Category: Articles

Covers from exhibition catalogues: group exhibitions held at the Nationalgalerie Berlin, 1881 and 1882, including works by Antonie Biel and Marie von Parmentier Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie Photos: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / Andres Kilger (CC BY-NC-SA)

Pioneering Women Artists – an Omission in Art History?

Yvette Deseyve

Dr Yvette Deseyve, Deputy Director, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin / Friedrichswerdersche Kirche

This key-note paper from the scientific seminar, ‘Crossing Borders’, is part of the international ‘Pioneering Women Artists’ project that was launched at the Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki, in September 2020. The research project is led by the curator Anne-Maria Pennonen, PhD

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The academic interest in women artists is not new – but it is more intensive than ever: today, art historians can look back on several decades of research projects and research findings on women artists and female art production in European art. In addition, this field of research has also become an integral part of art history teaching. Even if the perception of female artists seems to be becoming more and more self-evident, research on women artists in art is still full of surprises, discoveries and misunderstandings. In this paper, I will attempt to bring together the various strands of art-historical research in order to take a closer look at the different factors of visibility, or lack of visibility, of 19th-century women artists: what has been achieved by research so far and where can it go? What do we know, or not know just yet?

In order to draw attention to women in art historiography, I would like to take a look at The Invention of Painting (1832), by Eduard Dage (1805–83), which is in the collection of the Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin. The subject of this painting is the origin of art. According to Eduard Daege’s reading, the art of painting takes on this prominent function of origination, even though the original narrative behind it is somewhat different: the most important ancient treatise on the origin of art is handed down by Plinius Secundus in his Natural History, written in 77AD. After initial remarks on colours and their materiality, Plinius breaks off abruptly with the words: ‘On painting we have now said enough, and more than enough; but it will be only proper to append some accounts of the plastic art.’[1] Here he picks up, and reports on the parting of a young pair of lovers. More precisely, on the daughter of the potter Butades and on her lover, who has to leave his beloved in order to go to war. Pliny writes: ‘Butades, a potter of Sicyon, was the first who invented, at Corinth, the art of modelling portraits in the earth which he used in his trade. It was through his daughter that he made the discovery; who, being deeply in love with a young man about to depart on a long journey, traced the profile of his face, as thrown upon the wall by the light of the lamp. Upon seeing this, her father filled in the outline, by compressing clay upon the surface, and so made a face in relief, which he then hardened by fire along with other articles of pottery.’[2] . If one really follows Pliny’s story, the scene, which was widely illustrated in the 18th and 19th centuries, is not actually the invention of painting, but the invention of relief as an aspect of the artistic genre of sculpture. But apart from the implied dispute about which classical artistic form may be closer to nature, it is interesting to see how art history has dealt with this founding myth. Pliny hints that Butades only came to portraiture with the help of his daughter: ‘It was through his daughter that he made the discovery’. To put it bluntly, a woman as an artist. Or even, a woman as the founder of painting or sculpture, whose help made the father an artist in the first place. The prominence that Pliny gave the daughter of Butades in the founding myth of art should not be underestimated and the question arises: how did art history, especially in the 19th century, relate to this source?

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[1] Plin. Nat. 35.43, Translation http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0978.phi001.perseus-eng1:35.43, The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., a. o., London 1855.

[2] Plin. Nat. 35.43.

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Featured image: Covers from exhibition catalogues: group exhibitions held at the Nationalgalerie Berlin, 1881 and 1882, including works by Antonie Biel and Marie von Parmentier
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie
Photos: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / Andres Kilger (CC BY-NC-SA)

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Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Complaints Choir, 2005–2014, video installation Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Petri Summanen

Where I Hang My Coat – On Communities and Belonging

Saara Karhunen

Saara Karhunen, MA, Curator, Finnish National Gallery / Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma

Also published in Saara Hacklin, Saara Karhunen and Satu Oksanen (eds.), Kuin kotonaan – Feels Like Home. A Museum of Contemporary Art Publication 180. Helsinki: Finnish National Gallery / Kiasma, 2024, 33−37. Transl. Liisa Muinonen-Martin

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We belong to various communities that shape our identity, our actions and our relationships with other people and the wider society around us. Whether we’re surrounded by family, neighbours or an online community, there is a recognisable universality to how we adjust our behaviour to the company we find ourselves in. Communities can be formed around almost anything, from work, hobbies and shared interests, to national identities and even geographical locations. They can be held together by a common aim, like a political ideology or a charitable endeavour. Some communities we are born into, others we choose and even build ourselves.

The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has described our present time as an era of liquid modernity, which is characterised by a more casual approach to community. He writes of ‘cloakroom communities’ that people dip into, not unlike visiting the theatre. Once the show is over, they grab their coats and go on their way. Bauman contrasts these self-determined forms of community, which can often be ephemeral and highly spontaneous in character, with fixed communities that share a common aim or denominator.[1]  Bauman’s analysis highlights the freedom of choice that all communities entail, but he is also at pains to point out the isolation that is inherent in this autonomy. A lack of community cohesion can also lead to a host of social issues.

Community, and our sense of community, forms one of the thematic strands around which Kiasma’s current collection exhibition, ‘Feels Like Home’, is arranged. The works covered by this theme encompass everyday, social and political dimensions but also a rich variety of different artistic methods. Some artists have chosen to incorporate autobiographical elements into their work, while others take a documentary approach. A participatory artwork has the power to create an entirely new community of its own. In this article, I will explore the artworks in the exhibition from the perspective of community. What can these artworks tell us about community and its significance to us? What is the artist’s relationship to the communities they depict? And what about our role as visitors in relation to the communities engendered by these works? What kind of opportunities can a museum offer for building community?

[1] Zygmunt Bauman. Liquid Modernity, Tampere: Vastapaino, 2002, 237–239.

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Featured image: Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Complaints Choir, 2005–2014,
video installation
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Petri Summanen

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Juhani Linnovaara, Moonlight Sonata ll, 1970, acrylic and oil on canvas, 119.5cm x 105cm Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Jouko Könönen © Kuvasto 2024

Facets of Finnish Cultural Diplomacy – A Case Study of the Finnish Contemporary Art Exhibition Facettes de Finlande 1975

Maria Hynninen

Maria Hynninen, MA student, University of Helsinki

This article is published following the author’s three-month research internship at the Finnish National Gallery

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Introduction

In December 1975, the Musée Galliéra in Paris opened an extensive exhibition of Finnish contemporary art, ´Facettes de Finlande´. The exhibition was organised by the Association of Modern Art in Finland (Nykytaide ry – Nutidskonst rf) as a part of the bilateral cultural treaty between Finland and France.[1] This exhibition was part of a broader pattern in the field of ​​Finland’s international cultural relations. From the late 1960s to the 1970s, the Finnish state began to coordinate cultural exhibitions and cultural exchange.[2] The researcher Elina Melgin states, that it was ´the time of foreign policy in art´, as extensive Finnish export exhibitions promoted Finland abroad.[3]

During my internship at the Finnish National Gallery, my aim has been to examine what was behind this statement, and to understand the role of export art exhibitions as an aspect of cultural diplomacy in Finland in the late 1960s and the mid-70s. The framework of this research is based on the concepts of cultural diplomacy and cultural policy, which I will elaborate on in more detail in the first part of this article. Because the research topic is broad, it will be discussed from the perspective of the art field and from the point of view of one actor in the field, Nykytaide ry. To exemplify this focus, in the second part of this article, I will present a case study of the exhibition ‘Facettes de Finlande’. What did the selection of art and artists chosen for the exhibition aim to demonstrate to its international audience, and what were the objectives of Nykytaide ry in its export exhibition policy? I will present the key actors who shaped the exhibition, from its initiation to its presentation, and assess its significance. I will also consider the ways in which Finnish art was integrated into the endeavours of official cultural diplomacy concerning the national image of Finland. Although this article does not deal comprehensively with the phenomenon, it addresses in general the exporting of art exhibitions as instruments of Finnish cultural diplomacy. How did the Finnish state coordinate exhibition activities, and how did the art field react to the growing influence of the state? To answer these questions, I have examined how Finland began to coordinate export art exhibitions via the Finnish Commission for International Cultural Exhibitions (FCICE), an auxiliary body under the Ministry of Education, which operated from 1966 to 1975. The function of the FCICE has not been examined before. Finally, I will conclude by exploring the objectives of Nykytaide ry in its export exhibitions policy, and define the objectives of both the art field and the state in the coordination of export art exhibitions in general.

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[1] Annual report of Nykytaide ry 1975. File 6: Minutes. The archive of Nykytaide ry (NTA). Archive collections (AC), Finnish National Gallery (FNG). Elina Melgin, ´Nykytaide – Nutidskonst 1939–89,´ in Elina Melgin and Pekka Suhonen (eds.), Nykytaide 1939–1989. Helsinki: Nykytaide ry, 1989, (29–59), 56. An agreement on cultural and scientific cooperation between the Finnish state and the French state was concluded in September 1970. Kalervo Siikala. Suomen kansainväliset kulttuurisuhteet. Helsinki: Kirjayhtymä, 1976, 197.

[2] Veli-Matti Autio, Opetusministeriön historia VI. Suurjärjestelmien aika koittaa 1966–1980. Helsinki: Opetusministeriö, 1990, 439. Export exhibitions of Finnish visual art were organised mainly by the Fine Arts Academy of Finland for older art, the Finnish Artists’ Association and Nykytaide ry for contemporary art. Kalervo Siikala. Suomen kansainväliset kulttuurisuhteet. Helsinki: Kirjayhtymä, 1976, 244–45.

[3] Melgin, ´Nykytaide – Nutidskonst 1939–89,´ 51.

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Featured image: Juhani Linnovaara, Moonlight Sonata ll, 1970, acrylic and oil on canvas, 119.5cm x 105cm
Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Jouko Könönen © Kuvasto 2024

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Niina Tervo, 5, from the series ‘Undulate’, 2018, polyurethane, 24cm x 155cm x 20cm Finnish National Gallery / Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Pirje Mykkänen

A Collection on the Horizon – Speculative Ecologies and the Collections of the Finnish National Gallery

Eero Karjalainen

Eero Karjalainen, MA student, University of Helsinki & Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts, Helsinki

This article is published following the author’s three-month research internship at the Finnish National Gallery

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Collection(s), future(s)

 I am sitting in the first room on the fourth floor of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in front of Tuomas A. Laitinen’s new installation The Earth is the Ear of the Bear (2023), which is on show in the exhibition ‘Ars Fennica 2023’[1]. Whilst focusing on the circular movement of the soundscape, I realise that my initial intention for writing this article, resulting from a research internship in the Collections Department at the Finnish National Gallery, is too narrow and too strict; too far from both the works of art and the collection they are in. My original intention was to analyse the different artistic and representational strategies of more-than-human agencies in certain works of contemporary art in the collections of the Finnish National Gallery (FNG).[2] The primary idea was to look at the collections somewhat quantitatively: to ask, for example, how many works of art deal with more-than-human ecologies and technologies? How to understand the vastness of different agencies in the collections by analysing what is represented in the works? And how actively does the collection link and contribute to the discourse around different agencies in contemporary art collections? When thinking about this, it seemed that, in regards to my intention, my original question was not inclusive enough. Thinking, in relationship with, Laitinen’s work, it occurred to me that If I want to learn ‘how agency is equally distributed across humans and non-humans, living and non-living beings’[3], a broader perspective would be essential.

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[1] This was the sixth time that the ‘Ars Fennica’ exhibition had taken place in Kiasma and the 27th time in total. ‘Ars Fennica’ is the largest cash prize in Finland awarded to a visual artist. The Ars Fennica 2023 exhibition was open 8.9.2023–28.1.2024. See Ars Fennica website: https://arsfennica.fi/en/foundation.

[2] Representation is interdependent with the political, the aesthetic and the ideological, to name a few, and the interpretation of representation changes in relation to these. An analysis of representation does not seem sufficient enough, if we want to understand how the works are in the collection. See e.g., Gregory Langfield. ‘Inclusive art history and canon formation – Contradictio in Terminis?’ In Helen Westgeest & Kitty Zijlmans (eds.). Mix & Stir. New Outlooks on Contemporary Art from Global Perspectives. Plural. Amsterdam: Valiz, 2021, 107–113. See also T. J. Demos. Beyond the World’s End. Arts of Living at the Crossing. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2020, 1–21.

[3] Filipa Ramos. Meeting the Bear Halfway – An Interface for Tuomas A. Laitinen’s The Earth is the Ear of the Bear. In Ars Fennica 2023 catalogue, 18–19; note 2.

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Featured image: Niina Tervo, 5, from the series ‘Undulate’, 2018, polyurethane, 24cm x 155cm x 20cm
Finnish National Gallery / Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Pirje Mykkänen

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Alfred William Finch, An August Night, 1898, oil on canvas, 35cm x 45.5cm Gift from Arvid Sourander, Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Aaltonen

Lighting up Colour

Gill Crabbe

Gill Crabbe, FNG Research

For the exhibition ‘Colour & Light – The Legacy of Impressionism’, now showing at the Ateneum Art Museum, the curators invited renowned authority on Impressionism Professor Anthea Callen to be senior advisor on the project. Gill Crabbe asks her about what she brought to the role

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It is a bold museum that chooses to stage an exhibition that places celebrated works from history’s most popular art movement alongside those by artists who, albeit stars in their home country, might be considered obscure or even unknown internationally. But in mounting the exhibition ‘Colour & Light – The Legacy of Impressionism’ the Finnish National Gallery’s Ateneum Art Museum has created an opportunity for an important conversation between the Western European proponents of Impressionism and Neoimpressionism and the Finnish artists of the early 20th century. Significantly, it is a conversation that revolves around the effects of transnationalism, as well as the hybrid fusions of style and technique that can result from international influences.

Indeed ‘Colour & Light’ mixes a dazzling palette of artworks across every room in its show. Replacing a tired chronological approach with rooms themed according to subject matter – the garden, wintertime, rural life, the sea, the nude, urban life – one is exposed more directly to the impact of new techniques and shifts in material culture across time and space. Thus one finds Monet’s wintery scene Floating Ice on the Seine (1880) alongside Finnish painter Pekka Halonen’s brilliant sunlit snowscapes (Rock Covered in Ice and Snow, 1911); the plein-air rural scenes of Henri-Edmond Cross’s Pine (1907), effulgent in high summer, together with Magnus Enckell’s pine trees painted on his summer sojourn on an island in the Gulf of Finland in From Suursaari (1910) and Ellen Thesleff’s Landscape from Tuscany (1908), palette-knifed in rich hues of violet and viridian green. And further on, we see Paul Signac’s eye-popping Neoimpressionist coastal idyll Antibes (undated), alongside Verner Thomé’s blinding contrejour painting Bathing Boys (1910).

The exhibition and accompanying scholarly publication are the result of an ambitious research project initiated by the Ateneum and aided by Professor Emeritus Anthea Callen, a world expert on Impressionism and the material culture of the period, who was invited to join the project as senior advisor. Prof Callen had been approached by Ateneum Chief Curator Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff through their mutual connection to the Association for Art History, where her presentations on vitalism and plein-air painting had attracted the Finnish curator’s attention. Callen is author of nine books, several of which reflect her expertise in Impressionism and also in material culture – she has a PhD in 19th-century artists’ materials and techniques in 19th-century France, from London’s Courtauld Institute. This, in turn has afforded her a key role in several episodes of the popular British TV series Fake or Fortune. Significantly, she is also a trained artist, which brings additional interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding. ‘Training as an artist does bring a different vision,’ she says. ‘You’re trying to tune into the mind of the artist. As a practitioner you recognise the ideas and how they are executed are inseparable.’

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Featured image: Alfred William Finch, An August Night, 1898,
oil on canvas, 35cm x 45.5cm
Gift from Arvid Sourander, Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Aaltonen
Public domain. This image of a work of art is released under a CC0 licence, and can be freely used because the copyright (70 full calendar years after the death of the artist) has expired.

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Catalogue de l’Exposition d’Artistes Français et Belges, Helsingfors 1904. The catalogue for the exhibition of Franco-Belgian art organised at the Ateneum in 1904. The artworks and the prices are listed in the catalogue, e.g. Monet (nos. 40 and 41), Pissarro and Puvis de Chavannes. Finnish National Gallery Library Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Ainur Nasretdin

Echoes of Impressionism in Finland

Marja Sakari

Marja Sakari, PhD, Director, Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum

Also published in Sointu Fritze and Lene Wahlsten (eds.), Colour & Light – The Legacy of Impressionism. Ateneum Publications Vol. 169. Helsinki: Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum, 2023, 51–65. Transl. Wif Stenger

Worst of all was a corner that contained landscape paintings, each smudgier than the last, because they all looked as if the artist had squeezed a lot of colour into the palette and then slapped it onto the canvas, repeating the operation until the painting was finished. It had a sickening effect on me, not figuratively but in a physical sense.[1]

Letter from Helena Westermarck to her aunt Alexandra Blomqvist, 30 April 1880

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In the late 19th century, nearly all professional Finnish artists headed to Paris. There, in the world’s art capital, they confronted everything new that was developing in the visual arts – including Impressionism. However, in the 1800s, none of the Finnish artists joined this movement that radically changed the art world, nor did many other Nordic artists. One of the central starting points of the ‘Colour & Light’ exhibition at the Ateneum Art Museum is the question of why the effects of Impressionism were not seen in Finnish art until the first two decades of the 20th century.

Finnish artists of the day, such as the influential Albert Edelfelt, did however recognise the impact of Impressionism. In a series of articles accompanying a major exhibition of French and Belgian art that opened at the Ateneum in early 1904, Edelfelt wrote that Impressionism had affected almost all painters in some way, although, in his view, the movement itself was already history: ‘Other movements have come and gone – such as so-called Symbolism, but what is certain is that the Impressionist painters have taken art forward by a considerable step and that all of us who use a brush have learnt a lot from them.’[2] This exhibition of Franco-Belgian art, which took place 119 years ago, is one of the starting points for the ‘Colour & Light’ exhibition and the subject of my article. The 1904 exhibition was part of the process that led to the brightening of the palette of almost all Finnish artists in the 1910s.[3]

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[1] Helena Westermarck’s letter to Alexandra (Sanny) Blomqvist, 30 April 1880. Blomqvist collection. National Library of Finland, Helsinki. The original letter has been lost.

[2] Albert Edelfelt. ‘Den fransk-belgiska utställningen i Ateneum’, Helsingfors-Posten, 30 January1904.

[3] Earlier, a 1901 exhibition of French art at the Ateneum focused on naturalism and more traditional art. Although it featured the likes of Monet, Pissarro, Renoir and Sisley, they were barely mentioned by the critics. The main attention was on artists who represented more traditional painting, e.g. Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Carolus-Durand, who are lesser-known today. See J.J. Tikkanen. ‘Franska konstutställningen i Ateneum’, Hufvudstadsbladet, 6 October 1901; ‘Kirjallisuutta ja taidetta: Ranskalaisten taiteilijain näyttely’, Uusi Suometar, 21 September 1901; ‘Kirjallisuutta ja taidetta: Ranskalainen taidenäyttely Helsinkiin’, Mikkelin Sanomat, 25 July 1901.

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Featured image: Catalogue de l’Exposition d’Artistes Français et Belges, Helsingfors 1904. The catalogue for the exhibition of Franco-Belgian art organised at the Ateneum in 1904. The artworks and the prices are listed in the catalogue, e.g. Monet (nos. 40 and 41), Pissarro and Puvis de Chavannes.
Finnish National Gallery Library
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Ainur Nasretdin

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Featured image: Peder Balke, North Cape, 1848, oil on canvas, 102cm x 140cm The Gundersen Collection, Oslo Photo: Morten Heden Aamot / The Gundersen Collection

Peder Balke’s Visions of the Far North

Gill Crabbe

Gill Crabbe, FNG Research

As the Sinebrychoff Art Museum, Helsinki, presents the Norwegian painter of the Arctic Peder Balke for the first time to Finnish audiences, Gill Crabbe meets the show’s co-curator Knut Ljøgodt to discuss his collaboration with those involved in the exhibition

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When we think of the Arctic explorers of old we might imagine elaborate maps of the Ultima Thule adorned with images of writhing sea monsters, puff-cheeked deities of gale-force winds, or square-rigged ships foundering on rocks. The extreme climate in the Far North lends itself to sublime depictions of turbulent storms, dramatic mountainscapes and awe-inspiring glaciers carving out deep valleys. Yet while much of the region remains just as inhospitable as it was centuries ago, climate change is causing a different kind of overwhelm. As global warming accelerates and we are increasingly exposed to images such as monumental chunks of glacier plunging into the ocean, the Sinebrychoff Art Museum’s monographic exhibition of Peder Balke (1804–87), the first Norwegian artist to travel to the Arctic to paint its landscapes, is both timely and urgent.

‘Peder Balke – The Spell of the Arctic’ is the first exhibition of the Norwegian artist to be mounted in Finland. Balke himself was clearly spellbound, as his journey along the west coast of Norway to the North Cape in 1832 was to be a lifelong source of inspiration for his paintings. Scenes of the North Cape and the Vardsø fortress painted from 1845 up until the 1870s are on display in the show, as are soaring mountains (The Seven Sisters Mountain Range, c. 1845–50), topological wonders (Jostedalsbreen Glacier, 1840s) seascapes at night (Moonlight on the Coast of Steigen, 1842) and magical displays of the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights over Coastal Landscape, 1870s). The perfect subject matter for a painter of the sublime, even for a Romantic visionary.

Like the landscape, Balke’s story had its own dramatic twists and turns. From humble beginnings, this son of landless peasants forged a career that took him to the Royal Drawing School in Christiana (now Oslo), to the Far North of Norway to paint, to Dresden to learn from his forebears in landscape painting, such as Johan Christian Dahl (1788–1857), and later to Paris to receive commissions from the king of the French Louis-Philippe. Around 1850, when he was back home in Christiana, Balke’s career plummeted and he retreated from public exhibitions, turning instead to social reform, politics and building community. But he continued to paint for friends and acquaintances, and his newfound freedom from the public gaze and the art market saw his work shift from grand works of sublime character (North Cape, 1848), to small-scale iconic works that became increasingly abstracted expressions of a Romantic visionary (North Cape, 1860s–70s), still articulated through the subjects closest to his heart – his memories of his expedition to the Far North.

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Featured image: Peder Balke, North Cape, 1848, oil on canvas, 102cm x 140cm
The Gundersen Collection, Oslo
Photo: Morten Heden Aamot / The Gundersen Collection
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Featured image: Kunstkolonie Worpswede, Fritz Overbeck with his students in Worpswede, 1896. Photographer: Hermine Rothe Photo: Paula Modersohn-Becker-Stiftung

Crossing Borders, Making Links

Gill Crabbe

Gill Crabbe, FNG Research

This autumn an international gathering of art historians, curators and researchers met in Helsinki to share their research into women artists from the long 19th century, as part of the Finnish National Gallery’s research project ‘Pioneering Women Artists’. Gill Crabbe reports from its ‘Crossing Borders’ conference

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The unfolding process of shedding light on women artists who have been hidden from history is one that continues. Since the feminist movement in the 1970s kickstarted research into this neglected area, progress has been gathering pace and is opening windows onto women artists’ lives and works, with new research and significant exhibitions such as Berlin’s Alte Nationalgalerie show in 2019 ‘Fighting for Visibility: Women artists in the Alte Nationalgalerie before 1919’, as well as the forthcoming monographic exhibition of Angelica Kauffman (1741–1807) at London’s Royal Academy of Arts in Spring 2024.

The Finnish National Gallery’s commitment to playing a part in this important work is demonstrated in its latest international research project ‘Pioneering Women Artists’, which held its first conference ‘Crossing Borders: Transnational Networks of Pioneering Women Artists’ in September at the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki. Focussing on the long 19th century and in particular, but not exclusively, the artistic centres in Germany of the period, museum curators, art historians and researchers from the Nordic region, the Baltic states, Germany, and Poland gathered to share their knowledge and research interests, to forge information networks and pave the way for collaborating on a research publication and future exhibition project. The two-day conference, organised by Ateneum Art Museum curators Anne-Maria Pennonen and Hanne Selkokari, enjoyed some 14 presentations, which introduced many new names, new works, transnational connections and source materials, with information being eagerly shared among international colleagues and – a first for the FNG – online streaming allowing open access for those not attending in person; around 30 joined. As the conference progressed there was a sense of community developing among the participants, perhaps not so different from the international community that the women artists felt in the 19th century who were the subjects of their research.

The conference marked the initial phase of the project, bringing together research interests, which it is hoped will develop into a research publication, online articles and collaboration for an exhibition on the theme, in Helsinki at the Ateneum Art Museum, and in Düsseldorf at the Kunstpalast, scheduled for 2025. Given that Finland, being located on the eastern borders of Northern Europe and perhaps itself considered a peripheral nation on the European art-historical map, the theme of centres and peripheries is pertinent. By focussing on the Nordic and Baltic regions’ connections in the 19th century with centres of artistic excellence and learning in Germany, rather than Paris (a well-trodden art-historical path), the activities of women artists on the peripheries are given centre stage. Thus the conference heard from researchers from Poland, Romania and Latvia, resulting in an opening up of new information and fresh insights for those from the more well-known artistic hubs in Europe. With comparatively little written material published in languages other than their own, researchers from these countries were able to share through their conference presentations information that had not been encountered before by many beyond their borders. Thus the conference heard from the Netherlands-based Romanian art historian Oana Maria Ciontu, on the travels of Romanian and Transylvanian Saxon women artists, from Latvia’s Rundāle Palace Museum Dr Baiba Vanaga, on Baltic women artists in German artists’ colonies, and from the National Museum in Warsaw Dr Agnieszka Bagińska on the first Polish woman to travel to Munich to study painting. In this way the conference paves the way for further integration of a wider geographical area into European art history.

From the presentations as a whole, key themes emerged and overlapped. At the centre were the travels made by women artists in search of an art life, be that through art education, forging careers as artists, making connections with like-minded artists, finding community. Constellating around and merging with this theme were further themes such as new artists, career/life strategies, finances, social conditions, networking and source materials for research, and historiography.

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Featured image: Kunstkolonie Worpswede, Fritz Overbeck with his students in Worpswede, 1896. Photographer: Hermine Rothe
Photo: Paula Modersohn-Becker-Stiftung
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Hugo Simberg, The Garden of Death, 1896, gouache and watercolour on paper, 15.8cm x 17.5cm Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Jenni Nurminen

A Bridge between Worlds

Gill Crabbe

Gill Crabbe, FNG Research

A seminar organised as part of the Finnish National Gallery’s international research project, Gothic Modern, saw museum directors, scholars and curators gather in Helsinki to exchange ideas for a scientific publication on the topic. Gill Crabbe met Dr Ralph Gleis, Director of the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin and future Director General of the Albertina in Vienna, to find out why he was drawn to collaborate with Northern European museums and academics

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Dr Ralph Gleis is darting about the rooms and corners of the house museum we are exploring on the outskirts of Helsinki. He is here for a knowledge-sharing gathering for the Finnish National Gallery’s international research project on Gothic Modernism. As part of the programme the group is visiting the 1930s home of the art collectors Signe and Ane Gyllenberg specifically to see a work by Akseli Gallen-Kallela that is regarded as pivotal to the theme of Gothic Modernism, a term that over the four years of the research project is becoming an emerging genre. Scholars and museum professionals from the UK, Germany, Belgium, Norway and Finland have come together to explore new meanings and share their research with a view to producing a scientific publication on this topic. As we proceed through the elegant rooms of Villa Gyllenberg, replete with paintings by key Finnish painters from the 19th century, there is a mercurial quality to Dr Gleis’s curiosity as he homes in on the details that have caught his eye – a small painting of angels guarding a corpse in a field of ravens, sculptures of monk-like figures placed on window sills, Buddhist statues – then opens out his gaze to the view across the sea outside. After a while we enter the dedicated space that displays Gallen-Kallela’s extraordinary artwork Ad Astra (1907), with its androgenous female form rising through clouds, her red hair radiating fiery against the golden disc of the planet Jupiter. The curators and scholars respond and ask questions, turning over the Symbolist, mythical and esoteric themes that the painting prompts, themes which are present in the concept of the Gothic Modern project. After a while, Dr Gleis focuses on the carved gilded-wood doors attached to the frame that have been opened to reveal the canvas, and which act as a portal giving the artwork a hallowed status not unlike a Gothic altarpiece. He is intrigued by the tendrils represented in the openwork on the doors. These are no delicate filigrees but robust entwined stems. As the group move on, Vibeke Waallann Hansen, curator at the National Museum Oslo, hangs back and opens her cellphone to show Dr Gleis the decorative carvings of the medieval stave churches of Norway – noting perhaps a Gothic reference reimagined here by Gallen-Kallela in a modernist twist. It is informal moments like these that are invaluable when museum curators and scholars get together and share ideas and perspectives.

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Featured image: Hugo Simberg, The Garden of Death, 1896, gouache and watercolour on paper, 15.8cm x 17.5cm. Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Jenni Nurminen
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Elina Brotherus, Nu montant un escalator, 2017, single-channel video, duration 3min 30sec Finnish National Gallery / Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma Photo: Finnish National Gallery

A Journey along Kiasma’s International Collection

Leevi Haapala

Leevi Haapala, PhD, Museum Director, Finnish National Gallery / Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma

Also published in Saara Hacklin, Kati Kivinen and Satu Oksanen (eds.), The Many Forms of Contemporary Art. The Kiasma Collection Book. A Museum of Contemporary Art Publication 175/2022. Helsinki: Finnish National Gallery / Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, 2022, p. 51–59. Transl. Anna Rawlings

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Contemporary art cannot be considered without international exchange. For its part, such interaction renews both the content of art itself and the activity of the art field. The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma has, since its founding, focused on collecting both Finnish and international contemporary art. Art purchases reflect topical issues, they speak of the museum’s activity and values in a changing art world. The collection profile of Kiasma, as part of the collections of the Finnish National Gallery, is linked with recognition of contemporaneity. What comprises contemporaneity in today’s world? How do we recognise the factors, artists, and artworks that renew art and society? I will expand on these issues in the second part of my article, through some chosen artwork ensembles.

Summarising the history of the collection

In Kiasma, the collection is expanded in relation to the museum’s exhibition activity and programme: international solo exhibitions, the ARS exhibitions showcasing the international trends of contemporary art, as well as different thematic ensembles, of which collection exhibitions are a central part. Collection purchases reveal the international role of the museum. Pieces purchased from the museum’s own exhibitions have a research history, and they have become familiar to our audiences. Such pieces beloved by the audience include, for example, Christian Skeel and Morten Skriver’s scent vases, Babylon (1996), Jacob Dahlgren’s colourful ribbon piece The Wonderful World of Abstraction (2009), Ken Feingold’s interactive sculpture Head (1999–2000), whispering its strange secrets, as well as Wolfgang Laib’s Milkstone (1978–83).

The collection’s geographical area was sketched in widening circles: from Finland to the Nordic Countries, the Baltic States, Russia, as well as Europe and the United States. Later, the independence of the Baltic States, the strengthening of the contemporary art field, and the new agents in contemporary art in the area have helped enlarge the view. Today, the museum emphasises the interaction of local and global culture: art is purchased across national and geographical borders. Nevertheless, areas neighbouring Finland have remained as topics of interest. The 100th anniversary of the first independence of the Baltic States in 2018 encouraged us to update our relationship with the art of the Baltic area, and the collection has been complemented with pieces from a number of rising artists from our neighbouring areas.

Different continents have been emphasised at different times through collection purchases from temporary exhibitions: Latin American countries, such as Brazil or Chile, have been represented through the exhibitions of Cildo Meireles, Dias & Riedweg, Ernesto Neto, and Alfredo Jaar. The art of Sub-Saharan Africa was examined in the ARS11 exhibition. Art from Northeast and South-East Asia was purchased from the ‘Wind from the East’ and ‘Drawn in the Clouds’ exhibitions, from Thailand, Japan, and Indonesia, and artists such as Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Chiharu Shiota, and Melati Suryodarmo. These are complemented by installations acquired from the solo exhibitions of the Thai artist Korakrit Arunanondchai, as well as Choi Jeong Hwa from South Korea. The ARS exhibitions have created an opportunity for producing commissioned pieces and making international purchases.

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Featured image: Elina Brotherus, Nu montant un escalator, 2017, single-channel video, duration 3min 30sec. Finnish National Gallery / Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma
Photo: Finnish National Gallery

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