Anu Põder’s first solo exhibition opened in the prestigious Moderna Museet in Sweden

The Estonian artist Anu Põder’s first solo exhibition in Sweden opened in the Moderna Museet Malmö on Saturday, 24 October. The exhibition will move to the Moderna Museet Stockholm in the spring of 2027 and to the EMMA Art Museum in Finland in autumn 2028.

The display includes Anu Põder’s works from three decades. It offers viewers insights into the creative journey of the artist and showcases how her focus moved from dealing with bodily experiences to a critique of consumerism and capitalism. Anu Põder’s known legacy consists of approximately seventy works, and twenty of those, borrowed from the Art Museum of Estonia, the Tartu Art Museum and the Anu Põder Estate, are on display at the Moderna Museet. Five drawings from the Anu Põder Estate are being shown to the public for the first time.

“We are proud to present a major solo exhibition of Anu Põder’s work at the Moderna Museet Malmö, which will subsequently be shown at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Põder’s highly distinctive artistic language challenges conventional ideas of sculpture and opens up questions about memory and human experience. The exhibition highlights the depth and originality of her practice and contributes to the growing international recognition of her works,” said the curators Andreas Nilsson of the Moderna Museet Malmö, and Jo Widoff of the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Nilsson continued: “I first encountered Põder’s works in 2017 at Kumu, Art Museum of Estonia. I was struck by her use of everyday and often fragile materials to convey both the vulnerability and strength of the body. The tension between the personal and the universal in her sculptures made me want to explore her practice further and share it with a wider audience,” added Andreas Nilsson.

“Ever since the 2017 survey exhibition at Kumu, Anu Põder’s oeuvre has risen to international fame at various exhibitions: from the Venice Biennale in 2022 to the City of Paris Museum of Modern Art this summer. The cooperation with the Moderna Museet is a dignified continuation of this journey: it is one of the most significant art institutions in Scandinavia. We are grateful for their interest and partnership,” said Sirje Helme, Director General of the Art Museum of Estonia.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by the Moderna Museet, providing an overview of Anu Põder’s oeuvre. The catalogue was co-compiled by Anders Härm, a curator of the Kumu Art Museum. The catalogue also includes an overview by Ingrid Orman, a curator of the EMMA Art Museum, of the work of the conservators of the Art Museum of Estonia in creating the exhibition copy of Anu Põder’s work Tongues (1998). The first original of this work of soap belongs to the Art Museum of Estonia, and the second version was acquired in 2021 by the Tate Modern.

Anu Põder (1947–2013) was an Estonian sculptor and installation artist. She experimented with abstract forms and different materials from plaster and textile to light and smells. Her oeuvre was based on her personal experiences and the everyday environment. It was often time- and space-specific, highlighting the performative presence of the works and their deterioration.

The Moderna Museet, founded in 1958 in Stockholm, is the Swedish national museum of modern and contemporary art; the Moderna Museet Malmö was opened in 2009. Both locations have internationally prominent exhibition programmes.

The exhibition is open to the public in the second-floor galleries of the Moderna Museet Malmö from 24 October 2026 to 21 February 2027.