Many European countries will be celebrating Finland's 100th anniversary of independence on December 6, 2017. This is a good time to take a closer look at the country that was the first in Europe to introduce women's suffrage. Because you can't miss Finland by chance. Interest in Scandinavia and Finland in particular has increased significantly in recent years, even if the view of the country of Jean Sibelius, Eero Saarinen, Alvar Aalto, Paavo Nurmi, MA Numminen, Linus Torvalds and Kimi Räikkönen is often very incomplete.
A selection of six young Finnish artists obviously does not claim to be a complete representation of the contemporary art landscape in Finland. The positions in the group exhibition ›KUUSI‹ (Finnish for ›six‹ and ›spruce‹) represent different types of art, unite the artists' works in an exciting combination and provide a small insight into the diverse contemporary art of Finland, which is increasingly present in the international art discourse. The six positions span the spectrum from the mainly abstract paintings of Olli Piippo to Jukka Rusanen's large-format fabric and oil works, Ville Kylätasku's abstract-figurative art and Ville Andersson's photographs, paintings and drawings to Sanna Kannisto's staged nature photographs and finally Mimosa Pale's performance.
With ›KUUSI‹ we would like to invite all visitors to get to know Finland and its contemporary art in a personal way and to celebrate with us the centenary of the northernmost country in the European Union.
We would like to thank the traditional Finnish company for its wonderful cooperation and support iittala, whose objects we can present in our premises during the exhibition, as well as the Embassy of Finland in Berlin, the Finnish Institute in Germany, the German-Finnish Society, Helsinki Contemporary and last but not least our fantastic artists.
(Finnish: Thank you very much and congratulations!)
›KUUSI‹, a declaration of love to contemporary Finnish art, was opened on 9 September 2017 in Konstanz by:
Dr. Hubert Büchel, former Ambassador of the Principality of Liechtenstein to Switzerland and Honorary Consul of Finland in Liechtenstein
Mari Koskela, Federal Chairwoman of the German-Finnish Society
Jürgen Keck, Member of the State Parliament of Baden-Württemberg
Nese Erikli, Member of the State Parliament of Baden-Württemberg
Juliane Lachenmann, gallery owner and art historian
