Marko Home, PhD, independent researcher
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At the beginning of February 1968, Eino Ruutsalo (1921–2001) was having an exhibition ’Valo ja liike’ (Light and Movement), at the Amos Anderson Art Museum in Helsinki. Sam Vanni (1908–1992), who had been a major innovator in Finnish painting in the 1950s, was also due to take part in this exhibition. However, Vanni was outraged to see that his paintings were being hung alongside Ruutsalo’s electrically-operated kinetic works. As a result, Vanni decided to withdraw his work from the exhibition, and this happened at such a late stage that the exhibition catalogue had already been printed, and his contribution could no longer be removed from it.[1] This episode is one example of many in which Ruutsalo challenged the conventions of the Finnish art scene in the 1960s.
In September 2021, a week before the centenary of Ruutsalo’s birth, I defended my dissertation in art history at the University of Helsinki. The aim of my research was to examine the role of this visual artist and filmmaker Ruutsalo in the new forms of art emerging in Finland during the 1960s.[2] The main source material for my research was Ruutsalo’s previously unexplored private archive, which includes the manuscript of his unpublished memoir, correspondence, notes, newspaper clippings, photographs and exhibition catalogues.[3] Other sources I consulted consisted of material in several archival institutions, interviews, exhibition critiques and newspaper articles, and of course Ruutsalo’s works.
Based on my research, I also published a non-fiction book about Eino Ruutsalo for the general public[4], as well as co-curated with Katja Ikäläinen an exhibition on Eino Ruutsalo’s experimental approaches in the 1960s for the Ateneum Art Museum’s Focus Gallery[5]. I also curated a retrospective of Eino Ruutsalo’s films for the National Audiovisual Institute’s cinema Kino Regina[6]. The aforementioned projects have reminded the audience in Finland that Eino Ruutsalo is one of the key names in the history of the Finnish avant-garde. Since my doctoral dissertation is written in Finnish, the aim of this article is to give foreign readers a brief summary of Ruutsalo’s diverse artistic activities.
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[1] Eino Ruutsalo. ‘Maalarin rytmiä etsimässä’ (‘In Search of the Painter’s Rhythm’), unpublished memoir, 2000, 77. The Eino Ruutsalo Archive (ERA). Archive Collections, Finnish National Gallery (AC, FNG); Valo ja liike / Ljus och rörelse (Light and Movement), Amos Andersonin taidemuseo (Amos Anderson Art Museum), 7–14 February 1968, exhibition catalogue.
[2] Marko Home. ‘Pysähtymisessä vaanii kuolema’ – Eino Ruutsalon kokeellinen 1960-luku (‘Death lurks in stagnation’ – Eino Ruutsalo’s Experimental 1960s). Helsinki: University of Helsinki, 2021, https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/333635 (accessed 5 January 2022).
[4] Marko Home. Eino Ruutsalo – Kineettisten kuvien maalari (‘Eino Ruutsalo – Painter of Kinetic Pictures’). Helsinki: Parvs, 2021, https://parvs.fi/en/books/eino-ruutsalo/?lang_switched=1 (accessed 5 January 2022).
[5] ‘Focus Gallery: Eino Ruutsalo’s Experimental 1960s’, Ateneum Art Museum, 14 September 2021 – 27 March 2022, https://ateneum.fi/en/exhibitions/fokus-gallery-eino-ruutsalos-experimental-1960s/ (accessed 5 January 2022).
[6] Kino Regina: ‘Eino Ruutsalo 100 vuotta’, 2021–2022, https://kinoregina.fi/teemat/eino-ruutsalo-100-vuotta/ (accessed 5 January 2022).
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Featured image: Screenshot from Eino Ruutsalo’s film Kinetic Pictures, 1962
Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum
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