Stockholm's Bonniers Konsthall Opens Anti-Fascist Art Show Two Weeks Before Swedish Election
A Stockholm art gallery has opened a group exhibition about anti-fascist resistance, landing the show two weeks before Sweden goes to the polls.
Bonniers Konsthall, on Torsgatan in central Stockholm, launched "The Defeated: The Aesthetics of Resistance 2026" on 28 August 2026. The exhibition runs until 8 November and features works by 19 international artists, including eight newly commissioned pieces, according to The Art Newspaper (The Art Newspaper).
Sweden's parliamentary election is scheduled for 13 September. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson's centre-right minority government, in power since 2022, has been backed by the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats party. The show opens into that political moment, though neither the gallery nor the curators are framing it as an electoral intervention.
The exhibition takes its title from two books by the Swedish-German artist, filmmaker and playwright Peter Weiss (1916–82): "The Defeated" (De besegrade), written in Swedish and published by the Bonniers publishing house in 1948, and "The Aesthetics of Resistance," written in German and published in three volumes between 1975 and 1981. An English translation of the latter was published by Duke University Press in 2005. Weiss opened "The Aesthetics of Resistance" with a meditation on the intrinsic relationship between art and violence (Bonniers Konsthall).
The exhibition was curated by Joanna Nordin, artistic director at Bonniers Konsthall, together with Stockholm-based researcher Kim West and French curator François Piron. The three drew on Weiss's novels as a theoretical framework for the show.
Among the new works, Ukrainian artist Kateryna Lysovenko presents a painting titled "Madness of Fascism" (2026), depicting a "fascist" family against a backdrop of human organs. Lebanese artist Ali Cherri shows "The Summoner, Grafting" (2026), a hybrid sculpture that melds an Italian stone fountain head with a headless Thai statuette torso. A textile piece by Hamedine Kane and Valérie Osouf references Théodore Géricault's 19th-century painting "Raft of the Medusa" (The Art Newspaper).
A companion book to the exhibition features previously unavailable texts by Peter Weiss and Gunilla Palmstierna-Weiss, alongside newly written contributions by Weiss scholars (Bonniers Konsthall). The programme also includes a stage performance, "The Defeated – Testimonies," scheduled for 12 September — the day before the election — and a city walk titled "In the Footsteps of Peter Weiss" on 19 September, moving through neighbourhoods associated with Stockholm's labour movement and student revolt (Bonniers Konsthall).
Bonniers Konsthall, located at Torsgatan 19, is open Wednesday 12:00–20:00 and Thursday to Sunday 12:00–18:00, closed Monday and Tuesday. Regular admission is 130 SEK, with a reduced price of 100 SEK for students and pensioners. Entry is free for members, visitors under 26 and job seekers, and free for everyone on Fridays (Bonniers Konsthall).
What gives the show its bite is the timing. A gallery staging an exhibition about anti-fascist resistance in the final stretch of an election campaign in which a right-wing populist party holds leverage over government policy is a deliberate gesture, even if the curators let the art and Weiss's texts carry the argument rather than stating it themselves.
