Espoo Museum of Modern Art

The exhibition Designer of the Everyday – Rudolf Steiner is the first comprehensive study of the thinking and works of Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), and of his wide-ranging cultural influence. On display are nearly 400 objects, from artworks to furniture and scale models. Designer of the Everyday is the first exhibition in Finland by the world-leading Vitra Design Museum.

The students of the master programme CuMMA deal with the past and future possibilities of the EMMA collection in an exhibition they have curated that especially focuses on works deposited around Espoo through their sites. Who encounters these works and how? Special focus is given to works that are invisible to the general public in one way or another, in for instance offices.

This autumn, the Finnish Painters' Union and EMMA are organising an exhibition to celebrate the union's 85th anniversary. Held every five years, the concept of the anniversary exhibition has been revised so that the task of curating the exhibition will be given to an artist or an artist couple and not, as before, to the union's exhibition committee or a critic.

This summer, EMMA offers a major showing of the works of Finnish ceramic artist Birger Kaipiainen (1915–1988) that is bound to question categories and raise eyebrows. During his half-century long career at the Arabia factory, he enjoyed a freedom to fulfil his creative visions untrammelled by the demands of industrial production.

The display of the Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection on permanent exhibition at EMMA has been renewed under the theme Red. The starting point for the exhibition has been colour.

Per Maning (b. 1943) is one of the most appreciated modern artists in Norway. He is particularly known for his animal-themed photography and video works.

That’s All Folks! The exhibition will celebrates the familiar cartoon characters Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, and many others who have become part of our shared folklore and heritage spanning generations; our international celebrities.

From 11.11.2011, the Sali gallery will feature the Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection’s exhibition The World in a Box – Assemblage by Juhani Harri. Juhani Harri (1939–2003) was the pioneer of Finnish assemblage art. In his New Realist works everyday objects from life and nature are transformed and given a new life.

In the darkest time of the year, the internationally acclaimed and awarded artist, who started his career in the 1980s, creates an exhibition in EMMA around the theme of light. The forty individual sculptures as a part of installations created in 2004–2012 will fill most of the room for changing exhibition.

The exhibition “Lithographic posters from Great Britain 1890–1940” presents 100 fascinating posters from the time when the modern poster was born and became a visible part of public urban spaces. The exhibition offers diverse insights into poster art as a product of modern consumer society – a phenomenon that seamlessly combines art and design with social change, propaganda, commercialism and humour.

The BMW Art Car Project was introduced by the French racecar driver and auctioneer Hervé Poulain, who wanted to invite an artist to create a canvas on an automobile. It was in 1975, when Poulain commissioned American artist and friend Alexander Calder to paint the first BMW Art Car.

The exhibition features the work of five Nordic designers and design groups. Over the past five years all of them have won the highly prestigious design prize, the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize awarded in Gothenburg to Nordic designers and art craftsmen.

French artist Sophie Calle’s work Prenez Soin de Vous (Take Care of Yourself, 2007) will be shown at EMMA in its English version as a wide compilation of video films and photographs. The work gets its name from the last words of an e-mail sent by Calle’s ex-boyfriend ending their relationship.

Futurism was an important art movement in Italy in the first half of the 20th century. Focussing on the new urban world and concept of man, it scorned all that was old and traditional, and glorified machines, technology, speed, noise and movement.

Yang Fudong is one of China’s leading contemporary artists specialising in the moving image. In autumn 2011 EMMA will show four Fudong video installations – East of Que Village (2007) and three parts of the Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest series (2005-007).

The autumn 2011 exhibition, Anitra Lucander – Poet of Colour, forms part of EMMA’s classic series presenting foremost representatives of Finnish Modernism. Anitra Lucander (1918-2000) became known as one of the post-war reformers of Finnish art and a pioneer of abstract art.

The new display of the Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection opened on the 12th of November 2008. The display has been planned out by Hannu Väisänen, artist and Finlandia Literary Prize winning author.

The video work PIIPÄÄ REMIX is based on the audiovisual performance PIIPÄÄ. The performance was originally premiered at the Old University House, Helsinki, Finland at May 29th 1987. The new PIIPÄÄ REMIX version is based entirely on the video and audio recordings from a year 1987.

In addition to Miró, EMMA takes pleasure in introducing the Finnish artist Tor Arne (born 1934). This retrospective exhibition, curated by art critic Timo Valjakka, presents some 30 oil paintings, watercolours and pastels from 1978 to 2010, and is the largest showing of his works to date.

The exhibition of the work of the Catalonian artist Joan Miro (1893-1983) concentrates on his sculptures but will also feature paintings, drawings and prints linked to the form language of the sculptures.

The exhibition transports the spectator to the birthplace of silk - China, the magical, thousands of years-old world of silk. It presents the history of silk, woven and embroidered fabrics, dresses, garments, accessories and wall tapestries, the oldest of which are almost 5 000 years old and the newest from today.

The Good Heavens! project by artist Katja Tukiainen together with the band Haloo Helsinki takes over our thoughts and feelings by asking "when are we too big to enjoy art".

The exhibition is partly retrospective and presents Jorma Puranen’s (b.1951) work from 1992-2010. On show are more than 50 photographs from five different series. The techniques used are chromogenic colour and black and white photography..

Juba Tuomola’s Viivi and Wagner is Finland’s most popular comic strip which is followed daily by wide audiences of all ages and whose album sales total more than half a million. EMMA’s exhibition looks at the Viivi and Wagner cartoons from five different themes. The figure behind the themes is the curator, Heikki Jokinen. The exhibition is made up of a hundred cartoon strips as well as a number of Juba’s painting.

The cinematic form is undergoing a huge transformation due to digitalisation. What, therefore, are the kinds of new roles that can be offered to today’s viewers of the big screen? The Espoo Ciné International Film Festival has brought together some ideas in the form of a 3-room exhibition in EMMA, the Espoo Museum of Contemporary Art. The rooms have been given names that represent three different attitudes of viewer-visitors towards the works presented: “Make”, “Partake” and “Break”.

Candice Breitz (b.1972 in Johannesburg), the South African photographer and video artist now living in Berlin, will bring four key video works to EMMA. Breitz is known for her technically demanding kaleidoscopic, multi-channel video installations which, on the basis of commercial pop culture, study the impact of film- and pop-stars on the life of their fans.

EMMA’s spring exhibition The power of Africa focuses on Europe’s culture debt to Africa from three different standpoints. The exhibition presents an impressive selection of traditional West African art alongside European modernist art. I.a. French and Czech Cubism, German Expressionism, Russian Cubo-Futurism and Finnish contemporary art are shown in an African light.

EMMA’s exhibition is the first to focus solely on the sculpture of the designer and academician, Tapio Wirkkala and concentrates on his unique light plywood sculptures which have become international symbols of Finnish modernism. The exhibition also presents the artist’s wood, glass and plexi sculptures, wood, metal and ceramic birds, competition sketches for public sculptures and the artist’s drawings.

EMMA’s art collections form the cornerstone of its activities. In addition to the Saastamoinen Foundation Collection, which is permanently on display, EMMA has six other collections which will be shown at the summer exhibition A Look at the EMMA Collections.

Santeri Tuori (s.1970) on suomalaisen nykyvalokuvauksen merkittäviä nuoria taiteilijoita. EMMAssa nähtävä Tuorin uusin teos Metsä on viidessä osassa esitettävä valokuva- ja videoteoskokonaisuus. Teoksen äänisuunnittelusta vastaa Mikko Hynninen.