Stockholm’s Bonniers Konsthall Taps Magnus af Petersens as New Director

He’s currently head of exhibitions and collections at Moderna Museet.

Magnus Af Petersen. Photo by Petter Cohen, courtesy Bonniers Konsthall.

Stockholm’s Bonniers Konsthall has announced that the curator Magnus af Petersens will become the institution’s new director, taking up his post in April 2017.

Af Petersens—who is currently head of exhibitions and collections at Moderna Museet, also in Stockholm, as well as curator-at-large at London’s Whitechapel Gallery— is taking over from Sara Arrhenius, who has helmed Bonniers Konsthall since it opened in 2006.

Meanwhile, Arrhenius will take up the post of vice chancellor of the Royal Institute of Art in the spring of 2017.

“Bonniers Konsthall is primarily an establishment for contemporary art, where artists are provided with the incredible opportunity to produce new works,” af Petersens said in a statement. “Very few institutions have the same capacity to react quite as quickly and place international art in a national context. This is what sets Bonniers Konsthall apart from the rest,” he added.

Besides his institutional commitments at Moderna Museet and the Whitechapel Gallery, af Petersens curated “Future Histories” with Arseny Zhilyaev and Mark Dion at Casa dei Tre Oci in Venice, which ran alongside the 2015 Biennale. In 2011, he curated the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

“We are delighted to entrust Magnus af Petersens with the role of further developing Bonniers Konsthall. With an international network, extensive relationships with artists and the public, and a wealth of experience managing exhibitions and creating museum programs, we feel he is well qualified,” the institution’s board, led by chair Pontus Bonnier, said in a statement.

“Above all, we believe that the combination of Magnus’ experience of and passion for contemporary art will infuse Bonniers Konsthall with an exciting energy and vitality,” they added.


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