Own Collection: Contemporary Art from the Pori Art Museum’s Collection / Omat – Nykytaidetta Porin taidemuseon kokoelmista

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Own Collection: Contemporary Art from the Pori Art Museum’s Collection
Pori Art Museum, 18th April – 24th May 1998

In the Own exhibition, Pori Art Museum presents a selection of Finnish and international contemporary art from its collections. The museum’s core collections include the Pori City Art Collection and the Maire Gullichsen Art Foundation Collection. The City’s collection has been expanded regularly since 1956, and the Maire Gullichsen Art Foundation Collection has been in the museum’s possession since 1979. Both collections primarily consist of Finnish modern art. Many works have been added to the museum’s collections through exhibitions, both by purchase and donation.

Since 1981, the Pori Art Museum’s expanding collection has formed an interesting record of the museum’s exhibitions over the past 16 years. Additionally, the museum holds archive collections, which include works received on long-term loan. These collections form an important and necessary addition, particularly to the museum’s collection of international contemporary art.

The main focus of the Own exhibition is on international contemporary art. Notable artists include American Jimmie Durham, whose video works donated to the museum relate to the thematic focus of his spatial installation displayed in Pori last year. There is also an installation by Durham, which toured Scandinavia and Canada in 1996-97 as part of the Strangers in the Arctic exhibition organized by the Pori Art Museum. Other international artists featured in the exhibition include Australian Imants Tillers, English Stephen Willats, Icelandic Björn Gudmundsson, Norwegian Per Barclay, Danish Henning Christiansen and Björn Norgaard, Russian Sergei ‘Africa’ Bugaev and Andrei Jahn, and Estonians Leonhard Lapin and Ly Lestberg. Also on display is Yoko Ono’s piece Painting to See the Sky.

Among the Finnish artists are Timo Heino with his mirror and room dust works, Paul Osipow with new paintings, and Ismo Kajander, who donated two significant works to the museum’s collection in the spring of 1998. A large part of the most recent additions to the Pori Art Museum’s collection of Finnish art was also shown in Sundsvall in an exhibition that ended in late April.

The exhibitions continue their life in the form of publications. In the museum’s newly renovated café and bookstore, visitors can browse the Strangers in the Arctic book, along with the associated Tennis Match artist book by Ilya Kabakov and Pavel Pepperstein. Other recent exhibition publications include Doctor and Patient and Every Moment, Everywhere, as well as books about the paintings of Ian McKeever and José Bedia. The selection also includes publications from other publishers, including a large monograph on Imants Tillers’ paintings. In the café, visitors can also explore Finnish and international art magazines or play a game of chess.

In the museum’s newly renovated small exhibition spaces, an exhibition of photographs by Finnish-American Kosti Ruohomaa, from 1939 to 1961, is on view from 21st April to 31st May.

Translated with ChatGPT