Market Art Fair 2026
- C-print
- Apr 24
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 25
April 24 – 26, 2026
Magasin 9, Stockholm
This year somewhat quietly marks the 20th anniversary of this grande dame of Nordic art fairs—an event of the annual art calendar with which we’ve had a long-standing relationship, dating back to its time at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where the fair still is anchored with its HQ. Coincidentally, the other fair in town - the artist-run Supermarket Art Fair - is also again for the first time in a few years concurrently taking place this week, but on the other side of town. The former emblematically closer to the wealth epicenter of Östermalm and the latter along the southern and more cultural-lefty side of town. While comparing the two is something of an apples-and-pears exercise, given their different scopes, the scheduling overlap likely will divide the local audience, particularly during an already busy and ever-expanding Stockholm Art Week (SAW) umbrella, which a certain influential cultural editor was noting remains a vague abstraction, in terms of the what, why, and who of SAW.
This year’s Market Art Fair, newly relocated to the port and harbor in Frihamnen from its old homes at Liljevalchs and the Royal Academy of Art, was bound to benefit from the excitement of novelty alone. For Market, this marks not only a geographic shift but an architectural one, likely refreshing for insiders and a welcome injection of change. Whether the new location will draw a more sizable visitor turnout beyond the expected circuit over the next few days remains to be seen. Even from the closest public transport stop, the walk is longer than most would prefer, surely the organizers as well, with Magasin 9, the warehouse farthest away, requiring an extra stretch. The area has never felt more off the beaten path since the contemporary art museum Magasin 3 abruptly shocked with its discreet curtain call. Arriving early, already on Tuesday, there was however a moment of, “Wow, Frieze on Randall’s Island 2014. This is going to be serving elegance.” Or, as Awkwafina put it about the fair that year, before censoring herself on Instagram. The gist being a convention of white girls who look like Charlotte from Sex and the City. Elegant and lofty it is.
The fair does not reveal gaps in production value and is composed and pleasantly demure, suspending any urge toward “crazy follies.” A surprise (or not surprise) will soon be that more bold themes like the erotification and materialization of aggression and violence are almost only detectable at the booth of new transplant in town: Gerdman Gallery. Sigrid Soomus’s sculptures that exude subjugation by force and violence capital gel well with Johnny Höglund’s painterly display of eight small-scale canvases, which appear like an animated fragmentation of the moods and modes of the zeitgeist.
An absolute favorite moment is caught almost in a second, with a pitch-perfect display of Fredrik Værslev’s paintings and tiled tub sculptures tied together by an offbeat palette, over at Carl Kostyál. It's a standout presentation in an otherwise painting-heavy fair, marking the artist’s return to the local scene. On the right side of the entrance, Oslo-based Galleri Riis too brings forth a booth that breathes institutional gravitas, juxtaposing the visual vocabulary (literally) of erudite artist Lisa Tan alongside the materially erudite Norwegian artist Marte Johnslien. A commendable approach, joining two singular and distinctly different conceptual artists in a booth, based on visual whiffs and puffs of possible optical “kinship.” Unions can be exciting without the rationales for a pairing always having to be so layered and intense.
One of the galleries from outside the region, Anthony Wilkinson (UK), sits next door with a presentation that could easily have been mistaken for Riis’s. At Wilkinson, James White’s hyperrealist black-and-white paintings framed elegantly in perspex boxes, with elements of aluminium and exposed paneling, leave their distinct mark; echoing England, as noted by a friend who spent a significant upbringing there.
Many galleries have chosen to play it safe. Word around the first preview day was that works were still not necessarily flying off the racks. The emphasis on tightly and neated curated presentations is welcome, as seen at Stockholm-based Belenius, which presents a delightful floral bonanza of a booth, where botanical artist Mirja Bozarth Fornell has been invited to work her magic alongside internationally renowned artists Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, Sally J. Han, and Isabella Ducrot.
In the lead-up to the fair, we’ve had our eye on a number of emerging Danish galleries that in a Nordic context is currently leading the new brat pack. Among this year’s roster, aaaa nordhavn and palace enterprise each deliver strong presentations. The former with a solo booth by Swedish artist Albin Werle, and the latter with a tightly curated group exhibition in which Simon Møller Dybroe and 2021 graduate of the Royal Institute of Art Tora Schultz stand out. Schultz presents a continuation of her cheeky wooden Pinocchio strap-on series, alongside two colored, linoleum cylindrical sculptures that recall her 2021 solo show at Bizarro in Copenhagen.
Ephemeral art; we love soap as an artistic material, with its tactile decay, malleability, and bodily allusions. Miroslaw Balka’s work with Galerie Nordenhake might come across, optically, as a visual photo op at the fair, but beauty is a device that allows the observer to step into more affective layers to be absorbed. Consider both the more evident and the less symbolic traces of soap in rituals and historical accounts of life and death. For Balka, the interest in soap as a catalyst for thought connects to the Holocaust. As does his pairing with Swedish abstract painter Ann Edholm, whose visual echoes with the late Carmen Herrera (who at 101 had her long overdue big moment at the Whitney Museum in 2016) seem sometimes curiously unaddressed.
By the time of this text’s publishing, local dailies, art press, and evening papers have already dispensed their two cents’ worth. The takeaways: this fair, nor any high-brow international fair, is anywhere near the doorstep of being decolonized; toss stones and you will find. Others seem to have strategically waited to roll out their takes only to be able Gen Z-style to dismiss others with “It’s not that deep, chill.” We are not among those who will call the fair stagnant, not this time - so credit where it is due. We leave the site in style, hopping into one of the artist duo Inka & Niclas’s commissioned BMWs, and head back to shore, although in Carrie Bradshaw style we can’t help but wonder: will those not afforded the same luxury find their way out as easily?
Ashik and Koshik Zaman