Gallery 01:8
THE ART OF COLLECTING – EXPANDING THE MODERNA MUSEET COLLECTION
Moderna Museet is more than just a place to display art – it is also a place art history is shaped. As a state institution, the museum has a mandate to collect, preserve, and share 20th- and 21st-century art in all its forms. Each work acquired or donated becomes part of the Moderna Museet Collection, and thus part of a narrative that today’s visitors and future generations are invited to explore. This exhibition presents a small selection of the almost two thousand pieces that have entered the museum’s collection over the last five years. It consists of art from Sweden and around the world that in various ways complement and challenge the perspectives that already exist here.
In this space, the many expressions of art come together, from painting and photography to works made of sealskin, mirror glass, beads, sun-bleached cotton fabric, glazed tiles, leaves, and moss − alongside videos and installations. One work depicts involuntary psychiatric care, another hints at the changing colours of the sky through a sphere of shawl fringes, and a third examines the mechanisms of cultural sponsorship. Some of the works address sore points in society, while others draw on the absurdity of everyday life or tug at the threads of history. Additional works use abstraction to grapple with reality or explore how time, light and sound can manipulate our perception.
Behind every work that enters the collection lies a hidden process: a chain of discussions and decisions, of practical and logistical challenges. The museum’s staff, including curators, conservators, storekeepers, technicians, and others, each play a vital role in this process. From the curator’s initial considerations around an acquisition or donation, through the conservator’s analysis, to the final placement of the work in storage − all before it has even been seen by the public. Together, the exhibition creates a vivid picture of the museum’s work and of the ever-shifting landscape of art today.
