What to See Across Europe This March

‘9-5, 5-9’ | Room Room, Copenhagen | 26 January – 8 March

Tucked away within the vast entrance hall of Thoravej 29 – a new cultural hub in Copenhagen’s gentrified Nordvest district – the recently launched Room Room exhibition space boldly claims in its online mission statement that it intends to ‘make room’ for emerging local artists in a small corner of the vast, former-industrial building.

Organized by curatorial platform inter.pblc, the space’s inaugural exhibition, ‘9-5, 5-9’, reflects on the psychological ramifications of an online life, adapting a post-internet sensibility to depict a new form of realism. Opening with commissioned writing by Danish author Ulrikke Bak, the exhibition literature draws our attention to the kind of ‘impromptu speeches’ given by internet trolls. In Bak’s short text, the attacks made by such trolls are disguised as self-expression: ‘I do not only troll. – Frida Sandström

Zahra Malkani | Konsthall C, Stockholm | 24 January – 23 March

The ecological devastation of the Indus basin lies at the heart of Pakistani artist and researcher Zahra Malkani’s first solo exhibition in Europe, ‘Sada Sada’. This sombre and sparse presentation is centred around an eponymous, eight-channel sound installation composed of recordings the artist made during fieldwork she undertook in her native province of Sindh. From a dozen or so speakers stacked in the gallery’s centre, we hear the sounds of water rushing through one of the region’s seasonal rivers, chants in Balochi from nearby Gadani beach, home to the world’s third-largest ship-breaking yard, and women activists speaking at the 2023 Climate March in Karachi. – Matthew Rana

Yto Barrada | Fondazione Merz, Turin | 20 February – 18 May

Through a selection of textiles, collages, sculptures, found objects, film and photography, Yto Barrada’s first Italian solo exhibition, at Fondazione Merz in Turin, unfolds as an expansive meditation on material transformation, bringing together works from the artist’s extensive investigations into colour theory, cultural phenomena and natural processes. Curated by Davide Quadrio with Giulia Turconi, ‘Deadhead’ – titled in reference to the horticultural technique of removing dead flower heads to promote overall plant growth – prioritizes the process over the outcome. – Giovanna Manzotti

Louisa Gagliardi | Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana, Lugano | 26 January – 8 March

 Whenever my old neighbours went on holiday, they would ask me to look after their cat. The first time this happened, the cat fell ill; she seemed to have injured her hind legs and was having difficulty walking properly. I took her to the vet who, after examining her, announced: ‘There is nothing wrong with this cat. She just misses her owners.’ I had forgotten all about this feline and her feigned limp, until two just like her appeared in Louisa Gagliardi’s Linked (2019), a digitally rendered image of a pair of black cats, poised as if they are prowling after each other in a circle. Attached to each of their collars is one end of a gold chain, which dangles between them, coiled on the ground to make a heart shape. They don’t seem troubled by this tether, forcing them to stay together; instead they simply stand opposite each other, aloof and – it appears – satisfied. – Lou Selfridge

Marie Matusz | Kunsthalle Basel | 26 January – 8 March

Cultural institutions often function like reservoirs: repositories in which artefacts are collected before being released to the public in a more easily digestible form. Whether historical or contemporary, natural or man-made, museum objects are invariably presented at a remove from everyday life. Marie Matusz’s solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel, ‘Reservoir’, deconstructs this artificial division in an installation that spans painting and sculpture, sound works and print.  – Toby Üpson

^{Main image: Jules Fischer, LESIONS (rough cut) (detail), 2025, performance view. Performed by Lydia Östberg Diakité. Courtesy: Room Room, Copenhagen; photograph: Brian Kure}