STOCKHOLM .- Bonniers Konsthall today unveiled its 2026 programme, marking two decades as one of the most cutting-edge destinations for contemporary art in the Nordic region. The announcement coincides with today’s opening of the major solo exhibition Ingela Ihrman: Nocturnal Games (11 March – 14 June). True to the vision of its founder, Jeanette Bonnier, the Stockholm-based institution continues its dual legacy: acting as a springboard for Swedish artists – evidenced by the international ascent of figures like Mamma Andersson and Lap-See Lam – while curating bold, global dialogues that address the most pressing debates of our time. To celebrate the 20th anniversary, a visual rebrand will reinforce the institution's forward-looking vision.

The anniversary year is anchored by two major exhibitions: a solo presentation by Swedish artist Ingela Ihrman and the international group exhibition The Defeated: The Aesthetics of Resistance 2026 (26 August – 8 November) curated in response to Peter Weiss's monumental three-volume novel, which examines anti-fascist resistance in Europe and the inseparability of art and political struggle. Complementing these highlights is the 40th anniversary of the Maria Bonnier Dahlin Foundation, a cornerstone of support for the next generation of Swedish artists. This grant scheme will reach a historic milestone in December 2026 with the presentation of its 100th and 101st grant recipients at Bonniers Konsthall (recipients to be announced in August).

A Legacy Forged in Memory & Support

Bonniers Konsthall originated from the Maria Bonnier Dahlin Foundation, founded by Jeanette Bonnier in memory of her daughter Maria, who died in a car accident at the age of 20 in 1985. During her studies at Columbia University in New York in the 80s, Maria socialised with artists at the epicentre of the SoHo art scene, including Kenny Scharf, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring. Haring later created the monumental painting For Maria (1985) in memory of his friend.

Since 1986, the Foundation has honoured Maria’s spirit by awarding an annual scholarship to recognise and support young Swedish artists. To date, 99 artists have received the grant, which includes a monetary prize of 100,000 SEK, an exhibition at Bonniers Konsthall, and the acquisition of a work for the Foundation’s collection.

This model has established Bonniers Konsthall as a vital incubator for Swedish talent, with a proven track record of promoting artists who have gone on to achieve significant international acclaim, such as Cecilia Edefalk (Grant Year: 1988), Karin Mamma Andersson (Grant Year: 1991), Gunnel Wåhlstrand (Grant Year: 2003), and recent Nordic Pavilion representative at the 2024 Venice Biennale, Lap-See Lam (Grant Year: 2017).

2026 Anniversary Programme Highlights

“Bonniers Konsthall has always been a place where we challenge the limits of what contemporary art can be, and what an art institution should be,” said Ellen Wettmark, Executive Director of Bonniers Konsthall. “As we mark our 20th anniversary and the 40th anniversary of the Maria Bonnier Dahlin Foundation, we are reinforcing our position as a dynamic, international voice for contemporary art from the Nordic region. The future of art is to dare champion what has not yet been formulated.” said Joanna Nordin, Artistic Director of Bonniers Konsthall.

Ingela Ihrman: Nocturnal Games | Spring 2026: 11 March – 14 June

Epitomising the Konsthall's commitment to artistic experimentation, this major solo exhibition features Swedish artist Ingela Ihrman. She represented the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2019, and has participated in group exhibitions at Wellcome Collection, London; Moderna Museet, Malmö; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; and A velvet ant, a flower and a bird, at Potter Museum, Melbourne (currently on view).

Curated by Caroline Malmström, Nocturnal Games transforms the Konsthall into a twilight world populated by large-scale sculpture, video, and performance that explores what it means to be a living, desiring body. Reflecting a practice characterised by a unique blend of serious ecological inquiry and play, we meet a number of characters handmade with basic craft techniques using simple and everyday, found, bought, or recycled materials.

In the newly produced Nocturnal Games, a furry and pink-gray privet hawk-moth zips across the floor, carefully constructed from cardboard and textile. In the video work The Fertile Crescent (2024), inspired by a Papphammar sketch, the artist carries a monumental ear of grain from the field to the sea. In August Moon (2025), a bat brews red juice from the summer's berry harvest in the stone cellar of a church. In an era balanced between technological hubris and apocalyptic despair, Ingela Ihrman formulates a longing to dare to venture to the dark corners and feelings that rest there, and allows us to touch them. "The reason why it is so pleasurable to partake of art or poetry, is precisely because it allows one to sink into one's own forbidden games and dreams for a little while," she says in the new book Ingela Ihrman: Queen of the Night, a first monograph on the artist, which will be published in conjunction with the exhibition.

The Defeated: The Aesthetics of Resistance | Autumn 2026: 26 August – 8 November

“We had to learn to see differently, to think differently, to resist differently”– Peter Weiss, The Aesthetics of Resistance (Bonniers, 1975)

Participating artists: Zbynek Baladran, Chiara Bugatti, Ali Cherri, Öyvind Fahlström, Harun Farocki, Ane Hjort Guttu, Hamedine Kane, Kateryna Lysovenko, Asier Mendizabal, Gunilla Palmstierna Weiss, Daniela Ortiz, Valerie Osouf, Christoffer Paues, Samuel Richter, Lenke Rothman, Lina Selander, Peter Weiss.

This timely, topical international group exhibition responds to the work of Swedish-German author, playwright, and artist Peter Weiss, taking its cue from two of his major works. Set up as a hybrid exhibition drawing together newly produced art works, with historical pieces, documents and artifacts, using the idea of the waking dream as a curatorial methodology, The Defeated: The Aesthetics of Resistance unfolds Peter Weiss’s The Aesthetics of Resistance (1975–1981), the monumental three-volume novel exploring the inextricable link between anti-fascist political resistance and art. Set between the late 1930s and 1945, it follows young working-class, anti-Nazi activists in Berlin, Spain, and exile, using art to inform their political struggle. The exhibition's title is borrowed from the novel The Defeated, which Weiss published with Bonniers Publishing House in 1948 and which depicted the world of ruins – seen by Weiss as a surreal nightmare landscape – that he encountered when he visited his former homeland after the end of the war.

The exhibition will be followed by an ambitious publication with newly produced texts as well as an international academic conference on the legacy of Peter Weiss. A programme of lectures, performances, film screenings, and conferences will begin in the Spring.

Curators: Kim West (researcher and critic, Stockholm), François Piron (curator, Paris) and Joanna Nordin (Bonniers Konsthall artistic director).

Publication: Magnus Bergh, Claudia Firth, Anna Hallberg, Esther Leslie, Sven Lütticken, Joanna Nordin, François Piron, Jacques Rancière, Werner Schmidt, Gustav Strandberg, Alberto Toscano, Kim West, Peter Weiss.

Maria Bonnier Dahlin Foundation grantees 2026 | December 2026 – February 2027

The 2026 grantees will be announced in August.