Beautiful Exhibition

Dare we describe a contemporary art exhibition as beautiful? If theory and aesthetics are in the balance, which one tips the scale? Why are specific works shown together in a certain room? Curator Leevi Haapala takes us for a walk around the Image and After exhibition with illuminating answers.

How do you begin an exhibition?

The first room of the exhibition is all white and serene. Leevi, why does this room look this way? Why are these specific works here? "The theme at the start of the exhibition is Imminent image. We wanted to make sure that when viewers walk in, they will immediately see something that makes them stop and focus on the image, find it. We wanted to create a sense of calm and to open up viewers to the exhibition already in the very first room. For example, the work by Yishai Jusidman that is painted white on white cannot be seen at a glance. You really have to look at it."

Planning an exhibition begins with thinking of a general theme for it. If the exhibition is made up of works from Kiasma's own collections, the next step is to look for art in the collections that fits the theme. At what stage did this exhibition acquire sub-headings? Did they emerge on the basis of theory or did the works begin to form certain kinds of groups by themselves? "Actually both are true. When you go over several thousand works, they begin to cluster, so to speak. You begin to notice that this work and those works might have some connections, either in terms of content, in terms of the artist's world view or in visual terms. After that, you need to figure out a common denominator that is defined in broad enough terms and discreetly enough so as not to lump together very different works in the wrong way. To begin with, eight themes had emerged, but in the end, they were distilled down to four."

While it is true that the works in the first room of the exhibition are linked by an idea, they also simply look beautiful together. What takes priority when you plan an exhibition: the idea, or the way things look? "Both have an impact. To begin with, it is mainly the idea, the content and the themes, but once you are in the space and actually setting up, the look of things emerges, and you can see how everything fits together. For instance, we had originally planned to have more works in this room, and the ones you see were switched around several times. The deciding factor is the unifying visual aesthetic."

The second room is a wake-up call: this is no longer beautiful and white. What is the idea here? "This room offers more for the senses; in addition to colour, the choices of material also have significance. For example, the work that features a sock was associated by the artist with a blistered heel!"

Artists and techniques

The next room adds yet another element to the palette of experiences, moving images. "These works obscure the boundary between moving images and static paintings." When a work uses moving images, that brings technology into the mix, and we can see that used in very different ways in one room. For instance, the work by Elina Brotherus is just an image on the wall, there is no projector in evidence, nor a screen, while the work by Marjatta Oja has the projector on a pedestal, quite literally.

Who makes the decision on the type of technology that is used and how visible it is in the exhibition? "That is generally the artist. Take Oja, for instance: technology is always visible in her works, it makes a part of the whole, so to speak. By contrast, Brotherus has shown the same video work projected directly onto the wall, and on a screen. This time she wanted it like this, although I was rather in favour of a plasma screen. That might have made the work even more intimate, as the surface of the screen would have seemed to be a mirror surface that the naked artist is reflected in. I felt it would have given more the sense of a private bathroom, but naturally the artist decides how her work will be displayed. One of the interesting things about being a curator of a museum of contemporary art is that you get to work with the living artists."

The only work in the room that does not use a video is a portrait by Anne-Karin Furunes. How does that fit into a room that is focused on moving images? "When you walk past it, you will see that the picture has a life of its own. It, too, is a moving image. For it, we had to find a place where the viewer has to walk by. It is also the first work you see when you enter the exhibition from Studio K. We wanted also at this entrance a work that would draw people's attention - a face always does that."

We walk through Studio K and the southern second-floor gallery and climb the few steps to the third floor. It made sense to cross the second floor the way we did, but is there a right or a wrong way to go round this exhibition? "Not really. The exhibition has been designed so that wherever you enter it, you are at the start of one theme or another."

Architecture

In the southernmost room of the third floor, it feels as if the exhibition is an extension of the architecture or vice versa. Vesa-Pekka Rannikko's tubes are like a soft version of the pillars that support the window wall and the way the window panes filter the daylight is echoed in Jan Schoonhoven's grid patterns. To what extent does the architecture of the building influence how you build an exhibition? "This room is the best example of the way in which you can use architecture to benefit an exhibition. Just look at this lovely natural light! From here, we can also see a work by Aimo Taleva, which is a reminder of the idiom of 1970s architecture. The way that the work and its period ambience combine with the turn-of-the-century utopia that this building represents is something that creates its own meanings."

Since planning an exhibition begins with themes and works, at what stage does architecture enter the equation? "It is actually there more or less the whole time. When you know the building and the collections, you tend to think about themes, for instance, in terms of what space they would fit. In what space would small and intimate works be best, works you look at from close up, and where could you put works that demand a spacious setting? Themes, works and spaces were all part of the planning process all along."

The view into the following exhibition halls seems to continue in the atmosphere of this room. Gleaming metal and grids reoccur further into the exhibition, enticing us onward. Is this uniformity all in the viewer's head or is it deliberate? "It may well be in the viewer's head, too, but it is a deliberate view that we really worked on with exhibition manager Mikko Hintz and exhibition architect Jari Kantanen. Although we had drawn up a plan of where the works would be placed, it still took some time before they all really found their place, before all the pieces miraculously fell into place."

On Beauty

The view that opens up from the room is very beautiful - not a very frequently used adjective in contemporary art. As a curator of contemporary art, how do you feel if you are told that your exhibition is beautiful? "As I said in my article for the exhibition catalogue, it was once the case that beauty was not a valuable quality for contemporary art because it had been the only valuable quality of the traditional visual art that preceded contemporary art. When it comes to visual arts, the artists naturally take an interest in visual aspects - beauty is on its way back into contemporary art. We have had feedback on this exhibition specifically from artists, who find its aesthetic qualities pleasing."

So an artist can choose to create a work that is beautiful or not. The Image and After exhibition is specifically beautiful as a whole, even if individual works choose not to be. The exhibition as a whole is the responsibility of the curator, and in the case of contemporary art, he or she approaches the exhibition specifically through themes and ideas. Is a curator permitted a beautiful exhibition? Do you lose your credibility if you say you want to create an exhibition that is beautiful? "I doubt that, but it might not be the first thing you would say out loud. I did think about that a lot. I think it is important to be aware of why you would do it, what you are trying to say by doing it. I pondered this at the last Venice biennial in a pavilion that had been made supremely beautiful. In some way, the impression it left was old-fashioned in a way that made the end result very new and fresh. Maybe that was an inspiration in its own way. It left me thinking why a museum as an institution could not create a beautiful exhibition." Since contemporary art is not considered stereotypically beautiful, is the idea of a beautiful exhibition of contemporary art to question prejudices and startle the viewer? Are ugliness and broken things old news already? "That might be one way of looking at it."

Points of view

From the light, south-facing room, we enter the narrowest space of the third floor. "The exhibition is structured on the principle that after seeing a wide and spacious setting, you can focus on works that require a closer look. We are playing with light here, stepping from a very light room into this darker corridor."

What is the common denominator of the works in this room? "The way of thinking, and the artist's attitude. Although the works as such are very different from each other, the background and thinking of the artists have similar features that link them with the theme. In addition to repetition and serial works, the entire space focuses on visual disturbances, the thing that does not fit in. In addition to that, the concept of time is also present in this room. The atmosphere of the works by Eino Ruutsalo and Mika Taanila is the same, even if they come from different decades and use different techniques. It is also interesting how 1970s video art, pioneering as it was in its day, and 1990s video art, which used much more advanced techniques, both look just as old seen from today's perspective."

The acrylic sculpture by Aimo Taleva has been glinting in the distance throughout our tour of the third floor, but seen up close now, it looks different. "Some works of art are meant to be looked at both from a distance and close up. For instance, when you see the sculpture with the works that are visible from the rooms furthest to the south, it brings out different aspects than when you see it up close like this, surrounded by the other works here. In this case, we approach the work through different time frames - when you look at Taleva with Ruutsalo, we are in the 1970s, and then this room is very definitely in the present."

The skateboarders in the pictures deliberately use the surroundings in different ways than originally intended. On the floor of the same room, there is a sculpture by Carl Andre, which makes the museum visitor feel uncomfortable: what is intended here, is the piece meant to be trod on or not? "You are allowed to walk on the work, but that is not a point. It's funny to see that people clearly watch out for the work, even if there is no sign to say that the work is not to be touched. As a seasoned museum worker, I have to admit that I find it hard to step on it myself."

When you leave the room, the sculpture on the floor is gradually lost from view. "This space was designed so as to look empty at first, when you enter from the direction of the lifts. Gradually, the sculpture on the floor comes into view, but the other works are seen only as you enter the room. By the way, finding the right position for that sculpture was far from easy, we spent quite some time fitting it into place."

Entrances

If you come straight to the third floor to start viewing the show, which way are you supposed to go? "Whichever way you like. The rooms on either side have their own theme, but they can be viewed in any order."

This room looks as if all the works somehow knew their place. Is that a carefully created illusion, or was it easier to set up some rooms than others? "It was self-evident that the pink wall by Jacob Dahlgren would be over there. Actually, that was not completely straightforward, because it turned out that the wall was 17 centimetres too short. Luckily we have highly skilled exhibition managers and they extended the wall! After that, the other works gradually found their place."

There are lots of grid patterns, especially in this room. For instance, a grid is an element in about the only work in the exhibition of which you can tell what it represents. "This work by Sami Lukkarinen is interesting as it specifically shows what happens after image. The picture has been emptied, shaped into a grid, and then the artist has begun to refill it with meanings. The image also offers a different type of entrance into this exhibition by giving rise to a number of associations. The visitor can read many different stories from it."

The works by Joseph Kosuth in the next room may be on show for the last time. "It was quite an achievement to be able to exhibit these works at all, because years ago, they had been exposed to light too long. The conservators worked for months on these before we dared put them on show. The works will be removed for the summer and, in the autumn, we will consider whether they can be displayed again, or whether we should let them rest."

There is a lot of technical skill that goes into making an exhibition, like conservation and building walls. How much thought does a curator give to this side of things? "Certainly some. Exhibitions of the collections have the advantage that all the work we do to restore and conserve the works is for ourselves, we benefit from it. It is nicer to show the works than to keep them in storage."

There to be seen and experienced

Does art exist if it is seen by no-one? Does art need a viewer? Take the Kosuths, for instance: if they are shown now for the last time, what happens to them when they are put into storage, do they die? "Well, we try to document them as thoroughly as possible, and after that they will only be available to researchers. Art lives on as long as it is being interpreted and analysed in different ways. What happens when no-one looks at it, no-one thinks about it, no-one interprets it, or writes about it is something I do not know. It is a good question."

One purpose for arranging an exhibition of the museum's own collections is specifically to bring works into view so people can experience them. "There are about 120 works on show in this exhibition. That's not very many when you consider that Kiasma's collections comprise about 9,000 works. Actually, none of the works shown here in the northernmost room of the third floor has ever been exhibited at Kiasma before."

There are more works that fit the theme in the museum's collections than can fit into the exhibition. When you were choosing works, how important was it that a work had not been seen by the public at Kiasma before? "It was one of our main principles in making the choices. Even to the extent that if we came across a work that fit the theme, but had been exhibited before, we really thought hard about whether the work was so excellent that it could be absolved of having been seen before. In this room, for example, there is a work on the wall that was one of the first acquisitions for the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art; however, this is the first time it has been exhibited."

The impact of impressions

In the last room of the exhibition, you can make discoveries. What was the inspiration for this theme? "We wanted something intimate, delicate and airy for the end. At the same time, I wanted to create an impression of an artist's studio, where there are sketches and lots of interesting little things to look at. We even considered painting this space in some colour to give it a more intimate feel."

The overall impression of the space is very light, even if the focus is on small objects. Small objects are often highlighted by using spotlighting, but here we did not do it. Was this more general lighting a deliberate choice? "It was. There are many works in the other parts of the exhibition that are highlighted with spotlights. In a way, these works are sketch-like, we wanted a space where thoughts can fly freely. You can pick thoughts out of the air, you can look at everything in any order you like, in a focused or random way. In the last room of the exhibition, we wanted to offer small, light observations. In a sense, if you go round the exhibition in the order we just did, you will find something delicate that entices you to really see things, both at the beginning and at the end of it."

With what kind of feelings would you like viewers to leave the exhibition? What would you most like them to remember? "I'd like them to warm to the visual elements. Perhaps they would begin to perceive more in their environment, seeing things in a new light, observing things that have not occurred to them before."

To look at what you are seeing, to really see what you are looking at: now there is a mission for life.

-Milla Unkila