Cinema and Conceptual Art: Nordic Perspectives at Gothenburg 2026

Contemporary and conceptual art has become an increasingly visible subject in recent Nordic cinema. From satire to surreal reflection, several films in the Gothenburg 2026 selection explore how artistic prestige, institutions, and self-image intersect. This article examines how these works question admiration, irony, and authenticity in the art world.

This year, the selection of Nordic films on which the FIPRESCI jury had to deliberate included eight feature films, three of which dealt, directly or indirectly, with art—and more specifically with contemporary and conceptual art. One might even count four, if we consider that the watercolors that conspicuously appear in Kerro Kaikille (Tell Everyone, 2026, Alli Haapasalo) could also be seen as a way of subtly inserting art into a film, which is itself an art form in its own right.

There would therefore be no collision between two forms of art, but rather a sense of completion or illustration—and we shall attempt to understand this.

Before analyzing these films, it must be said that pictorial art often appears in cinema, whether in biopics about certain artists such as Maurice Pialat’s Van Gogh (1991) or Martin Provost’s Séraphine (2009), among many others, or in films that address the theme of art, such as Jacques Rivette’s La Belle Noiseuse (1991) or Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grande Bellezza (2013).

But since 2017, and the Palme d’Or awarded at the Cannes Film Festival, it would seem that Ruben Östlund and his film The Square (2017) have brought a different perspective on art, somewhat in the spirit of Yasmina Reza’s play Art, adapted for the screen by Yves-André Hubert and still unreleased in France, in which three friends quarrel because one of them has just acquired an entirely white painting.

Ruben Östlund, for his part, goes even further, and his film also sparked debate at Cannes, with some even going so far as to consider it reactionary, since it dared to criticize contemporary art—when in fact it was quite the opposite. Indeed, in his film, the Swedish director sought precisely to highlight the contemporary schizophrenia of people who claim to be left-wing and avant-garde yet, in their daily lives, prove to be snobbish, elitist, or even intolerant.

Thus, in The Square, Christian is a divorced father who enjoys spending time with his two children. A respected curator at a contemporary art museum, he is also one of those people who drive electric cars and support major humanitarian causes. He is preparing his next exhibition, entitled “The Square”, centered on an installation that encourages visitors to practice altruism and reminds them of their duty toward others. But everything spirals out of control, making the audience laugh while at the same time unsettling them.

Since that film, it would seem that contemporary art has lost some of its former prestige, and whereas ten years earlier one quickly earned a reputation as a “reactionary” for claiming not to like that kind of art, it is now less risky to do so. Ruben Östlund thus brought a breath of fresh air to cinema, allowing people to step away from their self-righteousness.

He drove the point home a second time—and bingo!—won a second Palme d’Or in 2022 with Triangle of Sadness (2022).

As a result, some of the Nordic films in this year’s 2026 selection in Gothenburg seem to refer back to this and propose moving beyond blind admiration of contemporary art, opening one’s eyes—and laughing at it.

Satire and Social Performance: The Patron

With Mecenaten (The Patron, 2026, Julia Thelin), the Swedish director Julia Thelin, a compatriot of Ruben Östlund, places the world of art—and of gallery owners who make and unmake reputations—at the center of a bitter film featuring a mythomaniac cleaning woman who, for the duration of a private view, usurps the identity of her fashionable gallery-owner employer in order to attend a high-society opening and deceive two young artists.

Within the film itself, they vandalize the gallery owner’s magnificent house to create, at their host’s request, an artistic happening in the manner of Yves Klein and his renowned blue.

Contemporary Art as Absurd Spectacle: Butterfly

As a second example of The Square’s influence on contemporary, at least Nordic, cinema, we may cite Butterfly (2026, Itonje Søimer Guttormsen), which—at least in its first third—has fun with contemporary art by creating a female artist who turns her body into a spectacle like Orlan, sings or screams like Yoko Ono, and rather ridiculously strives to make her life and outfits into a sort of living work of art.

Upon her mother’s death, she reconnects with her sister, who is her complete opposite, and gradually allows herself to be drawn into a New Age-style culture, supposedly offering an equally ridiculous counterpoint to avant-garde but ultimately capitalist modern art.

Craft, Irony, and Authenticity: The Love That Remains

Finally, in Ástin sem eftir er (The Love That Remains, 2026, Hlynur Pálmason), visual art occupies an important place, even though the works—made from fabric and rusted metal objects and patiently but discreetly crafted by the young mother—do not seem destined for exhibition, as, like many contemporary artists, she spends a good deal of time searching for a gallery owner.

Indeed, her encounter with one of them is a highly amusing and surreal moment in the film.

Despite the seriousness with which she creates her art—particularly these sheets resembling new Shrouds of Turin, and a statue of a knight made with the help of her children—one constantly wonders whether Hlynur Pálmason ultimately takes contemporary art very seriously.

This may well be why the small, brightly colored flowers painted in watercolor seem so naïve yet so authentic in the fourth film of the Nordic selection at the Gothenburg Festival mentioned at the beginning of this article, Kerro Kaikille (Tell Everyone, 2026, Alli Haapasalo).

Jean-Max Méjean
©FIPRESCI 2026