A few years ago, on 25 September 2015, HAM, the art museum of the city of Helsinki, found a definitive and wonderful location in the renovated Tennis Palace. The museum, in addition to housing 9 thousand works of art and hosting exhibitions that enliven the image, is part of a city that hosts about 500 works of public art, of which about half are owned by the museum. In this way the museum affirms its main goal: “Making Helsinki more fun through art”. Of course, the sculptures distributed within the urban fabric are memories that certainly do not go back to the rhetorical principle of the celebratory monument (such as the equestrian statues of the many kings and leaders scattered throughout the squares of Europe), as to the intentions of “Volterra 73” where Enrico Crispolti intended to create an involvement between anonymous passers-by and contemporary works of art scattered throughout the urban space.

In this sense, HAM defines itself as “courageous, curious, open to many possibilities, innovative”.

Under the guidance of the museum, the latest public art intervention was created for the cafeteria of the Kalasatama Comprehensive School (Helsinki) by Tommi Grönlund and Petteri Nisunen. It is an installation based on the seven colors of the solar spectrum identified by Isaac Newton (blue, magenta, red, orange, yellow, green and cyan), but which, thanks to LED light, are combined in 343 variations. The authors (who have worked in partnership since 1990) tell us about their intentions as follows: “Many of our works involve chance, which is often based on natural phenomena, such as the fluctuations of the radioactive background radiation. Even though its average remains constant, there could be large variations over a short period of time. The works have their own life within values ​​specifically set for the control systems. The fascinating thing about chance is that, despite our rational efforts, in the end life is always random”. Ultimately, a work focused on light, as a modulation of space, a bit in the manner of the French artist Michel Verjux.

We also point out “Passage”, the exhibition by Inka Bell, which can be visited (if the museum can open its doors soon) until 7 March. The expressive language of Inka Bell (born in 1981) is based on abstract minimalism, working by subtracting and cleaning up what may seem superfluous. The works incorporate subtle observations on space, focusing on examining the relationships between two-dimensional and three-dimensional approaches through a correlation between materials, color, surface and repetition. This exhibition is supported by Grafia and Arts Promotion Center Finland.

We must not forget that the Helsinki Art Museum is directly involved in the first edition of the Helsinki Biennale. The Biennale was scheduled for the summer of 2020, but was postponed due to the Covid-19 epidemic. The new dates announced are: 12 June – 26 September 2021.

The title of this first edition is “The Same Sea”, the place that will host the event is the island of Vallisaari, a former military area, fifteen minutes by ferry from the center of Helsinki, and the intent will be to create a platform dialogues between the Finnish art scene and the global panorama, through site-specific works, site-specific commissioned projects, workshops, works spread throughout the territory. The artistic director of the exhibition is Maija Tanninen-Mattila, who has been at the helm of HAM since 2013, and the curators are Pirkko Siitari and Taru Tappola. Forty are the invited authors. We remember some of them: Paveł Althamer, Pasi Autio, Egs, Katharina Grosse, Tadashi Kawamata, Mario Rizzi, Maaria Wirkkala.

Luigi Sain

Info:

HAM
Helsinki Art Museum
Eteläinen Rautatiekatu 8
00100 Helsinki
ham@hel.fi