Exhibitions and Museum Info
Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art

Current Exhibition:

nuevas historias

A New View of Spanish Photography and Video Art 
2nd June – 15th August 2010

The exhibition Nuevas Historias – A New View of Spanish Photography and Videoart includes works around 25 Spanish artists with the aim to put the spotlight on an area of contemporary art that is still largely unknown to many people but deserves all attention. The exhibition is the most extensive presentation of contemporary Spanish photography and video art outside Spain.    
                            
Photography made a relatively late entry on the Spanish art scene. However, the situation has changed rapidly and today one is struck by the innovative and intense expression of contemporary Spanish photography, which reflects the radical development that has taken place in Spain. In just a few decades, a somewhat closed society has been transformed into a multifaceted country in which contemporary culture enjoys a strong position.

Spanish photography does not shy away from the personal expression. In the 1980s, Spain experienced large-scale political and social change. The sociocultural movement La Movida, with the film director Pedro Almodóvar as a front figure, released a wave of suppressed creativity and tested the boundaries of freedom. The explosive Spanish culture of the 1980s expressed itself in many ways, but a common thread was an interest in capturing the intellectual currents of the rest of Europe, while, at the same time, relating to one’s own cultural heritage.

The desire to come to terms with history may be a possible explanation for the powerful expression of photography in Spain. The participating artists in Nuevas historias – a new view of Spanish photography - are joined by an interest in approaching notions such as cultural identity, heritage and history. The country’s wide spectrum of regions, languages and cultural diversity is reflected in the multi-varied expressions and constitutes a point of departure for many of the works.

Participating artists in the exhibition: Ignasi Aballí, Eugenio Ampudia, José Manuel Ballester, Jordi Bernadó, Isidro Blasco, Bleda y Rosa, Cabello y Carceller, Naia del Castillo, Jordi Colomer, Germán Gómez, Pierre Gonnord, Dionisio González, Cristina Lúcas, Chema Madoz, Anna Malagrida, Ángel Marcos, Alicia Martin, José Maria Mellado, Rosell Messeguer, Aitor Ortiz, Gonzalo Puch, Valentin Vallhonrat.

Curators are Timothy Persons, creator of the Helsinki School together with Estelle af Malmborg, curator at Kulturhuset, Stockholm. There is also an extensive website in relation to the exhibition and book project, www.nuevashistorias.com.

Producer: Kulturhuset, Stockholm
Co-producer: SEACEX (State Corporation for Spanish Cultural Action Abroad)
Co-operation with: Embassy of Spain

spanish modern art

2nd June – 15th August 2010

Spanish modern art from Kuntsi Collection, e.g. Picasso, Dalí, Miro.

Upcoming Exhibitions:

caj bremer

22nd August – 30 September 2010

Photographer Caj Bremer's (b. 1929) retrospective exhibition presents his work since the 1950s.

ilya glazunov and finland

25th September – 28th November 2010

The exhibition examines the era of President Urho Kekkonen through an intriguing phenomenon that involved art. The Soviet artist Ilya Glazunov was considered Kekkonen's "court painter", a status that attracted a great deal of attention in Finland in the 1970s. Glazunov gained notoriety in Finland above all with the presidential portrait he painted in 1973.

works from kuntsi collection

9th October – 28th November 2010

 

ola kolehmainen: a building is not a building

5th December 2010 – 23rd January 2011

Architecture is the subject matter of Berlin-based photographer Ola Kolehmainen’s (b. 1964) art. Instead of merely documenting it, he crops and brings forth interesting and surprising details. The name of the exhibition implies that in Kolehmainen’s photographs a building is not primarily a building but a fabric of colour, light, shapes, surfaces and depth, repetition and composition, an expedition to the image.

viljo revell: "it was teamwork, you see"

5th December 2010 – 30th January 2011

Architect Viljo Revell´s best known works in Finland include the Glass Palce, City-Center and Palace Hotel in Helsinki and apartment buildings in Tapiola. Internationally he is renowned for the City Hall of Toronto, Canada.
Exhibition presents a selection of his buildings and projects through photographs, drawings, scale models and biographical information.

Museum info

The Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art was opened to the public in February 2007. The new museum is situated in a former customs warehouse in the Inner Harbour of Vaasa. The building has 2,000 m² of space, which has been planned exclusively for museum activities.

Thanks to the new museum, both national and international exhibitions of modern and contemporary art are now a permanent feature of Vaasa’s artistic life.

The Kuntsi Foundation, founded by Consul Simo Kuntsi (1913-1984), has had the clear intention from beginning to provide the public with different aspects of contemporary art as well as to collect and present art phenomena from the art world’s recent history. This mission is now continued by the new museum.

In 1971 Consul Simo Kuntsi brought his growing art collection to his former hometown with the ambition of expanding the already fine supply of art in Vaasa. He also made an agreement with the City of Vaasa, whereby the city promised to keep the collection in Vaasa as well as to organize space in the form of a museum for it. The premises of the Vaasa Commercial School provided a suitable solution for presenting the collection in the 1970s and 1980s. However, in the 1990s, the space available at the school was no longer enough to satisfy the demands of the modern art museum, and the search for new appropriate space for the art collection began. In 2000 the Vaasa City Council eventually made a decision to build a new museum for modern art based around Kuntsi Art Collection. Vaasa City planned and renovated the former customs warehouse to make it a suitable location for an art museum.

The base collection in the Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art is the Kuntsi Foundation’s art collection – one of the most important classic collections of contemporary art in Finland covering pop art, kinetic art as well as committed art, informalism, surrealism, new expressionism, postmodernism… The more than 900 works forming the collection are a cross section of modern art history, from international modernists to the Finnish artists of today. But most of all, it is the classic collection of Finnish contemporary art created in the 1950s and onward.

The Kuntsi Collection is constantly growing and other nationally remarkable private collections are both deposited and donated in connection with it. Donations and depositions continue the work started by Consul Simo Kuntsi, and increase the importance of Vaasa in the modern and contemporary art world. Regular cooperation with other museums, artists and collectors in Finland and abroad further expands the new museum’s operation as well as the exhibition offerings of the most topical art.

Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art is also a forum for inter-artistic collaboration: music, literature, dance and theatre form a self-evident part in the museum’s operation. The new museum functions also as a teacher in art education. Different advised activities, guided tours, art clubs, workshops and lectures are organized in the museum. And an atelier called Studio has been especially designed for younger visitors. The Simo Bar & Kitchen, a Museum Shop and an art library are also available for visitors’ use in the museum.