 27, and at 30, you have your first exhibition?Gavin Gleeson: I’m pinching myself, definitely! Growing up, my next-door neighbour was a lawyer by day but painted in his spare time. I would see him paint or make sculptures, so I was aware of it, but I didn’t think anybody painted full-time.  NM: But was there something that made you pick up the brush?GG: Honestly, boredom. I wouldn’t start work until the afternoon and just wanted something to do, so I signed up for a class. Later, back in Ireland, I reached out to a second cousin who’s a painter. He told me what to buy, a few basic colours, and I started painting in my Nana’s garage, using old bottles and family photos as references.Eventually, I found a one-year course at the Burren College of Art, a tiny village on Ireland’s West Coast. When 250 Ukrainian refugees moved in during the war, the population doubled overnight. I would drive past the playground, the kids playing, the women smoking, against this bleak, windy landscape. That contrast between playfulness and heaviness really stuck with me. There was also a Ukrainian artist at the school, in his seventies. We would talk through Google Translate. His work filled whole walls – huge pieces. Even without understanding the words, I could feel the weight of them. It taught me that emotion can be grasped through marks and strokes alone. Portrait by Pelle Nisbel Fjäll NM: Let’s talk about your show, Partial Parade – what does this moment mean for you? And how did you land on that title?GG: It’s very exciting because I waited so long to get started. The show came together at a good time because it can be tough when you’re coming out of your master’s degree, a bit aimless, and you’re just making work to have a portfolio and get by. When it comes to the title, it came from its dual meaning – partial as in incomplete, and partial as in biased. It felt cheeky. Is it a parade or a protest? I like that ambiguity. Humour is a big part of my Irish culture. It’s an invitation to improvise, to question. I ask myself, where am I being partial? Coming from business, from a place of privilege, there are a lot of questions we’re all facing. NM: And does painting give you the answers?GG: Maybe just better questions. A place of refuge and questioning. I think art’s inherently political. I think it’s a really important time for art and painting. For me, it’s a reflection of what’s going on. I feel proud to be a painter right now. I very much feel like a member of a choir more than someone trying to prove a point. And I think that’s really important to me: one of many. NM: Do you have a routine? Is it like a nine-to-five for you?GG: I wish. That’s the goal. It’s a balancing act in London. Initially, it was part-time jobs, jumping in the studio when I could. Now I work full-time and come in on weekends or an evening. I have the attention span of a puppy in the studio, which is good and bad. But with that excitement of, “Oh my god, there’s so much to paint,” it feels like I could keep going, which is a nice feeling. I’m quite a prolific painter. When I go to the studio, I get my painting clothes on and listen to music very loudly. There’s a getting stoked aspect, like getting psyched up for a game. It becomes like a spiritual practice, searching for truth from the unknown. My mantra is “trust the hands.” They’ll lead you where you need to go. “Timorous Machination” “Red Rover” NM: What role does playfulness have in your process?GG: Coming into the art world, I found it overwhelming with all the rules. Then you see a kid with a sketchpad just doing their own thing. My cousin, for example, has autism and is an amazing artist with no agenda. We had this moment of communication through art when we drew one of his cartoon characters. That was right before art school, and that started from play, as so many ideas do. Things get legs on their own.  NM: Who or what influences you the most?GG: Music. My brother’s a musician, my dad works in music now, and my best friend back home is one too. When we were younger, he’d be looping tracks in one room while I drew in another; we would feed off each other’s energy. That rhythm and spontaneity are what I try to capture when I paint. Growing up in Kentucky also shaped me. There’s a strong punk and DIY culture there – that “just make it” attitude. It taught me not to

Alexandra Karpilovski is knocking at her door Written by Natalia Muntean Photo by Elvira Glänte “It’s about looking for yourself, trying to find your place,” says Swedish artist Alexandra Karpilovski. I met her amid the creative chaos of building her show’s universe, Howling to My Window and Knocking at My Door. My initial impression of chaos gave way to certainty: she knew exactly what she wanted to do. “I make a plan during the process, but it usually comes quite late,” Karpilovski tells me. Her process rests on intuition – a belief that each impulse carries its own reason. “I have things I want to make, and then maybe something else along the way evolves into something different. It’s very intuition-based and from my own heart.”  The title itself sounds like an instinct, something raw, almost animalistic. It began, she explains, with a painting she made years ago, Howling to My Window, that she never showed. After a period when life was intense and took another turn, she added Knocking at my door. Karpilovski keeps a mental archive of words and fragments until they find a place in her art. “The part I added really spoke to me because it’s like I’m knocking at my own door,” she says.  The show’s DNA grows from her paintings, words, painted lamps, and fabrics, but equally from the small objects she’s gathered across her life: pieces from her grandparents’ estate, her travels, or secondhand shops. When she began preparing for this show, life had unmoored her, and she didn’t quite know how to begin again. Her way back into work was simple, almost ritualistic. “My daily thing was just walking,” she says. “I would go to a thrift store and just find things I feel a small connection to, even without knowing why. But then they somehow fall into place.”  Tenderness runs through Karpilovski’s process – in the way she collects and arranges, giving space to what might be overlooked. In a poignant contrast to the visceral title, the act of choosing becomes a quiet conversation between what remains and what’s been lost.  “They may seem silly, but then they become special. They accompany the works for me. They bring a physical, human touch because somebody had them before.” For Alexandra, exhibiting her work is about finding connection: “I think this is what we all want.” The works, she notes, represent different emotional states, her brushstrokes navigating the space where humour and gravity meet. “I take things from myself, but I think there are a lot of universal things that people can connect to.”  The exhibition is on view October 10–19, 2025, at Doubble Space, a venue housed in a former gasworks with raw concrete walls and dramatic light, a setting both industrial and ghostly. “You have to embrace it as it is,” Alexandra says. She saw the space as a psychological ‘alley,’ a journey that starts airy and moves toward the heavier emotions, creating a sense of flow where visitors wander through different states of mind. The works, she explains, act “like windows, looking into people’s different situations.” To complete the experience, a forty-five-minute sound composition threads through the exhibition, made with her friend Danilo Colonna for their music project, Private Parts. “I wanted to create a gathering place, a moment of joy,” she says.  Born in 1988 in Kyiv, Karpilovski says she doesn’t remember drawing much as a child, but recalls a defining moment at seventeen when she saw Marie-Louise Ekman’s Hello, Baby, a work that sparked something in her. She later studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and spent several years abroad. Now, returning to Stockholm feels like a homecoming after years of movement.  Alexandra’s wish for those who see Howling to My Window and Knocking at My Door is simple: “I hope they leave with a sense of openness – to feel more, relax and loosen up. And maybe they might go on their own journey within themselves.” Recreating spaces, stages and scenes.  Through shifting states, we walk this way, where lines will blur and drift away.
Where in meets out, and ends begin, where dreams and choices lie within. There’s clarity, a trace of might, 
Long sleepless hours before the light. 
We watch, we walk, we let things go, we dare, we reach, we let it show Alone is where we once were two 
Just for a moment — something true. Alexandra Karpilovski

The Art of Resistance: A Conversation with Carouschka Streijffert For over five decades, artist Carouschka Streijffert has made her mark within the Swedish art scene, working at the intersection of sculpture, architecture and scenography. In a world saturated with the new and the digital, Streijffert’s practice is a testament to the poetry of the discarded. She does not simply reuse materials; she listens to their history, taming cast-off fragments of metal, wood, and paper into objects, giving them new meaning. As Drivkraftens seger över motståndet (The Victory of Urge over Resistance) opens at RAVINEN Kulturhus, we talked to an artist for whom creation is a vital, almost philosophical act. The exhibition is titled “The Victory of Urge over Resistance.” What does “resistance” mean to you in your creative process? Is it a physical property of the materials, a mental state, or both?It is in the psychological resistance that creativity arises. It is in the friction, in the complexity, that the work grows, takes shape, is born, and comes into being. To eliminate resistance is to embrace laziness, and then the result becomes polite and empty. To create is presence – a driving force that shows direction. You are alive. You exist. For over five decades, your work has centred on reclaimed and found objects. What is the “call” you feel from a discarded piece of metal, wood, or paper? What makes you know an object has a place in your art?The world is flooded with used-up material, and it’s hard to ignore. I choose to see the possibilities in the discarded, details of beauty, regardless of the material’s properties. My aesthetic brings together the fragments, a dialogue between the hand and the gaze. The feeling of holding and weighing the discarded in my hands, of not wasting matter already charged with obscure experiences. I tame and shape the cast-off into an existence in the present. A collage. A sculptural object. The passion reflects my feelings, experiences, and memories. Portrait taken by Thoron Ullberg Your practice spans art, architecture, and scenography. How does your thinking about space and environment influence the individual objects you create, and vice versa?I create for the person who inhabits the spatial environment. It’s about proportions, the individual in the space. What is the room going to be used for? Here, function is the guiding factor. The financial framework, the size of the surfaces, and the amount of light entering. Is it a permanent room? A temporary room? A scenographic design has the task of framing or enhancing a drama. Scenography is meant to help the actor in the performance and give the viewer, the audience, a visual enhancement. Here, there are no boundaries. Architecture is a form of mathematics, logical analysis. The building, its function, reflects the volume of the rooms and how they interact with each other. The façade and the interior are in dialogue. The visual and functional expression of the materials should strengthen the human presence in the architectural space. Your work is described as both “raw” and “precise.” How do you balance intuitive, raw expression with the technical skill and precision of a craftsperson?A determined skill of interaction between my hands and a sharp eye. The visual must constantly speak to me. Analogue work has been performed by humanity since our beginnings. That talent must not be destroyed or erased. Intuition and skill arise and are maintained through constant practice, and then the difficult becomes a certainty of precision. The simple, bare, and obvious can be interpreted as rawness. Something that is not hidden or disguised by external cosmetics is automatically natural beauty, a form of truth that speaks to us. Much of your work feels like a preservation of memory and history. Do you see yourself as an archivist of sorts, giving a new life to the fragments of our time?Humour and playfulness are constantly connected to the seriousness of my artistry. Valuation and selection are continuously applied in my search for why and how to transform the urban waste into a new existence. This pursuit and stewardship are similar to an archivist’s logical sorting of the past. I house my finds in self-built archives, with a structure based on the qualities, colours, and properties of the materials. It is in these collections that I can repeatedly pick and replenish from the treasure trove of lost and found objects, year after year. The creation is endless. It becomes my own decay that will eventually bring a brutal end to the creativity of documentation. In an age of mass production and digital saturation, why do you believe your analogue, hands-on approach feels so relevant and urgent to contemporary audiences?The movements of the hand, the tempo, create reflection, not nostalgia, but trust. Craftsmanship requires time, a tactile substance. Not like our world’s clicking in front of glaring screens, where we are bombarded and slip off the rapid-fire impressions we rarely can avoid. This makes us blind and deaf to actual reality. Mass production and endless online shopping of unnecessary products will deteriorate our mental health and the Earth’s resources. Thousands of massive cargo ships float daily in our oceans, filled to the brim with newly manufactured “trash.” Why? Humanity has forgotten that the hand is our best tool. Working analogue today is not a retreat but a direction forward.

Carsten Höller's "Stockholm Slides" invites you to a controlled fall from Moderna Museet text Natalia Muntean A new large-scale art installation transforming the facade of Moderna Museet is more than a slide. It is a physical exercise in surrendering control. “Stockholm Slides,” a pair of spiral slides by internationally renowned artist Carsten Höller, opened to the public last week. The artwork consists of two identical, mirror-image slides, each 39 meters long, allowing two people to ride simultaneously in what the artist describes as a “mirrored choreography.” But for Höller, the core of the experience lies in the psychological state it induces. “In a slide, you must give up everything to do with your own control.” Höller elaborates on the unique tension of the ride: “You know exactly what is going to happen. There is no surprise… But you cannot do anything during the process between the beginning and the end.” This regulated loss of control is, for the artist, the source of a powerful and contradictory sensation, finding this duality fascinating, placing the rider “on two extremes simultaneously. You have hard joy and fear.” When asked if the work, a literal controlled fall, relates to the contemporary feeling of political or environmental free-fall, Höller acknowledged the metaphor while also emphasising the openness of art. “It’s an artwork, which means we cannot say it means this or that. It means many things. And I think that’s the great thing about art, that it’s not just one thing, but many, many, many things.” This perspective aligns with Höller’s history of creating what he calls “influential environments” – installations designed to provoke specific states of mind like disorientation, doubt and exhilaration. “Stockholm Slides” invites visitors to physically release control, challenging the traditional passive museum visit, and exploring what it means to fall and to let go.

Gerdman Gallery Debuts with Johnny Höglund’s Digital Memories text Natalia Muntean “My hope is to contribute to Stockholm’s ever-growing gallery landscape by presenting artists of my own generation, both from across Sweden and internationally, working in a variety of media,” says Peter Gerdman, founder of the newly opened Gerdman Gallery in the heart of Stockholm. This clear vision defines the new space, which enters the scene with a collaborative and curatorial approach. “I want to grow alongside the artists I work with,” Gerdman explains, “so beyond the strength of their practice, it’s important that we share values and goals.” His strategy is both focused and expansive. “My approach is to look broadly, starting in Sweden, then across the Nordics, and more widely as the gallery develops.” While an artist’s career stage is a key factor, the final selection is ultimately a personal one. “It’s also a matter of taste,” Gerdman explains. “I follow my conviction in an artist’s practice, trusting that belief as the foundation for what is presented.” This philosophy is reflected in the gallery’s inaugural exhibition, “What is Gathered is Not Memory” by Johnny Höglund. Gerdman has been tracking Höglund’s artistic journey for some time, but it was the body of work showcased during Annual, Malmö Art Academy’s yearly exhibition, that ultimately convinced him. “I immediately sensed that his work would be ideal for the gallery’s first presentation. His practice not only stands strongly on its own, but also conveys the kind of visual vocabulary and conceptual qualities I want people to come to expect from Gerdman Gallery,” says Gerdman. Höglund’s paintings capture the anonymous, everyday moments frozen by our screens. In his hands, these fleeting digital fragments are metabolised through the slow, physical labour of oil painting on large-scale canvases. Höglund’s works are an invitation to challenge the speed of the scroll, inviting us to pause and reconsider what we gather and what we truly remember. Portrait taken by Hannes Östlund Natalia Muntean: The exhibition title suggests a difference between collecting information and creating memories. In your art, what do you collect and what becomes a true memory in your paintings? Johnny Höglund: I base my selection of images on the fact that they have, in some way, managed to capture my attention enough for me to take a screenshot. It can be anything to me; the content does not matter. It happens almost unconsciously. There is something in the image that appeals to me, but I don’t necessarily know what it is or understand when I begin working with it. For me, it’s not about preserving a specific image or memory, but about understanding why it appears in my feed, and, by extension, becomes part of an autobiographical narrative, without becoming a self-portrait in the traditional sense. NM: You slow things down when you paint, going from a quick digital move to a slower physical one. When does a small piece of a digital image stop being just a random part and become something that shows your personal touch? JH: I believe it does the minute the brush touches the canvas. At that moment, I’m fully invested in the image. The process beforehand is slow and takes several days. I build my own stretchers, then I put down two layers of glue, followed by three layers of gesso. Every layer needs a light sanding and time to dry. During this process, I’m already thinking of the image that I will be painting onto that canvas. But there’s still time to have second thoughts. Time to even discard the image and use another screenshot (because the image still needs to work as a painting). So I would say that from the first brush stroke onwards, that’s when my hand is present and the image becomes an extension of myself. NM: You use classic materials like linseed oil on canvas to show digital experiences. Is this a choice about lasting quality, or do the paints help show what digital images are like? JH: I think working with our hands is becoming increasingly more important. And to let the human hand show through in its work is so important. It has so much inherent feeling with all its so-called imperfections in contrast to the very clean and crisp digital image. A brush stroke can contain so much emotion in its simplicity. But painting is, above all, a way of processing. It is not about illustrating something that already exists, but about allowing something to take shape through doing. And once complete, the painting holds its ground in real space. It cannot be scrolled past. NM: You explore a “collective memory shaped by algorithms.” As an artist, are you trying to rebuild what was lost in the digital screenshot or make a new story through painting? JH: The collective memory of the screenshot. A collective memory which is shaped not only through what we save and send forward, but also through all those images we scroll by, which are pre-cognitively imprinted in our memories. I see this fragmented timeline as something more poetic than prosaic. Connected as autobiographical material shaped through the algorithm, and then processed by hand. The saved image is saved to our tangible reality. I place it back into the world on new terms, inviting the viewer to experience it through their whole body.   NM: The large scale of the works implies a physical, bodily engagement for both you and the viewer. How does this physical act push back against the feeling of just scrolling on a screen? JH: The scale of the paintings demands attention differently compared to that of the feed. You cannot scroll or swipe. You move around in the room as a viewer, not the image. With a painting of this size, the body has to adjust, to move closer or further away, to stand still for a longer moment. It creates a different temporality, one where the image doesn’t vanish but instead insists on staying with you. For me, this

Picasso’s female muses at Artipelag photography Jean-Baptiste Beranger This autumn, Artipelag presents The Muses Who Inspired and Challenged Picasso; a major exhibition highlighting eight women whose creativity and artistic vision deeply influenced one of the 20th century’s most significant artists, Pablo Picasso. Bringing together 150 works, the exhibition explores how these women; writers, dancers, photographers, and visual artists — not only inspired but also challenged Picasso throughout his career. From Gertrude Stein and Fernande Olivier during the early Cubist period, to Dora Maar and Lee Miller in the Surrealist era, and Françoise Gilot and Suzanne Ramié in his later years, the exhibition reveals the mutual artistic exchange that shaped Picasso’s evolving style. Spanning from early 20th-century Paris to the postwar years on the French Riviera, The Muses Who Inspired and Challenged Picasso sheds new light on the creative dialogue between Picasso and the women who helped define modern art. The exhibition is active at Artipelag from October 4, 2025, to February 8, 2026.

Barcelona Gallery Weekend Returns for its 11th Edition Written by Elsa Chagot Photo courtesy of Barcelona Gallery Weekend Barcelona Gallery Weekend is back from September 18 to 21, 2025, marking the start of the city’s art season. Organized by the ArtBarcelona. Galeries association, the event will feature exhibitions in 24 contemporary and modern art galleries; 22 in Barcelona and 2 in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, showcasing works by more than 50 artists from Spain and abroad. For the first time, the programme will include FLASH, a section of nine short-lived exhibitions running only during the four days of the event. Alongside the main exhibitions, visitors can enjoy a packed schedule of free activities, including guided tours, performances and other special gatherings. A key element of Barcelona Gallery Weekend is its Acquisitions Programme, which encourages companies, foundations, and private collectors to purchase works from participating galleries. By fostering new acquisitions, the initiative strengthens the local art market and supports the long-term sustainability of the cultural ecosystem. By connecting artists, collectors, institutions, and the public, Barcelona Gallery Weekend underscores the essential role of galleries as spaces for experimentation, knowledge, and cultural exchange. See more at https://www.barcelonagalleryweekend.com