Exhibitions at Nationalmuseum 2020

Next year, Nationalmuseum will continue its extensive range of art and design exhibitions in the museum building on Blasieholmen in Stockholm. 2020 will commence with Inspiration – Iconic Works, an exhibition about artists who have been inspired by iconic masterpieces. This will be followed by an exhibition of the Nobel evening gowns created by Pär Engsheden for Sara Danius. In the summer, there will be a major exhibition in commemoration of Anders Zorn who died 100 years ago. The autumn exhibitions will be classic landscape paintings in Arcadia – a paradise lost  and an exhibition about the design collective Snowcrash.

Inspiration – Iconic Works
20 February – 17 May 2020

How have international contemporary artists been inspired by the classics of European art? And why is it these works, in particular, that have become known around the world? Inspiration – Iconic Works presents art that draws inspiration from iconic masterpieces, created by today’s contemporary artists. A selection of paintings, plaster sculptures, drawings, graphic prints and applied arts from Nationalmuseum's vast collections are displayed in dialogue with the contemporary art objects. The exhibition is a collaboration with Ateneum in Helsinki where it will be on show during the summer of 2020.

Pär Engsheden and Sara Danius’s gowns
26 March – 20 September 2020

Few contemporary fashion garments have attracted as much attention as the four evening gowns designed by Pär Engsheden and worn by Sara Danius, then permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, at the Nobel banquets in 2015-2018. The exhibition presents the creative process, the sources of inspiration and Engsheden’s close collaboration with Danius as these iconic gowns were created. The exhibition is produced in close collaboration with Pär Engsheden and Sara Danius and her family.

Zorn
11 June – 6 September 2020

2020 marks the 100-year anniversary of Anders Zorn’s death. Nationalmuseum is celebrating the occasion by showcasing Zorn’s oeuvre as a whole to the public. It will be the first major exhibition of his work in Sweden in many years, with some 150 pieces on display. The visitor will be able to follow Zorn’s career and artistic development in two main sections; the first showing the period 1878–1900 and the second consisting mainly of pieces from the latter part of Zorn’s life. The exhibition is a collaboration with Kunstmuseum Den Haag in the Netherlands, where it will be on show in the autumn of 2020.

Arcadia – a paradise lost
1 October 2020 – 10 January 2021

It is not only nature you see in the classical landscapes from 17th-century Italy and France. The paintings often contain narratives and symbols from fairy-tales, literature and philosophy. By rediscovering these stories, we gain an insight into a lost world, but we also encounter many similarities with our own era’s concerns about nature, climate and landscape. The exhibition includes more than 100 works, many on loan from international museums. It contains pieces by Claude Lorrain, Antoine Watteau, Salvator Rosa and Nicolas Poussin, among others.

Snowcrash
15 October 2020 – 21 February 2021

This exhibition is about the design collective Snowcrash, a couple of architects and designers in Helsinki who, together with other creative advisors, have created an idea laboratory for future-oriented design. They have linked technique and form, function and future and brought materials together in unusual and surprising ways which open up new possibilities for furniture, fittings and other objects. The exhibition is produced by Nationalmuseum using a concept by Gustaf Kjellin, independent curator and author, Stockholm and Ilkka Suppanen, architect and designer in Helsinki and one of the initiators of Snowcrash.

For more information
Hanna Tottmar, head of press, press@nationalmuseum.se, +46 (0)8 5195 4400