Espoo Museum of Modern Art

Paula Lehtonen (b. 1983) is a Helsinki-based visual artist inspired by the relationship between nature, humans and technology. Many of her recent works evoke natural phenomena through technology. Lehtonen has an interest in extreme natural phenomena and the changes disasters imprint on familiar landscapes.

The English-born American artist Sarah Morris has risen to international fame in the past few years. She is a painter and filmmaker who sees the two media as one. She is known for her abstract paintings with graphic and colourful ingredients combined with elements of architecture

Ernst Mether-Borgström was one of the pioneers of abstract art in Finland. His early production also includes figurative works. EMMA presents the painter, print-maker and sculptor Mether-Borgström as a key figure of Finnish Modernism and in the context of art life in Espoo. Mether-Borgström lived in Espoo for many years, and worked in the Artists’ Associations studio house on Nallenpolku.

Heli Rekula’s exhibition unlocks the history of human mobility through her own family narrative. As the Crow Flies consists of photographs, photography-based graphics and archive material.

The themes of the collection donated by Nokia are connected to humans, science, nature and technology. In many pieces, the human relationship with nature and the phenomena of looking play a central role. The pieces have been created with different techniques: there are paintings, graphic art, photographs, video art and installations.

For the Helsinki Festival of 2017, EMMA presents the Off Seasons sound installation. The work is based on the co-operation between the visual artist Hans Rosentröm and the Danish artist duo Stormglas (Andreas Borregaard ja Mikkel Sørensen). The work began with interpretations of the seasons as produced by four Nordic contemporary composers: Rasmus Zwicki, Fredrik Österling, Sunleif Rasmussen and Martin Rane Bauck.

EMMA will be presenting fashion design as part of its exhibition programme for the first time. For Fashion’s Sake displays the interface between fashion and art and consists of works by thirteen young Nordic fashion designers who are working on the forefront of fashion and either have already reached or are on the cusp of an international breakthrough. The exhibition has been curated by EMMAs Chief Curator Reetta Kalajo.

EMMA has opened a new media art space equipped with new generation technology. The first art work to be shown is Parametronomicon created by Pink Twins in 2014. The art work belongs to Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection and it will be on display from March 29th to August 20th, 2017.

The core of the Joseph Beuys / Outside the Box exhibition are the unique collection and archives from Museum Sztuki, Lódź, the oldest European museum of contemporary art in Poland. The exhibition is produced and curated by EMMA and Museum Sztuki.

On the occasion of Saastamoinen Foundation’s acquisition of Pentagonal mirror tunnel by the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson especially for EMMA, the museum presents Pentagonal landscapes, a selection of the artist’s works. Created in a close dialogue between EMMA and Studio Olafur Eliasson, the presentation is a continuation of the museum’s exhibitions of contemporary art, which display diverse perspectives on topical themes.

EMMA and the Exhibition Centre WeeGee celebrate their 10th anniversaries in the building designed by Professor Aarno Ruusuvuori the fall of 2016. The new documentary on Ruusuvuori, directed by Tina Cavén, will be on display at EMMA until January 2017.

EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art celebrates its 10th year by starting a new exhibition series In Search of the Present. The first exhibition immerses in current issues, as well as considerations on who we are and where we are going.

Turppi-ryhmä oli kokeellisen suomalaisen videotaiteen uranuurtaja. Turppi Leikit 82-83 -näyttely on osa EMMAn suomalaisen nykytaiteen varhaisten ilmiöiden kokonaisuutta.

A new exhibition and one of the events celebrating the Bryk and Wirkkala anniversary opened at EMMA in May 2016, presenting an in-depth look into the extensive career of Rut Bryk (1916–1999). The exhibition is mainly based on the Tapio Wirkkala Rut Bryk Foundation collection, which is deposited at EMMA.

EMMA opens it’s 10 years anniversary with two main exhibitions of the spring on the 10th of February 2016. Another of these exhibitions is Ad Reinhardt’s Art vs. History.

The Fine Arts Academy of Finland awarded its 2015 prize to Camilla Vuorenmaa (b. 1979). Part of the prize is this exhibition in EMMA. Vuorenmaa is known as a young artist who in many ways has challenged the physical and traditional boundaries of painting.

The exhibition is curated and produced by Aalto University Masters students from Curating, Mediating and Managing Art (CuMMA).

EMMA's main exhibition of autumn 2015 presents the first solo touring exhibition of work by Carol Rama (1918-2015), the pioneer of avantgarde art. The Passion According to Carol Rama exhibition opened at EMMA on the 14th of October 2015 and will be on display until the 10th of January 2016.

In autumn 2015, EMMA Areena will host the third and last exhibition in the series N=000˚, organised in cooperation with the Kari Huhtamo Art Foundation that supports artists from the North.

“I construct art mathematically, as happens in music, I make music for the eye, it has harmony and rhythm, which are based on the colours’ own innate mechanisms.”

Sculptress Mia Hamari (born 1976) lives and works in the northern town of Simo. Her exhibition is part of the N= 000˚ exhibition series at EMMA Areena. The series is in cooperation with the Kari Huhtamo Art Foundation, which supports artists from the North. The other artists in the series are Jaakko Mattila, who has already had his exhibition at Areena, and Alma Heikkilä, whose exhibition opens in Autumn 2015.

In spring 2015, EMMA will be mounting an extensive showing of Pop art and design. The exhibition, Pop Art Design, is from the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany. EMMA’s production also incorporates Pop Art and contemporary design from Finland.

The landscapes of contemporary art may owe a debt to the traditional way of depicting nature and the landscape, but most typically, they are something completely different. They ask questions about changes in the environment, time and movement, and call into question our relationship with nature. Are we a part of creation or are we exploiters of nature?

Elected Young Artists of the Year 2014, the artist duo Janne Nabb (b. 1984) and Maria Teeri (b. 1985), have been invited to the Areena venue in EMMA to build an interactive art process with the audience. mesh/mɛʃ/ is an installation in the Areena showroom that is created and disappears in the course of the exhibition period.

From November 2014 onwards, EMMA’s exhibition space will feature Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s video installation Vaakasuora-Horizontal (2011). The artwork is part of EMMA’s new collection exhibition entitled Touch. The installation was acquired by the Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection in 2013. It will be on display at EMMA until 22 February 2015.

Victor Vasarely (1906, Pécs, Hungary–1997, Paris) was a pioneer of optical art, a skilled exponent of abstract composition who constructed his paintings out of geometric patterns, juxtapositions of bright colours, networks and arrays of lines. He combined these elements to create some of the key works of Op Art and Kinetic Art, which deceive the viewer’s eye and play with illusions of space and movement.

The first Finnish Arts’ Academy (Suomen Taideakatemian Säätiö) prize has been awarded to the visual artist Tuomas A. Laitinen (b. 1976), whose wide-ranging installations combine sound, light and the moving image. As part of his prize, Laitinen is holding an exhibition, Fundamental Matter, which explores topical global issues, at EMMA, starting this October.

Jaakko Mattila (born in 1976 in Oulu, currently living in Helsinki) will be the first artist with an exhibition in EMMA’s new space, Arena. The exhibition is in cooperation with the Kari Huhtamo Art Foundation which supports artists from the North.

One of the top names in contemporary art, the South African William Kentridge, is exhibiting at EMMA in Summer 2014. The exhibition continues the museum’s series of shows by major international contemporary artists.

Right now as our age is screaming for quiet and concentration, spirituality is raising its head in art exhibitions all over the world. EMMA brings the subject to Finnish audiences in spring 2014 with two extensive and inter-related exhibitions.