Press release -
Nationalmuseum, Moderna Museet and ArkDes will be closed until April 14
Due to the situation with the new coronavirus, Nationalmuseum, Moderna Museet in Stockholm and Malmö and ArkDes has decided to temporarily close. Moderna Museet and ArkDes, who share facilities in Stockholm, will be closed starting March 19 and Nationalmuseum will close starting March 20. Preliminarily, all three museums will remain closed until April 14.
All public activities such as lectures, public tours, school tours, workshop activities and booked group tours in the respective museums have already previously been cancelled. The restaurants in the museums will close as well. The exhibitions which are planned to open during this period will instead welcome visitors when the museums open again.
- It is not compatible to have a museum that is open in a time when we are encouraged to stay at home, says Gitte Ørskou, Museum director at Moderna Museet. So, as things stand right now, the Moderna Museet can no longer be a physically open public place. However, we see art as a place to gain perspective and comfort, and Moderna Museet will continue to evolve as a digital place where we can communicate art in different ways. We will open Moderna Museet as soon as possible and look forward to meeting our visitors again then.
The museums are closely following the developments and hope to welcome visitors again soon. Although the museums are closed they will continue their work, albeit in other forms.
- Museums create important platforms in today’s society. They are important to our identities, not least when society is facing major challenges. We are temporarily closing the museum building now, but we will continue working on building bridges from history to the present and accelerate the collections’ digital accessibility. Nationalmuseum is a museum for everyone - even when the doors are closed, says Susanna Pettersson, Director General at Nationalmuseum.
For more information
Hanna Tottmar, Head of press, press@nationalmuseum.se, +46 (0)8 5195 4400
Nationalmuseum is Sweden’s museum of art and design. The collections include paintings, sculpture, drawings and graphic art from the 16th century up to the beginning of the 20th century and the collection of applied art and design up to the present day. The museum building closed for renovation in 2013 and reopened in autumn 2018. During 2019 the museum had almost 850 000 visits.
