KERAVA ART MUSEUM

Kerava Art Museum is situated in an old Nokia rub factory building called Klondyke-house.

The museum has exhibition spaces (1000m2), a café and a museum shop. The Art Museum exhibits Finnish and international modern and contemporary art.

Address: Kerava Art Museum, Klondyke-house, Savio-station,
Kumitehtaankatu 5 F, 04260 Kerava, tel. +358-9-2948090
Open: tue-fri 12–18, sat-sun 11-17

How to get there:
from Helsinki main railwaystation take the train K to Savio-station (circa 30 minutes)

Contact:
Museum director Arja Elovirta
arja.elovirta(at)kerava.fi
tel. +358 40 318 3434

Guided tours can be booked from the number 040-318 3436 / Sanna Ojanne. Reservations to be made three days in advance. A guided tour of about one hour is 35 €. By reservation groups can also be accommodated in the morning.

Admission fees: adults 5 €; pensioners, students, unemployed 3 €. Free admission under 16 year-olds and Wednesdays.

EXHIBITIONS 2011

27.5.–28.8.’11
Markku Hakuri and friends present: HOLE IN THE UNIVERSE

Pilar Andeyro, Riikka Aresalo, Michal Cimala, Scott Andrew Elliott, Markku Hakuri, Tristan Hamel, Roel Meijs, Salla Salin, Dan Snow, Juliane Stiegele

Markku Hakuri, sculptor and professor of Environmental Art at the Aalto University School of Art and Design, has invited to the Hole in the Universe exhibition renowned environmental artists from Europe and the United States as well as graduates and students of the international Environmental Art Programme of Aalto University School of Art and Design. All of the artists are united by their desire to create art in the environment, resulting in memorable experiences and sharing what one might call a poetic character.

Hakuri writes: Environmental art is a public act. It is a statement which has its ethic and aesthetic premises. Life is an enigma which we try to solve in the space between two events, life and death. We call this space reality, the world or environment, and attempt to control it by research, analysis, individualization and labelling. In environmental art the space surrounding us is an essential part of the artwork or indeed the starting point for acting and constructing. Environmental art is focused on the human and the relationship between peoples’ acts and reality, the world and the environment, where everything is connected and influences each other – and nothing ever stays the same.

We have continually expanded our space of reality. From the house to the surroundings, from the surroundings to the globe, from the globe to the solar system, from the solar system to the Milky Way, from the Milky Way to… The next step is of course the universe and infinity. Are they reality and until what point? What comes after infinity and what came before the beginning? How to we handle these questions? By means of imagination or with the help of experience?

French philosopher Gaston Bachelard ponders these questions in his book Poetics of Space: “In point of fact, daydreaming, from the very first second, is an entirely constituted state. We do not see it start, and yet it always starts the same way, that is, it flees the object nearby and right away it is far off, elsewhere, in the space of elsewhere.” Living in the day to day reality and at the same time being able to be transported elsewhere is our unique ability and opportunity.It is a moment of revelation, an unexplainable feeling of being in the world and the chance at happiness and freedom – freedom from reality. It is a Hole in the Universe or the Rabbit’s hole in Alice’s Wonderland.

The artistic experiences of the Hole in the Universe exhibition are the work of, apart from Markku Hakuri, environmental artists Michal Cimala from the Czech Republic, Juliane Stiegele from Germany and Dan Snow from the United States. Of Hakuri’s former students of Environmental Art included are Roel Meijs from Holland and Scott Elliott from Canada and of his current students Pilar Andeyro from Spain and Tristan Hamel from France as well as Riikka Aresalo and Salla Salin from Finland.

A PUBLIC SEMINAR at Kerava Art Museum opens the exhibition on Friday 27th of May from 12 o’clock to 4pm. Artists of the exhibition describe their work and answer the questions: Why do I make art? And why do I make it the way I do? The chairman of the seminar is Ossi Naukkarinen, Doctor of philosophy and Head of research at the Art Department of Aalto University School of Art and Design. Further information: jenni.meskus(a)kerava.fi or +358 40 318 3435. The seminar is free of charge.

THE EXHIBITION HAS BEEN MADE IN ASSOCIATION WITH: Aalto University & VR

Press release in English.

9.3.–8.5.’11
PAAVO RÄBINÄ: STORM IN THE SALONS – A MODERN BEGGAR'S OPERA

The video work Storm in the Salons by long time resident of Brussels, Kuopio-born artist Paavo Räbinä (b. 1965), is a morality consisting of three independent pieces uniting images, drama and music. The main work of the exhibition, eight-channeled video installation Storm in the Salons (2011), pulls a knife to the throat of decision makers that suffer from long-term memory loss while once again promising voters the moon only to forget their promises and sponsors after the elections. An updated version of Räbinä’s Rebellion of Tampere (1993) installation fills the downstairs space together with Räbinä’s take on the Seven Deadly Sins (1998/2011).

As time has gone by the social edge of Räbinä’s works has sharpened and even become blunt. Instead of the good, beautiful and right he brings forth the human and his environment in all its sinfulness. Still Räbinä is not a nihilist. He believes in art as a force of change – and invites exhibition visitors to participate and write their message to the decision makers or their neighbors. The storm is rising… The blackboard is yours!

Unemployed, pensioners, students and artists are granted a free entry to the exhibition. The video work Storm in the Salons in the second floor is forbidden from under 16-year-olds.

27.5.–28.8.'11
HOLE IN THE UNIVERSE
The exhibition, brought to being by sculptor and professor of Environmental Art Markku Hakuri, focuses on the human and the surrounding universe poetically through surprising spatial experiences. On this trip Hakuri has invited his colleagues, renowned environmental artists Juliane Stiegele from Germany, Daniel Snow from the United States and Michal Cimala from the Czech Republic. A Hole in the Universe is born when the world is nudged off its usual orbit and when it is time to see and understand differently.

The exhibition artists are: Pilar Andeyro, Riikka Aresalo, Scott Andrew Elliott, Markku Hakuri, Tristan Hamel, Roel Meijs, Salla Salin, Daniel Snow and Juliane Stiegele.

Public seminar on Friday 27th of May from 12 o'clock to 4 pm. Why do I make art? Why do I make it the way I do? Artists of the exhibition describe their work and answer questions from the audience. Ossi Naukkarinen, Doctor of philosophy and Head of research of the Art Department at Aalto University School of Art and Design, is the seminar's chairman. The seminar is free of charge. Further information: jenni.meskus@kerava.fi or by phone 040-318 3435.

EXHIBITIONS 2010

In 2010, Kerava Art Museum celebrated its 20th anniversary by focusing on its own collections and the work of artists working in the museum's studios. The main exhibition of the year was Silent Revolution, presenting paintings and photographs of the legendary New Leipzig School.

27 January – 7 March
BLACK RAINBOW AND FOG MOOSE
Works by Antero Kare, Juri Saarikoski and Soili Talja

Close cooperation with artists has been one of the distinguishing marks of Kerava Art Museum. When the Klondyke House in Kerava was refurbished to serve as a museum, the redesign included five studios that all have windows facing north for excellent light. The works by Antero Kare, Juri Saarikoski and Soili Talja were created in this environment. Through imageries of ancient peoples, viewers are led into a metaphysical landscape of colour.

26 March – 30 May
HOW TO BUILD A DISHWASHER
Art by robots for robots
Axel Straschnoy

The Argentinean artist Axel Straschnoy, who also studied in the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, has lately been working in the United States in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Together with a team of artists, theatre directors, philosophers and neurobiologists, Straschnoy has designed two robots: an audience robot and a performer robot. The discussions of the team and the construction of the two robots were videoed and edited into a multi-channel installation that will accompany the robots in the exhibition. Straschnoy's exhibition and the associated seminar will form part of Pixelache, the largest festival of electronic art in the Nordic region.

26 March
CAMP PIXELACHE

In 2010, Kerava Art Museum will be one of the main venues of Pixelache, the electronic art festival that has been organised since 2002; the other venue is Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma. In Camp Pixelache, the museum will be taken over by Finnish and international media art professionals who, in an atmosphere of playful experimentation, will lead the audience into the fascinating world of electronic circuits and information technology. The one-day programme will include workshops, discussions and seminars. Details will be published at the Kerava Art Museum website in January-February.

7 April – 30 May
THE PHILOSOPHER'S CHOICE

The exhibition will be the first showing of a significant art collection donated to Kerava Art Museum. In celebration of the museum's 20th anniversary, also Eino Ruutsalo's kinetic light works and Risto Vilhunen's striped man will step up from the shadows of collections to take centre stage, to be joined by moving image works and works that come alive with the motion of lights and shadows.

16 June – 29 August
PAIN
Jari Juvonen, Markku Hakuri, Timo Heino, Maija Helasvuo, Mikko Ijäs, Mika Karhu, Peter Maury, Teemu Mäki, Heli Ryhänen, Niina Räty, Ari Saarto, Juha Sääski, Antti Tanttu, Kari Vehosalo, Henry Wuorila-Stenberg and students of the Aalto University.

The experience of pain is private, but can it also have a collectively shareable form? The question is explored by a group of acclaimed artists, some of whom are personally familiar with the experience of pain. The exhibition also includes an educational and community art aspect that will be organised in collaboration with pain organisations. Among other things, visitors will have an opportunity to measure the intensity of their own pain.

15 September – 28 November
SILENT REVOLUTION
Painting and photography from Leipzig

The silent revolution in German painting began at the Art Academy in Leipzig around the time of the reunification of Germany. Among the teachers of the Academy, Neo Rauch in particular experienced a meteoric rise to international fame. The common denominator of the works in the exhibition is their figurative approach and the amalgamation of fact and fiction to create a mysterious whole that follows the secret logic of dreams. Silent Revolution is the first show of this magnitude in the Nordic region of work by the New Leipzig School.

14 December – 20 February 2011
TIMBER BRIDE AND FOREST WEDDING

As Christmas closes in, Kerava Art Museum will host a forest wedding. The masters of ceremony will be Tapani Kokko, a sculptor from Orimattila, and Jasmin Anoschkin from Kerava, as well as a group of ITE-artists, as contemporary folk artists are called in Finland. Extravagant timber sculpture and stories of the forest people will be accompanied by a programme of related events. Some of the works will go on a tour to the Finnish Institute in Paris.

EXHIBITIONS 2009