By The Ateneum Art Museum reopening has been set for 14 April 2023. The Helsinki museum has been closed since March 2022. The Ateneum Art Museum reopening will feature a reinstalled permanent collection following renovation work across the building as well as special temporary exhibitions.
2023 will see the launch of three exhibitions at Ateneum – one of the three museums forming the Finnish National Gallery. The first exhibition, which opens to coincide with the museum’s reopening on 14 April, is the new collection exhibition A Question of Time.
One exhibition, four topical themes
Ateneum’s art collection comprises four centuries of work and A Question of Time looks at all of them, with a renewed focus on how the collection has formed over time. How have power structures, the history of ideas, chance and individuals affected the formation of the collection? Why were certain acquisitions made and others not?
The four themes of the exhibition – The Age of Nature, Images of a People, Modern Life and Art and Power – are at the heart of current topics of debate in society. On view for a number of years, the content of the exhibition will be updated over time.
“The value of a memory institution such as ours is in sustaining a continuum and an understanding of why and how we have arrived where we are today,” Marja Sakari, Director of Ateneum Art Museum, said. “The works selected for the new collection exhibition communicate and create knowledge and meanings although the way we interpret works depends on the viewer and the time.”
Albert Edelfelt returns home after visits to France and Sweden
In addition to the new collection exhibition, 2023 will also see the launch of two temporary exhibitions at Ateneum, both featuring works previously unseen in Finland.
The first of these – a significantly expanded iteration of the Albert Edelfelt (1854–1905) retrospective previously displayed at the Petit Palais, Paris and Gothenburg Museum of Art – opens in May. In preparation for the retrospective, the curators have produced further research and shed new light on Edelfelt’s life and career. While living and working in France, alongside art collectors and dealers Edelfeldt met several leading luminaries in the fields of art, culture and science. Highlighting his time on the French art scene, the exhibition also reflects on the life’s work of one of Finland’s most renowned and popular artists from an international perspective.
Albert Edelfelt runs from 5 May until 17 September 2023.
New Impressionism exhibition to feature works previously unseen in Finland
Opening in October, Colour & Light – Impressionism in Finland and in the world comprises Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist art from 1860–1916. The exhibition draws parallels between the internationally renowned great masters and the brief but flourishing period in Finnish art from 1906 to 1916. Among the international artists included in the exhibition are Claude Monet, August Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Alfred William Finch, Paul Signac and Theo van Rysselberghe. Finnish artists include: Alvar Cawén, Antti Favén, Magnus Enckell, Pekka Halonen, Ellen Thesleff, Verner Thóme, Yrjö Ollila, Tyko Sallinen and Wilho Sjöström, among others.
Colour and Light runs from 20 October 2023 until 26 February 2024.
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