Iiu Susiraja, Zoo, 2021 Photo: Tobias Fischer/Moderna Museet © Iiu Susiraja
The Art of Collecting
Expanding the Moderna Museet Collection
11.10 2025 – 9.5 2027
Stockholm
The collection
Moderna Museet has one of Europe’s foremost collections of international modern and contemporary art. Over the past five years, over 2,000 artworks have been added to the collection. Around 40 of them – paintings, installations, video works and sculptures – are presented in “The Art of Collecting – Expanding the Moderna Museet Collection”.
The exhibition also raises questions about different ways of collecting art. Who decides what is purchased and why? Which artists, movements and stories are highlighted?
Growing in new directions
The artworks and oeuvres in “The Art of Collecting” show how the Moderna Museet Collection is growing in new directions with more voices and different perspectives. Among them are Outi Pieskis’ textile installation “Beavvit II” (2021), which evokes the changes in the sky and is inspired by duodji – the Sámi aesthetic practice that has both a functional and a spiritual dimension, and Hans Haacke’s “The Road to Profit Is Paved with Culture” (1976), a montage that critically examines cultural sponsorship as a strategy for strengthening brands.
The exhibition also features Anna Odell’s acclaimed video installation “Unknown, Woman 2009–34970”, which depicts forced psychiatric care in Sweden through a staging. In addition, artists such as Peter Geschwind, Deana Lawson, Jockum Nordström, Rose B. Simpson and Iiu Susiraja will participate.
AUDIO GUIDE: FROM ACQUISITION TO EXHIBITION
Meet the people behind the work of acquiring, preserving, and sharing the Swedish people’s collection of modern and contemporary art. In the audio guide, curators, conservators, technicians, and museum hosts describe how an artwork becomes part of the collection and reaches its audience.
Listen here: Audio Guide – The Art of Collecting
The Moderna Museet Collection in numbers
The Moderna Museet Collection currently comprises around 6,000 paintings, sculptures and installations, approximately 25,000 watercolours, drawings and graphic sheets, 400 art videos and films and approximately 100,000 photographs.
Recent new acquisitions
In the past five years, the museum has acquired 2,084 artworks, between August 2020 and August 2025. 1,676 of them are created by Swedish artists and 408 by artists from other countries.
373 of the works were purchased through the additional allocation by the government in 2021 of 25 million kronor for the purchase of art with the aim of supporting the Swedish art scene during the Corona pandemic.
Bildupphovsrätt 2025
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Agnes Scherer, Anna Odell, Ayan Farah, Chéri Samba, Christian Bendayán, Curt Asker, D Harding, Deana Lawson, Diana Agunbiade-Kolawole, Felipe Baeza, Filip Vest, Gideonsson/Londré, Henry Taylor, Hans Haacke, Ibrahim Elkarim, Iiu Susiraja, Inuuteq Storch, Jann Haworth, Jockum Nordström, Julie Mehretu, Kultivator, Leif Engström, Louise Bonnet, Lucas Arruda, Maj-Lis Andersen, Marina Rheingantz, Maurizio Cattelan, Kent Klich, Mohammed Sami, Outi Pieski, Peter Geschwind, Rose B. Simpson, Rose-Marie Huuva, Sofia Salazar Rosales, Tora Schultz, Vanja Sandell Billström, Wardell Milan, Åke Törner.
Curator: Asrin Haidari, Moderna Museet
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