133. Regional Travel #3.4 - Helsinki Art Museum
The Helsinki Art Museum (HAM) is in a great location right in the middle of the Kamppi neighborhood. It was one block from my hotel and two blocks from Tavastia Klubi. I noticed it while walking around during my last visit to Helsinki, and was looking forward to visiting it on this trip. It's right in the heart of a busy shopping area, and near the central bus station. The building it's in also houses a cinema, several cafes, and shops.
Half of the 9,000 artworks in HAM's collections are large sculptures that are spread throughout public spaces in Helsinki. Several hundred works are on display in the museum itself, primarily paintings. However, my favorite works in the museum were sculptures. One was a kinetic piece with thousands of tiny metal balls that rolled around on a platform. I was mesmerized by the hypnotic motion of the balls and watched it for a while (see below for a video). I also enjoyed a piece that consisted of an elevated wooden path in an empty room. When you reach the end of the path, you see a mirror at floor level that reveals you've been walking on knives.
Most of the gallery space is devoted to temporary exhibitions. An exhibit spread across both galleries on the second floor featured the work of three Finnish painters - Jukka Korkeila, Elina Merenmies, and Anna Retulainen. Their work - mostly large paintings from the 1990s and 2000s - was displayed with a selection of older paintings (late 19th or early 20th centuries) to show the thematic and stylistic links between different eras of Finnish art. These pairings were generally too few and the connections too obscure to really be impactful. Some of the contemporary pieces from these artists were excellent, but other works left me a bit cold. It's clear that I have different sensibilities than whoever curated this exhibit.
Cris af Enehielm is another artist who was prominently featured in a temporary exhibition in the main floor galleries. Her bold, colorful paintings from the 1980s and 1990s were my favorite two-dimensional art in the museum. The exhibit included several photographs, as well as videos of her avant-garde musical performance art. I would definitely not have enjoyed these performances had I seen them in person, but her paintings were great. One of the galleries on the main floor focused on the work of Tove Jansson, an artist beloved in Finland for her "Moomin" characters. Although, none of the Moomin art was on display here. Rather, it was Jansson's large murals that occupied two of the rooms on the first floor. These were among the few permanent installations in the museum.
Although HAM is not especially large, it was a great place to learn about the contemporary Helsinki art scene. I spent perhaps 90 minutes in the museum, but could have spent even more time had I decided to create my own drawings in the "hands-on" art workshop.
Half of the 9,000 artworks in HAM's collections are large sculptures that are spread throughout public spaces in Helsinki. Several hundred works are on display in the museum itself, primarily paintings. However, my favorite works in the museum were sculptures. One was a kinetic piece with thousands of tiny metal balls that rolled around on a platform. I was mesmerized by the hypnotic motion of the balls and watched it for a while (see below for a video). I also enjoyed a piece that consisted of an elevated wooden path in an empty room. When you reach the end of the path, you see a mirror at floor level that reveals you've been walking on knives.
Most of the gallery space is devoted to temporary exhibitions. An exhibit spread across both galleries on the second floor featured the work of three Finnish painters - Jukka Korkeila, Elina Merenmies, and Anna Retulainen. Their work - mostly large paintings from the 1990s and 2000s - was displayed with a selection of older paintings (late 19th or early 20th centuries) to show the thematic and stylistic links between different eras of Finnish art. These pairings were generally too few and the connections too obscure to really be impactful. Some of the contemporary pieces from these artists were excellent, but other works left me a bit cold. It's clear that I have different sensibilities than whoever curated this exhibit.
Cris af Enehielm is another artist who was prominently featured in a temporary exhibition in the main floor galleries. Her bold, colorful paintings from the 1980s and 1990s were my favorite two-dimensional art in the museum. The exhibit included several photographs, as well as videos of her avant-garde musical performance art. I would definitely not have enjoyed these performances had I seen them in person, but her paintings were great. One of the galleries on the main floor focused on the work of Tove Jansson, an artist beloved in Finland for her "Moomin" characters. Although, none of the Moomin art was on display here. Rather, it was Jansson's large murals that occupied two of the rooms on the first floor. These were among the few permanent installations in the museum.
Although HAM is not especially large, it was a great place to learn about the contemporary Helsinki art scene. I spent perhaps 90 minutes in the museum, but could have spent even more time had I decided to create my own drawings in the "hands-on" art workshop.
Comments
Post a Comment