Love for Minimalism

Pentti Kouri became interested in collecting art in New York in the 1980s. Following his passionate and uncompromising instinct for art, he accumulated a collection that is a true reflection of the collector. The FULL HOUSE - The Kouri Collection and American Minimalist Adventures exhibition will now display some of these works. It will provide an overview of minimalism and is complemented by works on loan from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Museum Director Berndt Arell discusses in his article the significance of Kiasma’s Kouri Collection as well as Pentti Kouri as an art collector.

Supporting new art and the creation of new culture too has an enormous impact on the overall development of society – art is a reflection of the nation. This interplay between the historical continuum and the creation of new things is the playing field of artists, art museums, art galleries and art collectors alike. Without the one you can’t have the other.

One of the main functions of Kiasma as a museum is to build our collection of international contemporary art and to offer our audiences an opportunity to experience the world and themselves in new ways through art. Augmenting the collection in conditions of steadily declining resources is therefore a challenge to the entire museum. How does one keep fulfilling the museum’s task of collecting, conserving, presenting and researching art in a changing world, when resources remain on the same level they were at when the museum was first opened? One answer to this dilemma comes from the passion of private collectors for art. It was precisely such passion that provided the nucleus of Kiasma’s collection: the Kouri Collection.

The collection built by Dr Pentti Kouri is the heart and soul of Kiasma’s art collection. The Kouri Collection represents a significant development in the Finnish museum world, and its acquisition instantly made Kiasma a leading museum of contemporary art in the Nordic context. In the early years, the Kouri Collection represented the international perspective in Kiasma’s collection, which otherwise focused mainly on Finnish art. The importance of the Kouri Collection is also recognised internationally, attracting partnerships for Kiasma from museums abroad. It also contributes to the profile of Kiasma as a whole – a collection consisting mainly of American art, housed in an a space designed by an American architect.

The Kouri Collection is also indicative of a collector who has a personal and passionate relationship to art and artists. It was very important for Kouri to meet the artists face to face and to follow their development over a long period of time, and in fact many of the artists became his personal friends. The significance of the Kouri Collection does not reside merely in its value, rather it communicates also a vision of time and place from a very personal perspective.

Pentti Kouri began collecting art in New York in the late 1980s. His interest in art stemmed from his interest in his times. Soon art developed into a central and important part of his life. In my conversations with Pentti Kouri he has often said that he was primarily interested in art that presents itself as purely as possible; minimalism was for him a natural way of experiencing the world in a new way. When his finances allowed it, Kouri wanted to build up a collection that would communicate his idea of art and the world. Collecting was for him not only a venture with a purpose, but also very rewarding personally. Possessing works of art was no longer an end in itself – the raison d’être of his collecting became his contact with art on a very personal level.

As a collector, Kouri shuns compromises. For example, the collection has several pieces by Richard Serra. American art in the Kouri Collection also includes important works of the Arte Povera school, such as large, monumental works by Jannis Kounellis and Mario Merz. English sculptors are also well represented in the Kouri Collection. The collection is in fact quite rare in that only museums usually have the resources to acquire and maintain such massive works of art. The Kouri Collection ended in Kiasma when the Finnish Ministry of Education bought it in 1997 from the Finnish Postipankki bank and subsequently donated it to the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1998. This arrangement also reflected Pentti Kouri’s personal wish that the collection would stay in Finland. The opening exhibition in 1999 presented the Kouri Collection in its entirety for the first time to the Finnish public.

The Kouri Collection in Kiasma shows how the passion of an individual can become an important part of an entire nation’s cultural heritage. It can also bring joy and new insights to the audience, change its shape and communicate in an ever-expanding range of languages in a changing world. It allows culture to reflect upon its own age and to preserve messages from the past. Its deepest meaning is nevertheless personal for both the collector and the viewer – and the interpretation of that meaning is always private.

I am happy that the Pentti Kouri Collection has found a home in Kiasma.

The text is abbreviated from Berndt Arell’s article You Can’t Have One Without The Other in the book The Kouri Collection in the Museum of Contemporary Kiasma. The publication of the volume was enabled by The Kiasma Foundation.