Gothic Modernisms

29–30 June, 2017

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Organised by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Coventry University; the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture, in collaboration with the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; the Ateneum Art Museum / Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki, and Radboud University, Nijmegen.

Keynote speaker: Prof. Elizabeth Emery, Montclair State University, US

‘Gothic Modernisms’ forms the culminating event in a trilogy of conferences investigating the modern and modernist reception of Northern medieval and Renaissance masters in Europe, beginning with ‘Primitive Renaissances’ (National Gallery, London, 2014) and continuing with ‘Visions of the North’ (Compton Verney Museum, Warks, UK, 2016).

For details of the call for papers, please download the full PDF below:

Call for Papers: Gothic Modernisms 2017

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Gothic Modernity and Nordic Art

‘Gothic Modernity and Nordic Art: Identity, Community and Belonging at the Fin de Siècle’ by JULIET SIMPSON, Professor of Art History, Chair of Visual Arts Research at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Coventry University, which is a collaboration partner of the Ateneum Art Museum / Finnish National Gallery.

5 October, 2016
5 pm – 6 pm

Ateneum Art Museum, Ateneum Hall, Kaivokatu 2, 00100 Helsinki
The talk is included in the price of admission to the gallery

Professor Simpson is an internationally-recognised expert in research and scholarship in European art, visual culture and French/European art criticism of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and has collaborated with world-leading universities, museums and galleries. Professor Simpson is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Academic Art History Consultant for Compton Verney Museum, Warwickshire, UK.

For more information on Professor Simpson, see
http://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/research-directories/researchers/professor-juliet-simpson/

Welcome!

 

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Alice Neel and Portraits in Art

24 September 2016

This conference organised by the Ateneum Art Museum / Finnish National Gallery focuses specifically on paintings by Alice Neel, a masterful portrayer of people, while also discussing portraits and self-portraits in art in general. The venue of the conference will be the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland.

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To view the programme of the upcoming conference, please visit

http://www.ateneum.fi/tapahtumat/alice-neel-seminaari/?lang=en

 

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Picture this! – International Conference on Photography and Videos in Museums Today

24–25 November 2016

This two-day international conference organised by the Finnish Museums Association, the Finnish National Gallery, and the Finnish Museum of Photography discusses the position and challenges of museums in the world of growing and changing streams of images.  The venues of the conference will be the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma and the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland.

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To view the programme of the conference, please visit http://museoliitto.fi/picturethis

 

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Association of Art Historians (AAH) Annual Conference 2016, Edinburgh

7–9 April 2016

 

Here we publish the Finnish National Gallery’s contribution to the 2016 AAH Conference comprising extended conference abstracts from the three Finnish National Gallery delegates

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From Puffy Cumulus Clouds to the Lapping Waves of a Lake

Anne-Maria Pennonen, Curator, Ateneum Art Museum, Finnish National Gallery // PhD student, University of Helsinki

Session: Air and the Visual

Download the Conference Abstract as a PDF >>

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Kullervo’s Story: Mythology, National Aspiration and the Construction of a Nordic Cultural Identity and ‘Artisthood’ 

Riitta Ojanperä, PhD, Director, Collections Management, Finnish National Gallery

Session: The Idea of North: Myth-making and Identities

Download the Conference Abstract as a PDF >>

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To Lend or not to Lend? Finnish Art Exhibitions Abroad in the 1930s and the Fine Arts Academy’s Loans Policy

Hanna-Leena Paloposki, PhD, Archive and Library Manager, Finnish National Gallery

Session: The Physical Circulation of Artworks and its Consequences for Art History

Download the Conference Abstract as a PDF >>

 

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Changes in Visual Culture – Japanomania in the Nordic Countries 1875–1918

19 February 2016

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In connection with the exhibition ‘Japanomania in the Nordic Countries 1875-1918’ (18 Feb-15 May), the Ateneum Art Museum organised an international conference on 19 February, 2016.

 

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Download the Programme of the ‘Changes in Visual Culture – Japanomania in the Nordic Countries 1875–1918’ Conference as a PDF >>

 

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NORDIK 2015 Conference, Reykjavik

13–16 May 2015

 

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NORDIK Becomes a Full Association

 

Riitta Ojanperä, Director of Collections Management, Finnish National Gallery, has been a Finnish member of the NORDIK board since 2012. Here she explains the exciting new developments that are placing NORDIK more firmly on the art-historical map

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The NORDIK Committee For Art History, which has been active since 1983, has been a great example of the potential of professional networking and collaboration. The organisation of 11 triennial conferences has been based on a scholarly urge to meet the intellectual challenges of art history.

The art history departments of several universities in the Nordic countries, as well as many museum organisations, have been committed to fostering NORDIK’s goals. The network’s continuity has been assured by a functioning board with members representing both the academia and museum fields in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

Nevertheless, the need to build the Committee’s future on a more solid institutional ground had been stated several years ago. This goal was accomplished when the Committee’s General Assembly met in May this year in Reykjavik, in the context of the 11th NORDIK conference, the first to have been arranged in Iceland.

At the meeting, the General Assembly accepted new regulations for the association named NORDIK (The Nordic Association of Art Historians). One basic advantage of the change from a network to a legal body in the form of an association is the opening of new practical ways for potential fundraising in the future.

The Association’s purpose and its aims, though, have not changed. It still exists to promote co-operation in the Nordic countries, to provide information, and to strengthen contacts between the Nordic and international art history communities. To fulfil its purpose it arranges the NORDIK conference. In addition to this, the new regulations state that the Association can help to arrange other conferences and symposiums, produce publications, and take initiatives that promote research and the education of scholars.

According to NORDIK’s long-established schedule, the next international conference will take place in three years time, in Copenhagen in 2018. The present chair of the Association is Dr Hlynur Helgason, from Iceland, and the chair of the next conference’s organising group is Dr. Henrik Holm from Denmark.

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For more information, please visit the NORDIK webpage http://nordicarthistory.org/ or contact the Association’s Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/804379882941687/.

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NORDIK Conferences 1984–2015

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1984
Nordic Art around the Turn of the Century
Helsinki, Finland

1987
Nordic Sponsors of the Arts
Gothenburg, Sweden

1990
Influence and Exchange
Ry, Denmark

1993
The Identity of Art History
Geilo, Norway

1996
Art After 1945
Turku, Finland

2000
The History of Art History
Uppsala, Sweden

2003
Exhibitions
Aarhus, Denmark

2006
Tradition and Visual Culture
Bergen, Norway

2009
Mind and Matter
Jyväskylä, Finland

2012
Presentation/Representation/Repression, The Critical Production of Display and Interpretation in Art History
Stockholm, Sweden

2015
Mapping Uncharted Territories
Reykjavik, Iceland

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Professional Match-making

Interview by Gill Crabbe

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The Ateneum Art Museum Director Susanna Pettersson has a close relationship with the Nordic Committee for Art History. Here she explains the vital role played by this innovative organisation

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The Director of Helsinki’s Ateneum Art Museum, Susanna Pettersson, has been a guiding influence in the recent history of the Nordic Committee for Art History (NORDIK). When the Committee was first set up in Helsinki in 1984 to promote research networks between Nordic art historians, it identified its main task as organising a triennial NORDIK conference. Nine conferences and almost 30 years on, that task was entrusted to Pettersson when, as chair of the Board from 2010–12, she presided over the organisation of the 10th NORDIK conference, which took place in Stockholm in 2012.

One of the key features of NORDIK is its commitment to bring together scholars from both university and museum contexts, as historically these have been separate organisational strands in the field of art history. As Pettersson explains: ‘If you take the example of the history of the Ateneum, the key people who were Board members of the Finnish Art Society – one of the predecessors of the FNG – were art historians working at the university, so at that time they had feet in both camps. That was the situation until the Second World War.

‘However, after the War people working in the museums formed one team and those at the universities formed another, and they didn’t really communicate too much. This situation continued until the early 1980s – it was very much the case in Finland but it was also the case in other European countries, so setting up the Nordic Committee for Art History as a network brought together people from both camps.

Pettersson firmly believes that the NORDIK conference is a game-changer in bringing art historians together in this way. Among the many benefits of the conference, she identifies three key advantages.

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Read More — Download ‘Professional Match-making’, an interview of Susanna Pettersson, by Gill Crabbe, as a PDF

Download the Full Article as a PDF >>

 

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Conference Abstracts from four Finnish delegates

 

Ålandian Landscape – There’s Always a Meaning in a Seemingly Meaningless Landscape
Anna-Maria Wiljanen, PhD, Executive Director, UPM-Kymmene Cultural Foundation

Download the Conference Abstract as a PDF >>

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From the Blade of Grass to Musical Landscapes – Japonisme and Musicality in Nordic Art
Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff, PhD, Senior Curator, Ateneum Art Museum

Download the Conference Abstract as a PDF >>

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Tyko Sallinen and the Marginalisation of the Russian Avant-garde in his Art
Timo Huusko, PhDLic., Chief Curator, Ateneum Art Museum, Finnish National Gallery

Download the Conference Abstract as a PDF >>

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Technological Utopia versus Cultural Dystopia – Discussing Peripheral Modernisms and Modern Cultural Identities in Finland after the Second World War
Riitta Ojanperä, PhD, Director, Collections Management, Finnish National Gallery

Download the Conference Abstract as a PDF >>

 

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Contemporary Takes on Helene Schjerfbeck

21 April 2015

Ateneum Art Museum Research Conference

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A professional seminar, held in the Ateneum Hall, took a deep dive into the research that is being conducted on Helene Schjerfbeck both in Finland and internationally.

The seminar was in English and open for all.

 

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Conference Programme

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Helene Schjerfbeck: The Brightest Pearl of the Ateneum’s Collection

 

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Finnish National Gallery’s Contribution

AAH Annual Conference 2015, Norwich

9–11 April 2015

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Grey Matters

Interview by Gill Crabbe

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For many years, Dr Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff, Chief Curator of the Ateneum Art Museum, has taken part in the Association of Art Historians’ conferences. Here, she discusses the paper she gave at this year’s conference in Norwich, in the session on Shades of Grey

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Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff is something of a pioneer in Finnish art-historical circles. Since 2007 she has been a keen participant in the conferences of the Association of Art Historians which are a platform for art historians to present their research to colleagues from all over the world. ‘I first took part when I was a postgraduate student, giving a paper on Finnish Mural Art at the turn of the 20th century. At some of the conferences, I was the only Finnish delegate’, she says.

Over the years she has been promoting these annual conferences to her Finnish colleagues and within the Finnish National Gallery. Now every year people from different departments at FNG are beating a path to it. The conferences, which take place in Britain, are usually attended by around 300 professionals worldwide, and offer several sessions on different themes, with four or five papers presented within each session. Von Bonsdorff’s enthusiasm for the benefits of taking part is palpable. ‘It’s an amazing chance to get a 20-minute glimpse of someone’s life’s work. Often the surprises come when you attend a session that is outside of your own field.’

At this year’s AAH conference in Norwich, Von Bonsdorff brought her own area of interest in the use of colour in late 19th-century Nordic and European art to the session on ‘Shades of Grey: Painting Without Colour’. Given the title of the session, why did she choose to title her paper ‘Picturing the Immaterial With Colour: Symbolist Ideal’? Was she making a point about how grey has been regarded as a non-colour?

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Read More — Download ‘Grey Matters’, an interview of Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff, by Gill Crabbe, as a PDF

Download the Full Article as a PDF >>

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Picturing the Immaterial with Colour – Symbolist Ideal?

Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff, PhD, Chief Curator, Ateneum Art Museum

 

When I first read about this session, ‘Shades of Grey: Painting without Colour’ I was thrilled since there are very few sessions that are actually devoted to colour and its research.

I’m delighted to have this opportunity to introduce a concept, which formed a big part of my doctoral thesis, namely Colour Asceticism. With this colour concept I have studied colour and meaning in Finnish and international art from the 1860s to 1906.

In this paper I discuss how the turn towards colour – that is when ‘material’ became a part of the content – is one of the main signifiers of Modernism in European art. First, my focus is on the new adaptation of the more achromatic palette which was broadly used during late 19th century, not just in the Nordic countries, but also elsewhere in Europe. The use of a colour ascetic palette was especially popular within the Symbolist circles. At the time, this kind of ‘reduced palette’ carried certain connotations, such as spirituality, musicality, harmony, melancholy, stillness, intimacy, silence and immateriality, and these concepts were among the topics widely discussed in the art circles of the turn of the 20th century. Moreover, ‘abstract’ elements, such as musicality and spirituality, which were so highly valued in this period, were not introduced through form, composition or subject, first, but through the idea of colour harmonies.

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Read More — Download ‘Picturing the Immaterial with Colour – Symbolist Ideal?’ by Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff as a PDF

Download the Full Article as a PDF >>

 

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