ISSUES

ISSUES presents Marie Karlberg’s second solo show at the gallery. The first one took place at Grand Hotel in 2015 and much water has since then passed under the bridges of Stockholm. Back then, Marie lived in New York City and was part of the underground scene while working at Reena Spualings Fine Art. She hosted night clubs, staged performances and had her work shown in the quinquennial survey exhibition Greater NY at MoMA PS1.

Marie moved back to Stockholm to finish her MFA where she within two years established herself as an essential part of the Stockholm art scene. Her gallery Beau Travail is not only an extension of her own art practice but a destination for international contemporary art.

While ISSUES has managed to establish itself in Stockholm with a roster of artists on a permanent address in the past eleven years, Marie has built a significant network of artists and professionals. We are pleased to tie a loop with Marie and the paintings of accumulated business cards and a newly written play that make up her show Som ett hänglås (Like a padlock). The show not only addresses the general perils of trying to enter the art world but her own personal experience of navigating the global scene and her present role in it.

Curator and author Daniel Birnbaum has written the exhibition text.

Marie Karlberg (b. 1985, lives and works in Stockholm) began making art as a reaction to predetermined forms of social life. In 2025 she received her MFA from The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. ISSUES has presented the performances Eating a Banana in January 2025 and Watching Paint Dry in 2024. In 2015, a solo exhibition at Grand Hôtel in Stockholm as well as all three iterations of Downtown Issues. In November 2025, New Theater in Los Angeles staged Marie’s play I'M JUST A SYMPTOM OF A MORAL DECAY. Previously, Marie has staged Nudge Articule, a performance, at Art Basel Miami, hosted by MoMA PS1 (2023), presented the video The Good Terrorist in Greater New York at MoMA PS1, New York (2021) and taken part in The 9th Berlin Biennale (2016). Selected solo shows are Illusion and Reality, Tramps, New York (2019); The Brutal Truth, Bonny Poon, Paris (2018); Conscious Consequences, Plymouth Rock, Zürich (2018) and Stranger in the Dark, Reena Spaulings Fine Arts, New York (2014). She has staged her performances at Company Gallery, New York (2020), Elevation1049, Gstaad (2019); Artists’ Space, New York (2019) and Palais de Tokyo, Paris, (2017).

Marie opened her much celebrated gallery Beau Travail in 2024.

Marie’s work is included in public collections such as The Schaulager Foundation, Münchenstein; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris and Moderna Museet, Stockholm.