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3 / 2 0 11
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Exhibition programme
28.9.11–8.1.12
Anitra Lucander, Kompositio
Anitra Lucander – Poet of Colour
Anitra Lucander’s (1918–2000) retrospective contains paintings, collages,
drawings and graphic works. Part of the EMMA’s classics series presenting
the great names of Finnish Modernism.
Yang Fudong – Utopia and Reality
Yang Fudong’s (born 1971, Beijing) four video installations will be shown
in EMMA’s media galleries.
Yang Fudong, No Snow on the Broken Bridge.
11.11.11.–
Juhani Harri
Juhani Harri’s (1939-2003) assemblages. Objects worn by time and weather,
found in flea markets, litterbins and nature form the “palette” from which
Harri builds his nostalgic tales.
2.3.–10.6.12
Italian Futurism
Inspired by the poet Filippo Tommasso Marinetti’s (1876–1944) famous Manifesto,
Futurism was an important art movement in Italy in the first half of the 20th century.
Focussing on the new urban world and concept of man, it scorned all that was old
and traditional, and glorified machines, technology, speed, noise and movement.
The exhibition covers the whole span of Futurism from the early 1900s to the 1940s,
and includes oil paintings, watercolours, pastels, design objects, tables, cabinets,
and sketches for costume and stage props.
Juhani Harri, Vaeltava juutalainen,
2000, esinekooste.
Saastamoisen säätiön taidekokoelma.
2.3.–10.6.11
Sophie Calle – Take Care of Yourself
Sophie Calle (b.1953) is a French artist whose work Prenez Soin de Vous
(Take Care of Yourself, 2007) will be shown at EMMA in its English version as a
wide compilation of video films and photographs. The work gets its name from the
last words of an e-mail sent by Calle’s ex-boyfriend ending their relationship.
Mixing private and public life is characteristic of Calle’s work.
On Permanent Display
The Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection
Rougena Zatkova: Marinetti Soleil, 1920.
Luce Marinetti Collection
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With its nearly 500 works, the Saasta­moinen Foundation
Collection fills half of EMMA’s total exhibition space.
The current hanging, Red, consists primarily of contemporary works
that revel in the myriad hues of red. They span the entire field of
visual arts, from video and photographic art to painting and sculpture.
On display are 40 works by almost as many artists.
Kansikuvassa Anitra Lucander. Kuva yksityiskokoelma.
Excerpts from the programme:
Comic artist Kaisa Leka
tells of bike trips she’s made over the past five
years in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany,
France, Iceland and Russia, illustrating them
with photos and comic strips.
Fairy Tale Marathon organised
by the DCA Dance School
The DCA Dance School brings fresh winds from
the world of dance to the WeeGee Art Marathon.
Performers include young talented winners from
the DCA Dance School’s Finnish Championships
and the semi-professional DCA Dancers.
The art marathon’s Silence Walk
arranged by Silence ry seeks to improve your
well-being through silence. Take the whole family
orienteering with a collector’s treasure-trove map.
Fulfil yourself
Come and make medals and badges from recyclable materials with the Finnish Broadcasting’s
Olotila team and Recycling Designer Aija Rouhiainen. Olotila inspires an everyday where you can turn
somersaults, test your limits and win, have fun and
generally fulfil yourself.
6.10.
do
ners an
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On wit
1
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G
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W
ver to
You’ve never run in
a marathon like this!
WeeGee and EMMA are celebrating their fifth anniversary
with a four-day Art Marathon on 13–16 October.
Participants are invited to enjoy the cultural benefits of the place in an entirely
new and sporty way. At the art fuelling stations along the track in the exhibition
centre, marathon runners can make instruments and medals from recycling
materials, test their dancing skills and build fairy castles.
Thurs. 13.10. 11am–6pm,
birthday, free entry. Free games
bag for the first hundred.
Fri. 14.10. 11am–12pm,
S Group customer-owner day,
Adults 5€ with S Card.
Sat. 15.10. 11am–12pm,
Sun. 16.10. 11am–5pm.
Entrance 10€ adults,
under 18 and over 70 free.
Ticket includes games bag
and marathon wristband.
Free bus to WeeGee from Helsinki,
Kiasma bus-stop.
Thurs. 10.40am, 2pm, 4pm
Fri. 10.40am, 2pm, 5pm, 7pm, 9pm
Sat. 10.40am, 2pm, 5pm, 7pm, 9pm
Sun. 10.40am, 1pm, 3pm
Musical instrument workshop
Come and make your own instrument from
recycling materials. From a floorball ball
to an ocarina!
Wii Games Room
Wii Sports Resort and
Wii Fit Plus and balancer board
Meet well-known figures
from the world of sport and art in the
football tricks room. All in support of
recreation activities for SOS Children’s Village.
Build a fairy castle
together with Lego and Palikkatakomo,
the Finnish Lego Hobbyists Group.
Star of Africa
board game – 60 years old!
Star of Africa World Cup qualifying heats.
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will appear in the café.
Check the day’s programme:
www.emma.museum/maraton
Saturday’s natural gas bus
sponsored by Gasum Oy.
Watch out for any possible changes!
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Sommitelma,1957
Ruukku Fezistä, 1954, öljy, Yksityiskokoelma.
” Through my painting I wish to convey the
impression of an harmonious peace from
somewhere beyond ordinary existence.”
4
Kollaasi
Text Sanna Teittinen
A
nitra Lucander’s (1918–2000) fascination
for ancient civilisations and religions had a
major influence on her work and moulding her
concept of art. She saw art as a means of escaping the mundane, everyday and superficial
in the direction of an ageless and permanent
expression. India and its religions had a particular influence on her idea of painting, for to her
it was also meditation. Her works are permeated by a refined spirituality and timelessness.
Her work in the 1950s made Anitra Lucander one of the earliest pioneers of abstract art in
this country, helping to reshape the visual arts
in the post-war period. She was an extremely
Exhibition at EMMA, 28.9.11–8.1.2012
versatile and innovative artist, and the enthusiasm that characterised her three-decade long
career led her to experiment in many branches
of the arts. Not only was she a painter, but also
a colour designer, draughtsman and graphic
artist. Lucander’s wide interest in materials led
to her making paper collages from the 1950s
onwards and later, from the 1960s, to textile
appliqué and a variety of other experiments
with different materials.
Due to her sensitive and profound sense of
colour, Lucander was employed as an advisor
on colour design in buildings during the 1960s
and 1970s, collaborating with such architects
Anitra Lucander
as Aarno Ruusuvuori, the designer of the
WeeGee building.
Anitra Lucander’s works are not only distinguished by their spirituality and timelessness,
but also reveal her enthusiasm for travelling,
different cultures, architecture and colour. Colour, however, remained uppermost. Though
her form language, materials and techniques
changed over the decades, colour continued
to play the leading role.
Kirjoittaja on näyttelyn kuraattori
– Poet of Colour
Moskeija II,
1968,
öljy kankaalle,
104 x 104.
Yksityiskokelma.
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”Each place has its
own colour scale …
Athens I remember as ochre, Istambul blue-grey.
Paris, too, is blue-grey.”
Huvudstadsbladet,
24.2.1969
Anitra Lucander. Private collection
Anitra Lucander in Chandigarh, India, in the mid-1960s. In the background is the
High Court building, one of the many buildings designed for the city by Le Corbusier.
Anitra Lucander in Tapiola and the World
From exemplary family girl to artist
A
nitra Lucander (1918–2000) came from an
affluent, multicultural background, a mixture of Russian, Estonian and Finnish-Swedish.
To begin with it looked like a conventional family story: well brought-up girl marries early and
gives birth to two children. But then came divorce and everything changed. By the second
half of the 1940s, she was a single-parent bringing up two small boys, simultaneously studying
in the evenings at the Helsinki Free Art School.
To the Tapiola Nallenpolku studio
After the war there were few decent studios
available in Finland and Lucander was constantly on the outlook for a better place to live
and work. She acquired her first proper studio
in 1955 in Nallenpolku, Tapiola, where the Artists’ Association of Finland had had built an
atelier complex. There she lived with her sons
– at that time the first and only female artist – in
a high-ceilinged sculptor’s studio for five years,
from 1955 to 1960. Thanks to having a real studio, Lucander could at long last fully concentrate on being an artist.
Anitra Lucander and
Marianne Maury in Paris,
1955. Private collection.
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Travelling as a way of life
Sweden, France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Morocco,
Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Israel, Iran, India, Nepal.
Travelling and the resulting experiences profoundly influenced Lucander’s art. She began
travelling in 1948, first to Sweden, and then almost every year a bit further afield. Open-mindedly and courageously she turned travelling into
a way of life.
Anitra Lucander mostly travelled alone,
though occasionally with a friend, one of her
sons or a colleague. She did not paint on her
trips as she preferred to travel light, and also on
a very tight budget. Everything was of interest –
the people, culture, architecture, temples and
mosques. What she remembered most from her
travels were the colours. She was particularly
enchanted by the strong turquoise colour of
mosques.
Serious illness during the 1970s and 1980s
prevented Lucander from travelling any more.
Anitra Lucander in her Nallenpolku
studio, Tapiola, 1956. Huvudstadsbladet archives.
Text Hannele Savelainen
In 1961 Anitra Lucander acquires
a loft studio in Vironkatu, Helsinki.
Private collection.
Why is EMMA in
WeeGee such a
suitable place for
an Anitra Lucander
exhibition?
The Anitra Lucander – Poet
of Colour exhibition is part of
EMMA’s series of classics
presenting the leading lights
of Finnish modernism. It is
particularly suitable for EMMA
as so many things connect the
artist to Tapiola and WeeGee.
She had her first real studio
in Tapiola’s Nallenpolku in the
1950s. Also she had close ties
with Hagalund Manor, working
in one of the outhouses during
the summers in the early 1960s.
It was via colour design that
Anitra Lucander became
associated with the architect
Aarno Ruusuvuori, WeeGee’s
designer. She worked as
Ruusuvuori’s colour advisor
at the end of the 1960s on
Helsinki’s Neo-Classical centre
in the area around the market
square.
Text Päivi Talasmaa
Portrait Aleksi Kinnunen
Yang Fudong
This autumn EMMA’s
media galleries will be
devoted to the contemporary
Chinese artist Yang Fudong,
offering the public the
opportunity of seeing his
video installations Seven
Intellectuals in Bamboo
Forest (parts 3-5), East of
Que Village, as well as stills
from the video No Snow
on the Broken Bridge.
Yang Fudong is one of the
leading lights of Chinese
video and cinema art,
a brilliant interpreter
with a magical touch
to his camera.
Yang Fudong’s video
installations at EMMA
Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest, part 5. 35mm film transferred to DVD, 91 min, 2007
C
hinese experimental art has undergone
a major transformation in the last few
decades. Thanks to the incredible economic
boom, contemporary art has experienced a
renaissance. Yang Fudong’s works provide an
excellent picture of what is happening in Chinese contemporary history and art.
The artists who rose to prominence in the
1990s had been born in the 1970s and 1980s,
and could also travel abroad. This made it possible to forge contacts and relations on the international art scene. But unlike the precious
generation that fled China, they stayed in their
homeland. These young artists have also had
better opportunities to work and earn than their
predecessors.
Yang Fudong, who was born in Beijing in
1971 and now lives in Shanghai, studied at the
China Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou, near
Shanghai. This progressive school was one of
the few places where it was possible to become
acquainted with international contemporary
and video art. Fudong’s first video was I Love
my Motherland, which was originally shown in
a Shanghai shopping mall as was the custom
in those days.
The First Intellectual
Yang Fudong’s reputation grew rapidly and in
2000 Ai Wei Wei, perhaps China’s most famous artist, invited him to participate in the
Shanghai Biennale with a series of three photographs entitled The First Intellectual. They
depict the weakness of the human condition
through an injured young man in a suit standing with a brick in his hand against an urban
backdrop. The figures are comparable to early
idyllic images of youth published by the Peoples’ Republic of China. Also Fudong’s first film
An Estranged Paradise (1997–2002) portrays
the restlessness and uncertainty of young intellectuals.
Seven Intellectuals
in Bamboo Forest
Yang Fudong began work on the five-part film
Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest in 2002.
The series follows the lives of seven young
people – two women and five men. The actors
are young amateurs. Fudong wished to use
people younger than himself to symbolise the
future. The film was finished in 2007 and the
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No Snow on the Broken Bridge
No Snow on the Broken Bridge
first complete showing was as one of the major
presentations of contemporary art, the Venice
Biennale.
The work is based on a story of seven Taoist
artists and poets during the Wei and Jin Dynasties (220–420 AD) who met in a bamboo
grove to converse, drink, sing and play traditional musical instruments. The group sought
to escape the responsibilities of earthly life in
the pursuit of individuality and freedom.
In the film, however, the intellectuals are
modern Chinese youth longing for personal
freedom in China’s increasingly capitalist society. The actors are dressed in nostalgic 1920s
and 1930s clothes, the idea for which came
from photos of the French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre that Fudong had seen.
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The film, parts 1–5
All five parts consist of black-and-white film
transferred to DVD. Fudong did not have a
screenplay to work from and the film is based
on the director’s spontaneous camerawork. It
contains little actual dialogue. The film is in five
episodes without a common story.
The first part (2003), shown at EMMA in
2009, is about the young people’s trip to the
Yellow Mountain in Huangshan, Anshui Province, which holds an important place in traditional Chinese painting.
The second part (2004) shows them in a
building, the nature of which is left unclear.
They discuss love and sex although this is not
physically shown in the film.
In the third part (2005), they set off for the
countryside to learn about farm work. During
the Cultural Revolution in China, intellectuals were sent to do hard manual work in the
countryside, but in Fudong’s film it is for the
experience that the young people choose to
learn about different jobs; working during the
day and resting in the evenings.
Their journey continues in the fourth part
(2006) to a small island. They love the sea
and wish to live on the island undisturbed and
isolated. This kind of life, however, is utopian.
In the last part (2007) the young people return
to the city and reality, and to new experiences.
Though still a young collective, they now start
to think about the future.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx
In his film, Yang Fudong shows how young
people experience a world torn between a conflicting past and present, and a future clouded
by uncertainty. As Fudong plays with the concept of time, his black-and-white film takes on
the character of old photographs. The parts
form a never ending narrative, like tableaux of
abstract works of art.
East of Que Village
East of Que Village video (2007) depicts the
Chinese countryside in its daily struggle for
survival against encroaching urbanisation. It
focuses on the feelings of isolation and loss
experienced in different parts of the countryside in today’s China: traditional communities
are disintegrating, villages are being swallowed
up surrounding conurbations and the struggle
to make a living is an everyday reality. The
world featured in the video is the cold, bleak
countryside of North China in which a group
of scrawny village watchdogs fight for survival.
This lyrical work is a metaphor for the feelings
of alienation and desolation Fudong sees in
modern society.
No Snow on the
Broken Bridge
they yearn to catch one last vestige of Broken
Bridge: the memory of translucent, languid
snow.” (Yang Fudong)
In the works to be shown in EMMA, Yuang
Fudong takes you to a culturally and geographically varying China. The still photos from the
video No Snow on the Broken Bridge (2006)
were taken in West Lake, Hangzhou, considered to be the Venice of China. They brilliantly
manifest the mystical and dreamlike aesthetics
that characterise all of Yang Fudong’s output.
”Four robed guests, four ladies in qi pao
(mandarin dress), four young people in suits,
and four girls dressed as boys gather at West
Lake in early spring. As winter fades for them,
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Text Päivi Karttunen
Photos Ari Karttunen
and Matti Ruotsalainen
At the end of autumn
this year, an exhibition
of the works of
Juhani Harri
(1939–2003) will be
opened in EMMA’s
SALI gallery.
The 70 works on
display, dating from
the 1960s up to the
artist’s premature
death, come mainly
from the collections
deposited with
the Saastamoinen
Art Foundation and
the Pori Art Museum.
Juhannusyö 1967. Esinekooste. 31 x 43 x 10,5. Porin taidemuseon tallenuskokoelma.
Juhani Harri at EMMA from 11.11.2011
TRANSIENT, TIMELESS
J
Lintujen palanut kaupunki 1960.
Kollaasi. 97,5 x 62 x 1,5. SSKO.
10
Juhani Harri. Private collection
uhani Harri came from Ostrobothnia where
his father was pastor of the parish of Palo­
saari near Vaasa. In summer 1957 they travelled to Sweden, visiting the exhibition of the
surrealist Halmstad Group and meeting the
painter Max Walter Svanberg (1912–1994).
Svanberg, whose birds and butterflies were already familiar to Harri, became an early source
of inspiration. Another important influence on
the young Harri was the French expressionist Georges Rouault (1871–1958), who painted religious motifs. In 1959 Harri moved to
Helsinki and began studying at the Free Art
School.
Harri started out as a painter, but soon
changed over to making assemblages, “boxes”. To begin with these were ordinary fruit
boxes, wooden drawers or the bottoms of suitcases. More or less anything could be used
to fill them: worthless debris, worn-out and
discarded objects found in attics, streets and
building sites. The assemblages contained old
Ballerina 1965. Esinekooste. 35 x 34,5 x 17. SSKO.
wallpaper, books, leather, tinsel, wire, honeycombs, lace, stuffed birds, old photos, bird’s
eggs and sand. Later, in order to protect the
little worlds he was creating, he covered them
with glass.
The earlier assemblages were rather small
and decorative, but later when his expression became simplified, they grew in size and
his choice of materials became more limited.
The boxes remained characteristic of the artist’s production from the 1960s onwards even
though the sizes varied. In his later production,
Harri again produced miniature assemblages,
this time from cigar boxes. He also made installations like the one in Tampere from old
black and white ice skates of which, unfortunately, no documentary evidence survives.
Art historically speaking, Juhani Harri belongs to New Realism, the international art
movement that came into existence in the
1960s. One of the artists pointing the way was
the American Robert Rauschenberg who since
the 1950s had been using objects and stuffed
animals in his works. Harri was also influenced
by members of the French group founded in
1960, Les Nouveaux Réalistes, like Arman,
Yves Klein and Jean Tinguely. At the 1968
Kassel Documenta, Harri met the American
artist Edward Kienholz (1927–1994) and they
became life-long friends. The following year
he helped erect Kienholz’s Roxy´s brothel installation at the ARS69 Exhibition in Helsinki’s
Ateneum.
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WeeGee building, 2nd floor
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ANITRA LUCANDER
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video
ANITRA LUCANDER
sali
galleria
alkaen 11.11.
agora
ANITRA LUCANDER
porras
JUHANI HARRI
ANITRA LUCANDER
YANG FUDONG
YANG FUDONG
raitti
S A A S T A M O I S E N
K O K O E L M A
V A I H T U V A T
N Ä Y T T E L Y T
salonki
PUNAINEN
PUNAINEN
PUNAINEN
hissi
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