Since the era of Edvard Munch back in the 19th century when the Scandinavian countries started to develop an art scene of their own region, up to the current Danish star Olafur Eliasson, Scandinavian art is gaining its position in the global arena. Behind the growing art scene are numerous women, from gallerists and artists to curators and art fair directors, who are not only defining the art scene locally, but are also promoting art from the region globally through their various spheres of influence. Here we list some of them for your inspiration:
Photo credit: Roberto Chamorro and Elizabeth Toll
Saskia Neuman
Director and CEO of Market Art Fair, a fair at “the heart of the Nordic art industry” in Stockholm. She previously worked as a writer.
Photo credit: Amir Kuckovic
Nanna Hjortenberg
Nanna Hjortenbergis the new director of CHART a contemporary art and design of Nordic art fair in Copenhagen.
Photo credit: Maria Bordorff
Marina Schiptjenko
Owner and director of one Sweden’s leading galleries — Gallery Andréhn-Schiptjenko. The gallery just opened a space in Paris in le Marais.
Photo credit: Christofer Dracke (Instagram)
Charlotte Lund
Founder of Galleri Charlotte Lund in Stockholm which she ran for 25 years. After the gallery closed in September of last year Lund became an art advisor specialising on the Swedish market.
Photo via @fanny.augusta
Fanny Christoffersen
Avlskarl gallery manager in Copenhagen. The gallery represents some of the most stirring contemporary Nordic artists.
Photo credit: Ricard Estay/Statens konstråd
Magdalena Malm
Director of the Public Art Agency Sweden, where she works to develop contemporary art in relation with public spaces. Previously, she founded Mobile Art Production and curated exhibitions at Venice Art Biennale and Modern Museet (Stockholm).
Photo credit: Patrick Miller
Sara Arrhenius
Curator, writer and critic, she founded NU – the Nordic Art Review – and is editor-in-chief of Art Magazine Index. She was director of the Bonniers Konsthall, now she is Vice Chancellor of the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm.
Photo credit: Morton Uglum
Karin Hindsbo
Director of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, she was director of KODE in Bergen and Sørlandets Kunstmuseum. Previously, was an artistic director of Kunsthal Aarhus.
Photo credit: Thomas Cato
Caroline Bøge
Director of 2112 Art Advisory and head art advisor of this year`s inaugural Enter art fair, she worked for Galleri Nils Stærk in Denmark. One of her goals is to “introduce my clients to art and artists they would most likely not come across otherwise and through that help to expand their cultural horizon“.
Photo credit: Evy Nickström
Niki Matheson
CEO and director of Korjaamo Culture Factory in Helsinki one of the largest and most exciting centres of art in Scandinavia.
Photo credit: Cathrine Ertmann
Gitte Ørskou
Ørskou will start her tenure as director of Moderna Museet in September 2019. She was chair of the Danish Arts Foundation and she was head curator at ARoS Aarhus Art Museum.
Photo credit: Ingeborg Øien Thorsland (with curator of MOMENTUM 10 Marti Manen)
Anne Klontz
Assistant Curator for MOMENTUM10 (the Biennale of Contemporary Art). She is also head of exhibitions at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design.
Arja Miller
Miller is chief curator of Exhibitions at EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art. She developed interesting projects while at Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, where she also was chief curator.
Photo credit: Hanna Lidén
Klara Lidén
Lidén is perhaps one the most well established Swedish artists. She is currently based in New York and Berlin, her work explores the urban as sites of physical and psychological exploration. She questions our divisions of private and public through her installations.
Photo credit: Anna Ledin Wirén
Åsa Cederqvist
Cederqvist works with installation, film, performance, and sculpture. Her installation “Mama, dada, gaga” at “Momentum10: The Emotional Exhibition” (Nordic Biennale), hints at the brilliancy of the artist.
Photo credit: Vassilis Karidis for Kinfolk
Lap-See Lam
She was recently part of the group exhibition Metamorphosis. Art in Europe Now at Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain. As a Swedish-Cantonese artist she explores issues of heritage in her works and looks beyond the normal paradigms of space.
Photo credit: Ben A. Pruchnie/Getty Images for Blain Southern
Ida Ekblad
Based in Berlin this Norwegian artist creates vibrant and energetic multidisciplinary works – sculpture, painting, music and poetry are just some of mediums she mixes and uses.
Photo credit: Arvida Byström Instagram
Arvida Byström
This model turned to art to question the role of photography and the objectification of women. Her work clearly has in its foundation a relationship with the fashion industry but she turns it around with surprising elements of reality – be that body hair or highly stylised and contorted body poses.
Christiane Spangsberg
Spangsberg is a self-taught emerging artist, her simple-clean and elegant line work has been feature in Vogue and over the couple of years her work as been shown in London, Paris, New York and Copenhagen
