Logic of Happenstance and Now

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MFA Graduation Show 2026 Kungliga Konsthögskolan/Royal Institute of Art

Konstakademien, Stockholm May 22–June 14, 2026

It’s been over fifteen years of seeing the Master degree exhibitions of Kungliga Konsthögskolan, in colloquial terms Mejan. A constructed adjective that sometimes has been used to address it is “Palais de Tokyo”. Hyperbolic as it is, and it really is, it means the shows have often shown art that suggests a belonging in curated institutional and museum contexts far away from art school premises. The mid 2010s in particular at this very favourite institution was marked by curatorially porous and idea-rich quirky group exhibitions that would have included art in the vein of Philippe Parreno’s inflatable and helium-filled fish balloons. Passing a deflated readymade balloon by Kristina Nenzén is literally the first thing that catches my eye, which feels like postscriptum of an ironic genre of art that barely exists in this exhibition beyond this point.

In part, The Royal Institute of Art’s MFA degree show this year is so ravishing that its best parts (its best parts, nota bene) make it arguably one of the very best since 2017. A year that spawned stars like Theresa Traore Dahlberg, Petra Hultman, Inez Jönsson, Diana Agunbiade-Kolawole and Oskar Hult. A near decade-long loop closes with the latter now a faculty member on the exhibition alongside the school’s exhibition producer, Silvia Thomackenstein.

There’s no dull moment to be found. What in other hands could have passed as such is instead vested with more urgency through the close kinships that the curators emphasize and “explore” rather than tuck in as awkward fringes. That’s where the artistic conviction shows, from both the artists and curators. It prompts the feeling of themes exercised by some together, so that almost no one is left behind as an odd one out. Credit where due, credit nonetheless a little more elusive where not. Some rooms are beautifully curated. So on the money and precise, a sight to behold. Some rooms are less successful in the curation but held up by the strength of the art. Last year’s show was so vested in art as a proposition, possibly in a self-indulgent manner. This year’s exhibition, in contrast, is grounded in temporal (rural and medieval) and material romance. Stepping away from that: Linnéa Cramer, whose taut graduate solo based on video resonated with modesty, here finds in the group show its full expression and potential with an otherworldly air while springing merely from the biospherical mundane. The joint audiovisual interfacing between her and Hamida (goes by first name alone) is arresting, managing the considerably rare feat of a space you want to stay inside “forever”.

David Permén shows what hasn’t just been absent at both Konstfack and the Royal Institute of Art in the years we’ve been going to the shows, but also what seems invisible in institutions and museums in Stockholm: colour-saturated, mise-en-scène-style photography grounded in shrewd humour and/or composition, in the manner of artists like Torbjørn Rødland and Buck Ellison, depicting a heightened social reality. A waiter of presumable descent and ethnicity serves the lens, with a deadpan expression, a bottle of Inca Kola, in what appears an upscale swanky restaurant setting.

At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, past jury president Cate Blanchett addressed that it was a sad state of affairs that film festivals have suddenly become the place where geopolitical conflicts can openly be talked about, prefaced by the mounting pressures on actors and directors to speak up in these avenues. The MFA show of Mejan in parts shares “feels” with John Skoog’s current and noted film Värn (concurrent with a tie-in exhibition at Moderna Museet Malmö), where one village member takes it upon himself to mobilize for the community ahead of a feared and imminent invasion. More than one work alludes to transcending a moment through mobilization, collective grouping, and otherworldly or divine intervention.

Ebba Birkflo’s ornamented ecclesiastical stained-glass window, informing the Swedish words for "compass to the sun" in its title, is installed to be a quietly sublime and showstopping moment in the exhibition. Adjacent and in dialogue, Tilde Björk’s sculptural ensemble Outside its Group sees arms in suspended motion arrowing altogether upwards like antennas to the sky. The “feline” anthropomorphic duo with faint Barbara Hepworth vibes by Niklas Breimert in the same room is a real charmer and smile-inducer. Heavy artillery without being anal. His Procession is part of a group of works that, with varying degrees of subtlety, one way or another respond to the moment we are living in.

Chance, happenstance and speculative outcome appear like an evident arc in the exhibition, visible chez Joar Torbinsson and Behzad Dehno, both of whom draw from card deck iconography. Dehno also boxes in lottery as notion. Joar Torbiörnsson's architectural audiovisual install, inviting the eye inside a looking cabinet which appears modelled after the galleries where it's presented, shows a card deck on rotation, while jamming the eurotrash/eurodance rendition of Bryan Adams' Heaven by DJ Sammy and Yanou (circa early 2000s). Not so unexpectedly, the reading becomes that of a wry, tongue-in-cheek "spit" on what the artist might make of the future of each one in this gifted class, all of whom, in a sense, have been born into the school with a promise of future grandeur. But we know the actual success rate of a graduating class is the derivation of a number of concurrent factors, of which success talent is one, and far less comfortable ones are marketability and cool currency. His adjacent works, muted, fading object-paintings of deck cards, have just that sexy appeal in contrast to their visually understated disposition, which exudes future avenues to success.

Freddy Houndekindo, whose MFA solo exhibition at Galleri Mejan brought forth a spatial setting in which readymade fixtures and iconography from wrestling and BJJ mat rooms were incorporated, has collaborated with the BA’27 Dance cohort at Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH). Together with the class, he is presenting the in situ performance TRIBE, engaging the audience gaze through combat sport-oriented choreography. At the time of writing this review, I have yet to see it, but it is generously performed several times throughout the exhibition period, which runs through June 4 (Tue, Thu, Fri, Sat 12–3:30 PM; Wed 3–4 PM and 5:30–6:30 PM). Having recently seen this cohort at MDT in collaboration with fellow artist and choreographer BamBamFrost, it will be nice to see them in action again. This overlap between contemporary art and contemporary dance and choreography is a healthy and exciting tendency that is increasingly anchoring itself in Stockholm's institutional terrain, breaking art out of its insularity. Moreover, the overlap between contemporary art and sport is something that has long concerned our team. You could even say we were ahead of the curve with sport-themed exhibitions and programmes (even an issue in print). As such, Houndekindo’s work has been the subject of keen observation over the past year (full disclosure: I also served as external examiner for his MFA solo at school). It is a compelling and thought-provoking idea that practising close-contact combat sports both affirms and “rejects” stereotypes of heteronormative masculinity.

As a closing note, painting is particularly potent and accomplished throughout the exhibition by painters like Simon Dahlgren Strååt, Hanna Tordai, Vinicius dos Santos, Sofia Andersson and Elin Woksepp Åleheim. It’s been a long time since graduating painters in the MFA spring show felt so much like a wing acting in unison. Ashik Zaman