New art – speed, danger, defiance Italian Futurism 1909-1944 2.3.-10.6.2012
EMMA’s spring exhibition presents the full spectrum of Futurism showing some 150 works by 52 artists. The exhibits range from paintings, sketches and sculptures to objets and furniture.
The Futurist movement originated in a manifesto published by the Italian poet and editor Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) in 1909 and faded out with his death in 1944. Whereas Futurism was primarily an Italian phenomenon, its influence was also prominent in Russia, Germany and Great Britain. Although echoed in Finland, it manifested itself not as a movement but through individual experimentation.
Futurism was the first comprehensive avant-gardist movement in art in the 20th century and had a widespread and far-reaching influence. With its impact on literature, music, the visual arts, cinema, design and theatre, Futurism was part of the general political, industrial and cultural turbulence in Europe at the time.
In Italy it also acquired powerful nationalist overtones. The Futurists denied the past and aimed at creating an entirely new culture. They worshipped the new urban world of machines, noise, speed, movement and violence, similarly denigrating the achievements and ideals of past decades.
EMMA’s exhibition presents both the anarchist and avant-gardist Futurism of the 1910s which affected Dadaism and Surrealism, and the second generational Futurism of the inter-war years, aeropittura or aeropainting.
The exhibition catalogue has been written by Italian experts on Futurism and EMMA’s director Markku Valkonen.
The works in the exhibition come mainly from private collectors via the Italian Futurism Society. Others come from the Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Roma Capitale, Museo Civico di Palazzo della Penna, Perugia and the Estorick Collection, London.
Exhibition talk:
7.3. 6 pm, EMMA’s director Markku Valkonen: Italian Futurism, speed and fury.
24.-25.3. Children’s happening Fantasy
The annual children’s event will also be carried out in the spirit of Futurism with the transformation of the WeeGee exhibition centre into a fantasy city with its crazy reality. Participants include the RudiRok beatboxer workshop and Children’s Hour policemen Maltti and Valtti.
Sophie Calle
Take Care of Yourself
2.3.-10.6.2012
EMMA’s second spring exhibition is Sophie Calle’s extensive video, text panel and photographic installation Take Care of Yourself. The theme is an email Calle received from a male friend called ”X” terminating their relationship and ending with the words “Take care of yourself”.
Calle sent a copy of the email to 107 women – artists, writers, scientists – chosen for their profession or skills to interpret this letter. The work is based on the countless different ways in which the women responded, analysing and interpreting the letter, and helping her to “take care of herself”. It resulted in both touching and humorous interpretations, which together compose this impressive installation as letters, compositions, drawings, songs and dances.
The original French-language version Prenez soin de vous was one of the highlights of the Venice Biennale in 2007.
The conceptualist Sophie Calle (born 1953) is one of France’s most internationally known artists. She constructs her works around herself, narrating stories she has personally experienced in which the viewers’ role can be either viewer or experiencer or even narrator. What is typical of her works is that she creates a fictive story about her own and others’ lives, the motif often being that of identity and intimacy.
The conceptualist Sophie Calle (born 1953) is one of France’s most internationally known artists. What is typical of her works is that she creates a narrative about her own and others’ lives, the motif often being that of identity and intimacy.
The exhibition is arranged in cooperation with AIA Productions and produced by AIA Productions (APC + AIA), Paris.
Exhibition talk:
4.4. 6 pm, Annamari Vänskä, PhD, and art historian Riikka Stewen: Sophie Calle, Take Care of Yourself.
Press photographs: www.emma.museum
Password: emmamuseum
Further information:
Museum Director Markku Valkonen, EMMA, tel. 09 - 8165 7519 (Futurism)
Curator Päivi Talasmaa, EMMA, tel. 09 - 8165 7513 (Calle)
Director of Art Education and Customership Nana Salin, tel. 09 - 8165 7538 (audience development)
Avainsanat: