What would it look like for a painting to have a fungal infection? For a pine tree to become trapped in its own resin? Celebrating its fortieth anniversary, MIT’s List Visual Arts Center has put together an exciting line-up of exhibitions and events for 2026. One such show is Flare-Up, a compilation of recent works by the Stockholm-based artist duo Goldin+Senneby exploring themes of illness and ecology—the artists’ first solo museum exhibition in the United States.

        Flare-Up takes its name from the medical term, a “period of increased inflammation in which symptoms worsen or reappear,” and the title also plays on the idea that to “put up a flare” signifies danger and distress. Jakob Senneby, one half of the duo, lives with multiple sclerosis (MS), a disease where the body’s own immune system overacts and attacks the protective covering around the nerves. His flare-ups and the language used to describe them have inspired many of the themes of this show: health vs. disease, protection vs. harm, the idea of a body at war with itself. In keeping with MIT’s reputation for innovative science and technology research, Goldin+Senneby make full use of novel materials and methodologies to investigate and interrogate these topics.

Resin Pond (2025) and Crying Pine (2025)

        The show’s first and largest work is also its most photographable: Resin Pond. One ton of pine resin was poured on the gallery’s concrete floor in batches, producing a beautiful amber pool that expands from the center of the room in small waves. Now hardened over and with a glass-like surface, the pool reflects light from the windows and overhead fixtures and is a mesmerizing centerpiece to the exhibition space. Visitors must keep to the edges of the room to avoid stepping on and cracking the fragile surface. Upon close inspection, I was amused by the sight of power outlets on the floor (fortunately, protected by plastic caps) that had been embalmed in the pool and rendered useless.

        While beautiful, Resin Pond contains historical and ecological references too. Long used in medicine and manufacturing, resin (a beneficial toxin) plays an important role in the health of pine trees by healing wounds and protecting the tree from pests. However, resin is also highly flammable and, when produced in large quantities, dangerous to the very beings that depend on it. In Resin Pond, the artists show resin in excess, “a flood of healing that becomes harmful,” a system producing too much of a good thing.

        Crying Pine (2025), is another stunning resin work that further explores the consequences of unrestrained protection. Under strict containment instructions, Goldin+Senneby received two loblolly pine samplings that had been genetically modified to overproduce resin as a form of renewable biofuel. However, the unintended consequence of this engineering meant that the trees could drown themselves in their resin and, in large numbers in the wild, would pose a significant fire risk. In Crying Pine, the sapling is mummified in a block of resin to represent a “specimen captured in its own defenses, a materialization of its own overactive immune system.”

Swallowimage Series (2025)

        As a lover of obscure historical references, I find the series Swallowimage (2025) to be one of the most compelling concepts in the show. The work takes its name from Schluckbildchen (which literally translates to “swallow picture”), an eighteenth-century German folk medicine practice of ingesting small slips of paper featuring sacred images that was thought to provide cures and prevent disease. Goldin+Senneby transmute this custom by positioning the artwork itself as the diseased body to be cured.

        Using three oil paintings dating from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries that depict scenes of death and disease, the artists have carefully deconstructed and reversed the canvases so that the unpainted backs become the surface of the works. Swallowimage (verso man in cave with skull) shows this process most clearly, with the original painting still visible behind the stretcher bars. The parasitic fungus Isaria sinclairii is then introduced to the canvas surface. Isaria sinclairii has long been used in medicine, including for MS, as it suppresses the immune system to provide relief (a trait both beneficial and adverse, as this can allow the parasite to kill its host). As the parasite grows organically on the canvas, it visually contrasts with the meticulous, man-made image on the verso of the canvas. (It also offers a challenge to traditional art maintenance: fungus on a painting’s surface would be disastrous in most contexts, but here it is the main object of the work.) Conceptually, it raises many questions about the complex relationship between healing and harm and how this has been represented artistically over the centuries.

        To achieve the full view of these elements, the Swallowimage works are creatively installed on the walls along the profile of the canvas, protruding into the gallery like growths to allow both front and back to be seen. The original oil paintings are visible on the verso, with details like labels and inventory numbers preserved on the frame—a nod to their provenance even as the works are completely reimagined.

After Landscape (2024-ongoing)

        Another series presents a slightly different theme of work, dealing with the aftermath of high-profile attacks to artwork. Most have probably seen viral videos of climate activists smearing paint, soup, cake, or other substances across famous works of art, including a Van Gogh painting in 2022 and the Mona Lisa in 2024. These works are typically guarded by protective frames, preventing harm to the works themselves and damaging only these disposable outer shells. In After Landscapes, Goldin+Senneby worked with conservator Fernando Caceres to recreate these impacts to the frames, removed from the museum context and divorced from the works of art that were the targets of these events. For Caceres, whose job as a conservator requires that he remove all traces of these encounters, the act of attack instead becomes a strange form of artmaking. As the exhibition brochure notes: “Here, the marks of dissent—canned soup, paint, and oil-like gunk—become objects of study to reproduced, preserved, and recast as artworks.”

Lego Pedometer Cheating Machines (2019)

        The exhibition space is also filled with the repetitive, robotic noise of at least four Lego Pedometer Cheating Machines (2019). Each DIY robot, built using instructions found on online forums and YouTube, contains a smartphones and wiggles in place to activate step counters. The brochure describes in as a “low-tech, collectively sourced ‘hack’” that allows patients to “subvert eugenic requirements for healthy ‘activity’ imposed by insurers.” During my visit, one machine had already reached 20,000 steps for the day, well above the 10,000 benchmark many people strive to achieve. The noise of the machines, while mildly irritating, acts as a persistent reminder to visitors about the pervasive, if sometimes arbitrary, milestones of health.

Conclusion

        Overall, the show is highly photogenic and deeply fascinating, a mishmash of captivating if sometimes avant-garde attempts to grapple with the oldest human dilemmas: health, disease, and death. While an exhibition featuring so many different concepts—from MS to climate activism, pedometers to resin—might feel disjointed, the visuals are compelling, and the common theme of protection ties the show together. (An exhibition brochure is highly recommended to provide context for these works, as wall labels are limited.) The diversity of works is notable, from sculptural forms that look great on Instagram to paintings with fungal growths to noisy lego robots. Additionally, a companion output of this exhibition is a collaborative fiction novel by writer Katie Kitamura that is available to read in the gallery. Despite a small show (less than 20 works in total), I have found myself reflecting on this exhibition much longer than expected and I will eagerly watch what Goldin+Senneby do next. In the meantime, I invite you to explore it for yourself.

Emelia Lehmann is a Boston-based writer and cultural heritage professional. When she is not looking at art, you can find her looking at buildings.