Galerie Anhava

Kuokkanen’s paintings speak of sensitivity, introspection and sympathy. Their figures are often focused on their own thoughts with a downward, melancholy gaze. In her works the visible world and its norms are questioned, giving nature and everyday goods a human aspect. Beneath the sometimes humorous surface lies solemnity and depth. Kuokkanen perceives her creative process as a circular movement, where images, painting and text turn into one another and into something strange. For her the various stages of the work, such as mixing the paint and the sound that it produces all establish their own meanings.

Essi Kuokkanen lives and works in Helsinki. She graduated as Master of Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts Helsinki in 2020. Kuokkanen has held solo exhibitions in recent years at Galerie Anhava (2020), Galleria Live (2019) and Project Room (2018), and her works have been on display at group exhibitions in Finland and abroad. Kuokkanen’s works are included in the collections of the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, the Finnish State Art Commission, Finnish Art Society, Saastamoinen Foundation, Wihuri Collection and Rovaniemi Art Museum. She has been awarded by Finnish Cultural Foundation (2020), the Paulo Foundation (2020) Finnish Art Society (2019).

The soft and flowy pronunciation of the Finnish name Vuo (Flux) is a reference to the shape of the work, and its steel nets form a stream-like bed inside which one may pass through. The sculpture can be seen in different colours, depending on the direction of the viewer. Rannikko’s work is a reflection of the various meanings and functions of the surrounding area, where many voices form a united outcome.

Photo: Vesa-Pekka Rannikko

Welcome to visit Salla Tykkä’s Europe – Europa exhibition privately and safely. To book a private gallery visit, please contact: galerie@anhava.com / +358 9669989. You can also visit us with a shorter notice Tuesday–Friday 11–17 and Saturday–Sunday 12–16 by knocking on the door or calling us at your arrival.

The duration of the film is 45 minutes and the film starts every hour. Max 5 visitors are allowed in the gallery space at the same time. Please keep a safe distance to others. All visitors are required to wear a face mask. We have hand sanitizer and masks available at the gallery. If you are feeling even slightly ill, please postpone your visit.

We will continue to closely monitor the instructions of local authorities and will update news about any changes on our website and social media. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or inquiries.

The exhibition is the result of a month long residency where Karoliina Hellberg temporarily moved her studio in Helsinki to Gryfjan in Ásmundarsalur. The exhibition is a paint based installation, with works on canvas and on paper – among other elements.

The title of the exhibition Under Marguerite’s Bed is an allusion to the French author Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) and to her fictive bedroom as the artist would imagine it – and to the mysteries and secrets that could have only resided there, under her bed.  Hellberg has been researching and going through material related to Duras for several years now and is especially enthusiastic of her autobiographical writings and interviews. She feels familiarity to Duras’s approach to the lived space and its both practical and metaphorical dimensions.

Image: Karoliina Hellberg, Under Marguerite’s Bed, installation view | Owen Fiene

Lallukka has always been a multi-voiced and vital part of Finnish art. The Lallukka – Life in the Home of Artists exhibition showcases 43 visual artists who have stayed at the Home and 61 works from 1933 to modern times. Lallukka’s modern artists included in the exhibition are Elina Merenmies, Inka Nieminen and Tommi Toija. 

The works selected for the exhibition tell the story of the Artists’ Home, while also providing broader views of the phenomena in art and society.

The exhibition Lallukka – Life in the Home of Artists is on view from 13 November 2020 until 24 October 2021.

Image: Elina Merenmies, Rain, 2020, tempera and oil on canvas, 146 x 97 cm | Photo: Jussi Tiainen

Karoliina Hellberg visited the private home of architects and Artek co-founders Alvar and Aino Aalto in Helsinki, where she made numerous drawings in the garden and on the terrace, making notes in the form of sketches, recording details and observations. When experiencing the house, Hellberg became aware that the Aaltos considered the garden as room in its own right.

Based on her observations at the Aalto House in Helsinki, the artist created an intimate work on paper reflecting her personal interpretation of Artek. The poster can be purchased from Artek and the original paper works can be seen at Galerie Anhava’s office.

Karoliina Hellberg’s interview by John Jervis can be read here.

Image: Artek 85 anniversary poster Garden as a Room by Karoliina Hellberg.

Welcome to meet the artist Heli Hiltunen on Wednesday 11 November from 3 pm to 5 pm. Hiltunen will be present at the gallery to discuss and answer questions about her creative practice and her current solo exhibition Thank God, I’m Beginning to Be Delivered of My Melancholy. 

Welcome to meet the artist Juhana Moisander on Saturday 14 November from 2 pm to 4 pm. Moisander will be present at the gallery to discuss and answer questions about his creative practice and his video installation Pied Piper.

We kindly ask that you keep safe distances and maintain hand hygiene when visiting the gallery. We strongly recommend the use of face masks. Please refrain from visiting the exhibitions if you have any symptoms of illness.

Images:
Heli Hiltunen, Tiedon Portaat / Steps of Knowledge, 2020, collage, 171 x 126 cm
Juhana Moisander, Pied Piper, 2020, video installation, 4K, stereo, 8 min 21 sek, (loop), sound: Hanna Rajakangas

“The starting point in my works is often a personal, quite ordinary matter or material, that in itself carries certain values or attitudes. I spend a lot of time studying the materials that I work with so that I can use them in their characteristic way and to find their unique visual impact. In my practice I pursue a delicate form of expression that can challenge for example hierarchies and the structures of power, but that also leave room for the viewer to find out something of their own.”

Noora Schroderus has held solo exhibitions in recent years at Galerie Anhava (2019), Kunsthall Grenland in Porsgrunn, Norway (2019) and at the Turku Art Museum (2017), and has participated in group exhibitions at the Oulu Art Museum (2019), the Rijswijk Textile Biennial, Museum Rijswijk, in the Netherlands (2019) and the Rovaniemi Art Museum. There are works by her in the collections of the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, the Wihuri Foundation and the Gösta Serlachius Art Foundation, and the Lars Swanljung Collection deposited with the Kuntsi Foundation. Schroderus graduated from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2014.

Schroderus’s public art work PIQUE-NIQUE at Kupittaa Campus, EduCity in Turku will be unveiled in November 2020.

Heini Aho’s installation Surreal Salad is on view at Gallery Fikka, Porvoo Art Hall until 25 October 2020.

Image: Heini Aho, Surreal Salad (2020), installation (still)

“Just like us and our various mental states themselves, her figures simply exist, and yet at the same time reveal something that goes beyond the motif itself and tells so much more than what we see. 

Sunna’s paintings touch in a very intimate, intuitive way, addressing something unspeakable deep inside us, where we recognize ourselves and through which we feel connected to each other.“

Image: JUST FINE, 2020, oil on canvas, 65 x 60 cm. 

Gallery Talks I, Sunday 13 September at 2 pm:
Anna Tuori will discuss her artistic practice and her current solo exhibition with philosopher Kai Alhanen.

Meet the Artist, Wednesday 16 September from 3 to 5 pm:
Anna Tuori will be present at the gallery to discuss and answer questions about her creative practice and her current solo exhibition.  

Gallery Talks II, Thursday 24 September at 4 pm:
Anna Tuori will discuss her artistic practice and the current solo exhibition with gallerist Hanna Huitu.

The health of our visitors and staff is a priority for us. Please sign up for the Gallery Talks -events (Sun 13 September and Thu 24 September) beforehand at galerie@anhava.com 

We kindly ask you to wear a mask during these events. 

The discussions will be held in Finnish.

“The artworks of this exhibition have been born in a new dialogic collaboration project where researchers from the University of Oulu and a group of artists have explored the same historical source materials with the aim of finding a common language and developing communication. The Displaced opens both universal and private perspectives to Finnish war refugees as well as the emigration and immigration movements of our time.”

Image: Kari Vehosalo, Finnhorse I, 2020, oil on canvas | Jussi Tiainen

The eighth edition of CHART will take place in a new de-centred format across the Nordic capitals from 28 – 30 August. The art fair will not take place at Charlottenborg in Copenhagen this year, but within the exhibiting galleries’ own spaces in Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, Reykjavík and Stockholm.

The works by Anne-Karin Furunes and Essi Kuokkanen will be presented at Galerie Anhava’s office and showroom in Helsinki 28 – 30 August 2020. Visit CHART’s website for the full 2020 programme and registration.

Preview the stand on Artsy.

Image: Anne-Karin Furunes (left) and Essi Kuokkanen (right), photos: Vegar Moen and Matti Kunttu.

A K Dolven discovered this 1.4-ton bell mute on the ground and has conserved its voice. Untuned Bell is installed close to the City Hall at Honnørbrygga, one of the quays adjacent to Rådhusplassen, The City Hall Square. The bell hangs suspended from a 30-metre wire strung between two 20-metre steel columns, directly opposite its former home, with the sea and sky as a backdrop.

A “Cry Baby” pedal, of the same type used by rock guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and others, has been set onto the ground. By pushing the pedal, the audience can call forth sound from the shunned, out-of-tune and long-silenced bell.

Norwegian composer Rolf Wallin has composed a specially commissioned work for Untuned Bell – each day over the course of a week, the composition gradually activates the bells remaining in the City Hall’s carillon. One by one, they join in. As always, when an outcast is welcomed back into the fold, only a few initially dare to speak out on the outcast’s behalf. The composition will be performed in connection with the bell’s return. Close to its original home, the bell can once again converse with its former community at the top of the tower.

Curator: Kristine Jærn Pilgaard

Image: Vegar Moen

Antti Laitinen’s practice has long revolved around trees and the forest. He may, for example, cut a tree to pieces and then reconstruct it, encase the tree in a piece of armour made from sheet metal, or cover the tree with nails.

In this exhibition, as the name of the exhibition already implies, Antti Laitinen focuses on photographs from the Broken Landscape series. These works can be regarded as pieces of dialogue with the trees and the bushes. On the one hand, Laitinen uses the bushes as visual elements; on the other hand, he lets us see things which would normally remain out of sight. By cutting holes into the bushes and forming circles by bending the branches, he lets us look either through the bushes or straight into the forest. The overall shape of the work is memorable, balanced and absurdly beautiful.

Image: Nail Cube, 2016, wood, nails, 28 x 28 x 28 cm.

Heli Hiltunen’s works – paintings, collages and photographs – are entities of sensory perception and the memory, understanding and replication of seeing. They are combined and linked by viewing, remembering and the aim of creating a joint interface for the artist and the viewer.

Image: Wind Nest (Shelter for the Unsheltered), 2016, pigment print, 79 x 123 cm.

The photographic works of Jorma Puranen are a study in history, art, ethnography, anthropology and geography. His images dive deep into archived images and knowledge as well as the histories of our arctic regions. Our sense of cultural memory is explored through themes that span centuries. Puranen aims to unveil hidden histories, stories left in the margins and places that have been forgotten. At the same time the process of photography grounds his work in the present moment.

This exhibtion is presented on two floors and includes some of the artist’s most extensively developed series as well as recent works.

Image: Jorma Puranen Icy Prospects 65, 2014, 146 x 180 cm, pigment print

“Reaching beyond the visible phenomena, Tommi Grönlund and Petteri Nisunen have perceived, in their explorations, nature´s true intentions. Their inquiries do not stem out of surface manifestations, but out of genuine enthusiasm for the living world. Seemingly hard and fast logic of the world is all too often taken for granted, then reduced to a lifeless dataset. The two artists reverse this process. Through a variety of interdisciplinary tactics, they re-examine the sonic and visual flux of nature, its phenomena and transformations, to re-ignite our curiosity in the world, and raise our awareness of the consequences of our own behavior.

Grönlund-Nisunen´s architectural and kinetic installations are minimal yet poetic, restrained and precise in their expressive language, and rigorously rational. Instead of creating works that are emotionally ‘loud’, the artists´ speech is latent, leaving the audience enough space to discover and think for themselves.”
– Ma Nan, curator of the exhibition.

Image: Electromagnet, 2020, installation | Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum.

For the first iteration of Felt the Moonlight on my Feet tap dancer Suzanna Pezo was presented with three pieces of poetry chosen by Ruscica in part due to their political and social censorship during the course of their existence. Each poem was translated into Morse Code, itself then further translated and interpreted by Pezo into a piece for tap, performed using specially crafted shoes utilising wool-felt in place of the usual metal-taps.

In this latest development of the work, conceived especially for the context of online-streaming,  Suzanna Pezo will translate the poem ‘Song of Myself’ by American humanist, poet, essayist and journalist Walt Whitman (1819–1892) into a new dance piece.

The Finnish Cultural and Academic Institutes’ Together Alone project has commissioned a series of new, live performances of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself. The performative ‘readings’ will take place 5 times, broadcast live from the location of Pezo’s studio and her surroundings in Antwerp, Belgium. Consistent with Ruscica, Pezo and Watson’s practices to date, the collaborative work explores the intersections between language, place, culture, sculpture, sound, theatre and performance, posing questions relating to the processes of translation, cultural representation and communication.

Felt the Moonlight on my Feet streaming online in June every Tuesday at 20:00 (CET) via feltthemoonlight.xyz

Elina Vainio’s (b. 1981) site-specific installation is on view at the lower level of the gallery as part of the Anhava Underground series. In her recent work, Vainio has proceeded towards questions concerning the diversity of life and its present-day prerequisites.

Please note that owing to current special requirements no opening reception of the exhibition will be held. The exhibition opens on June 4^th at 11 am. We kindly ask that you keep safe distances and maintain hand hygiene when visiting the gallery. Please refrain from visiting the exhibition if you have any symptoms of illness.

“This career long engagement with drawing has successively focused—with an uncanny intensity and wit—on reductive aspects of drawing. While each work has its own set of elements and concerns, collectively the work presses at the edges of drawing in the modern age. Gudmundsson’s work, like all great drawing, elicits an attention to how we connect to the material facts, and nothingness, of the world.”
– Gavin Morrison

Watch a walk-through of the exhibition here.

Image: Kristján Gudmundsson Drawing, Helvetica Medium, 2007, solid graphite, bolts, 176 x 128 x 6 cm | i8 Gallery

Sparrow is one of the widest spread bird species and very well adopted to urban settings. Through the shape of a sparrow and the text written by poet Pauli Tapio Sparrow Talk reflects the relationship between the bird and its environment but also communication and the multiplicity of languages – both human and animal.

The work includes two separate videos for day and night time which can be seen on a two-sided window shaped LED-screen installed over the staircase in Rautkallionrinne.

A video presentation of the work (in Finnish) can be found here.

Our current exhibition of works by Matti Kujasalo can be viewed by appointment. We will continuously evaluate the situation and will inform about the updates on the gallery’s website and on our social media channels. Gallery operations will continue through remote working and we will be available by email: hanna.huitu(at)anhava.com.

Unfortunately the upcoming solo exhibition by Raimo Reinikainen as well as the Anhava Underground exhibition by Juhana Moisander will be postponed. The exhibitions were scheduled to open on 2 April.

We look forward to welcoming you to the gallery again.

With their backgrounds in architecture, Grönlund-Nisunen’s art addresses issues of space and physical phenomena, such as gravity, magnetism or the movement of light, through the sophisticated installations. Using technology, sound and light as the primary material, their precisely constructed artworks crystallise and encapsulate these phenomena we tend to regard as self-evident.

Flow with Matter will open in May/June 2020. The exhibition is curated by Ma Nan.

The multifaceted collection reflects Johnsson’s mobile lifestyle and interest in current events and trends. His work as doctor and researcher took him to the United States in the 1970’s, and today he divides his time between Finland and France. The collection includes alongside Nordic art also American and Central European art. The exhibition opens up vistas onto international modernism and contemporary art.

Explorations is on view from 24 January to 17 May 2020.

Image: Silja Rantanen, What I Know of Burano, 1998, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm. Photo Erkki Valli-Jaakola/Pori Art Museum