Art, Artier, The Artiest

Alida Ivanov
18/02/2013

The platform Stockholm Art Week is launched for the first time this year and is the fruit of a sequence of art events always concentrated in specific period in February, spanning across the last 8 years.

In 2006, MARKET Art Fair opened its doors for the first time as an initiative from several of the commercial galleries looking to create a fair of international standard in central Stockholm that would focus on Swedish and Nordic galleries. It has grown to arguably one of the more important fairs for the Nordic countries. The fair doesn’t grow extensively in size due to the limited space at Konstakademin (The Art Academy), but instead it grows in concepts. These are more or less directly borrowed from Basel Art Fair and are named MARKET at Large, MARKET XL, and MARKET Emerging.

This year MARKET Emerging consists of more galleries than ever, and the focus of the fair in many ways: AnnaElleGallery (SE), Cecilia Hillström Gallery (SE), Galleri Anna Thulin (SE), Gallery Steinsland Berliner (SE), Henningsen Gallery (DK), and Kant Gallery (DK). They are all situated on the fourth floor of the building, which is the first time that the fair is held higher up in the house. It’s a way dividing Emerging from the regular fair, which is both good and bad.

The overall view of the fair is somewhat scattered. MARKET XL with artist Alyson Shotz at Galleri Andersson Sandström, and MARKET At Large represented by Angelika Knäpper Gallery (SE) artists Ride 1 (Ronny A Hansson, Jonas Kjellgren och Stig Sjölund), Cecilia Hillström Gallery’s (SE) Matthias van Arkel, Kant Gallery (DK) with Lars Breuer, Nordin Gallery (SE) with Anders Krisár add to the feeling of scatteredness and detachment in the fair.

The galleries on the other hand try to lessen the sensation of this by focusing on solo shows of artists. Uta Barth at Andréhn-Schiptjenko (SE), Christine Ödlund at Galleri Riis (SE, NO), Sofia Hultén at Nordenhake (SE, DE), Linda Bäckström at Wetterling Gallery (SE), Erno Enkenberg at Galleria Heino (FI), Matthew Benedict at Stene Projects (SE), Ragnar Persson at Gallery Steinsland Berliner, David Molander at Cecilia Hillström Gallery, Lea Porsager at Henningsen Gallery. In a way, this becomes method of turning the booth into an exhibition. It is very limiting for the galleries with a creative standard to confine themselves to stalls.

Alyson Shotz Gallerie. Andersson Sandström. Market XL

Andrehn Schiptjenko

Galerie Forsblom

Lars Breuer. Kant Gallery. Market at Large

Nordenhake

Nordin Gallery

Steinsland Berliner

The galleries behind the exhibition Monopoly had an idea to not confine to the system of the art fair. The name for the show is taken from the game and is inspired by its location on Norrmalmstorg, which is the most expensive street in the Swedish version of the game. Monopoly is held in a former bank and is organized by five galleries: Christian Andersen (Copenhagen) Gallery Niklas Belenius (Stockholm), Johan Berggren Gallery (Malmö) Crystal (Stockholm), and Elastic Gallery (Malmö). They all have previously taken part of MARKET, but this year they decided to make a curated exhibition instead. Merging the different artists from each gallery creates a creative breathing space in between all the fairs. The exhibition consists of new installations, paintings and videos from artists Dave Allen, Willem Andersson, Alfred Boman, Mihuț Boșcu, Luca Frei, Goldin+Senneby, Johanna Gustafsson Fürst, Maria Hedlund, Lars TCF Holdhus, Yngve Holen, Institutt for Degenerert Kunst, Camilla Løw, Per Mårtensson, Karl Norin, Rolf Nowotny, Pind, Evan Roth, Astrid Svangren. Curator is Beata von Oelreich, curator and scenography by Albert France-Lanord.

SUPERMARKET is the fair for artist-driven galleries and spaces, roughly said. It started off as a humble reaction to MARKET in the form of MINIMARKET in 2006. The fair has grown into its present form and consists this year of 87 galleries from thirty or so countries. It takes up two floors at Kulturhuset (The Cultural House) in Central Stockholm. There are many strong aspects to this fair and its international flair is one of them. The weaker parts of it boil down to an ambiguous selection process. SUPERMARKET grows according to the rate of eligible applicants, which is anything that is artist-driven. The atmosphere is homey and fun, despite the size of the fair.

SUPERMARKET starts already outside of the building at Sergels Torg with a large inflated, black arm, Oscillating absence by Paola Urbano.

Inside the space we are met by a multitude of expressions from galleries, artist spaces, magazines, and organizations. Some galleries use the space for a solo show, Kings ARI (AU) with Johanna Nordin, and Superclub Gallery (UK) with Arvid Wretman.

Other spaces use social experiments Totaldobze (LV), a show on perception of art, Kultivator (SE) an environmental analysis, M()seum (DE) show lost human history, The Museum of Forgetting (SE), a nomadic project about critical reflection.

Magazines have booths next to galleries: Cora (SE), Hjärnstorm (SE), Mondo Tromsö (NO).

Ars Auttoinen

Kings Ari

Microwesten

Nest

Tegen 2

Totaldobze