NICK ALM. 15/01/2026-22/03/2026

MR. KANT – I REPLY!

– Only engage with what lies beyond your personal desires and needs to avoid a misguided focus, Mr. Kant said. The essential thing is the abstract quality, the forms and colors. – Yes, Mr. Kant, I reply. But within those shapes, I will place a beautiful woman. The first does not exclude the latter.

Manifest[o] inaugurates its activities with an exhibition by Swedish painter Nick Alm, who belongs to a unique group of contemporary artists attempting to recreate the bond with the tradition of figurative painting broken by the avant-garde revolution and to restore the beauty and mystery of human existence to contemporary art.

Born in 1985 in Eksjö, Sweden, Nick Alm began studying at the Florence Academy of Art at the age of 22. The next stage of his education was a scholarship at The Hudson River Fellowship, an institution with a mission to recover traditional painting skills. After studying in New York, Alm returned to Sweden, stopping off in Stavern, Norway, where another legend of contemporary traditionalists, Odd Nerdrum, runs his studio and small art school.

His masters include painters from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: Swedish painter Anders Zorn and Florence-born American John Singer Sargent. However, it is not just a matter of imitating their painting, but rather of confronting their technique and way of observing reality in order to find his own creative path, his own perspective, which reflects not so much the past as contemporary reality.

The protagonist of Alm’s paintings is a contemporary man captured on the streets of a modern city, in a subway station, in exclusive venues, or in the intimate atmosphere of a home. Although Alm focuses on everyday, ordinary situations, his paintings are characterized by mystery and melancholy. As art critic Susanne W. Lamm writes: “There is a certain Bergman-like quality to his paintings. He is concerned with emptiness, loneliness, and the ridiculousness of the human condition—like that moment when a party suddenly isn’t so fun anymore—but unlike most other contemporary artists, he elevates these subjects and actually makes them beautiful.”

The exhibition at Manifest[o] will present a selected group of Nick Alm’s canvases, providing insight not only into the artist’s unique technique, but also into the complex condition of contemporary man.