The National Museum of Finland has presented a remarkable opening, both on the symbolic and concrete level.

The National Museum of Finland
Plan by the architects Gesellius-Lindgren-Saarinen;
completed in 1910 in Helsinki. (Photo credit: The National Museum)

As the world and the times change, this traditional museum, centering on the history of Finland, has re-evaluated its relationship to the world and the museum’s clientele. The dusters have been taken to use, doors have been opened and the vistas widened. An important part of this development process is the new and impressive space for temporary exhibitions and with them, the welcome arrival of art and potential new curious visitors. This is certainly a key downtown location for a grand gallery space!

The first new exhibitions opens up thoughts that align logically with the initial core definitions of the museum policies; a man’s relationship to history and its treasures, to the current times and to the future; the modern man surrounded by history, or as a link in a chain; the signs of change in the environment and milieu, in habits, times and styles.

The photo artist Jaakko Heikkilä‘s newly opened exhibition “Rooms hidden by the Water” offers a fascinating perspective to both the daily life of the Italian nobility in the extraordinary palaces of the world’s most romantic city, Venice, and in general, to the passage of time and the poetic, looming melancholy in the vicinity of change.

The Grimani Palace, 2010

At the exhibition opening, the artist told in his characteristic, jovial and accurately observant way about the 10-year project in Venice. He has been able to gain the confidence of the project’s key persons, and thus get access and spend leisurely time with the Venetian nobility: everyday life and interiors of private palaces. Beauty and decay exist simultaneously in the photos, without exclamation marks.

Artist Bobo Ivancich and his painting of Ezra Pound, 2010

About fifty large scale prints are hung in a relaxed but well thought manner in the grandly spacious gallery halls of the National Museum. Heikkilä’s works are just as his way of speaking: jovial and accurately observant. The persons in the photos are relaxed, at ease, “ordinary”, and surrounded by interiors recounting a glorious past.

The light of Heikkilä’s photos is of today, but its long (historical) impact on the interiors has faded the colours and made the silk of the curtains and wall panels brittle in very much the same way as the water, surrounding everything in Venice, also seeps into the built structures and the core of all.

Water and light are the constant in Venice while people -nobility or not- are just visiting. In their extended visit they construct and maintain their buildings as a sign of life, they live their city, they inhabit the amazing spaces created through the longing for beauty, through imagination and skill, even as they defy the gnawing erosion outside and in, and the powers of water, light and time.

A Venetian double chair from the 19th century. Collection of the National Museum of Finland.

Flamboyant examples of Venetian crafts have been dug out of the museum’s own collections, and placed sparsely in the exhibition galleries. They add welcome focal points in the rhythm and flow of the spaces and bring in a concrete hum of history. This gives an opportunity to the museum visitors to view, for the first time, these dazzling examples from the museum’s storage vaults: 19thy century mother-of pearl furniture, ornamental Murano mirrors, masterpieces of glass blowing. What other museum treasures await us when new art exhibitions will be opened in these spaces, and the inspired curatorial approach continues!

A successful book has been published of Heikkilä’s Venetian photos. In its graphic design, the choices to pair, for instance, a close up of the face of an old marble statue on one page, and the close-up of a living person’s face on the page next to it, create a dialogue slightly different in emphasis from the exhibition’s curatorial and design choices. This opens yet another perspective to Heikkilä’s insightful documentation: the people, the statues, the interiors and the buildings are the same, a section of a historical continuum and of the light of time.

Water, 2010

http://www.kansallismuseo.fi/en/nationalmuseum

A visit to the Savonlinna Opera Festival has become a summer ritual for me, something I eagerly look forward to.

One of the reasons is the possibility to hear well known opera companies and orchestras that the festival always invites as guests to widen the season’s repertoire. At best, there are two visiting companies in the month long festival season.

I have planned some of my holiday trips around the possibility to hear opera in a famous house, but my travels have never taken me to Dresden. However, the Swedish soprano -and court singer- Lena Nordin has told me about the wonderful quality of the Semperoper Dresden, and I planned my Savonlinna visit this year to catch them, and their much praised orchestra, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden.

The performance was of Mozart‘s opera buffa Le nozze di Figaro in a production that the company had premiered just a few weeks earlier.

The director Johannes Erath and his dramatist Francis Hüsers had concocted the directorial concept with a basis on the three original Figaro-themed plays written by the French Pierre Beaumarchais. (The libretto by Mozart and Da Ponte is based on the central play out of the three.)

The creative and rehearsal process has lead into an oddly plausible and fascinating sequence in which the first act is a brilliantly played-out performance of Commedia dell’arte, the second and third act refer to the times and minds of the Rococo and the theater of the Revolution. Gradually sliding out of the third act, the final fourth act is in the mood and visuals of a bourgeois tragedy, with Mozart’s recitatives spoken, not sung.

A close-up of Act 1 of Dresden Figaro

What worked gloriously on stage was the music. The orchestra is worthy of its reputation, and the singers were a truly polished ENSEMBLE in command of memorable vocal and acting quality. In theater, comedy nearing farce, with ironic sub-tones, is the most difficult style; these singing actors performed and sang with nouance and much skill. (Christoph Pohl as Count Almavira, Sarah-Jane Brandon as Countess Almavira, Emily Dorn as Susanna, Zachary Nelson as Figaro, Christina Bock as Cherubino, Sabine Brohm as Marcellina, Matthias Henneberg as Bartolo and the young Finnish Tuuli Takala as Barbarina.)

I can imagine that the stage design of Katrin Connan could work well in an intimate theater setting with proper theater machinery to create “theater magic” with quick changes and shifting moods. However, Savonlinna’s stage is wide, shallow and totally open, and the space continues into the auditorium of 3000+ seats. The stagehands, dressed in the traditional black, were cleverly choreographed into the theatrical proceedings, but this did not help the visual entity from becoming cluttery and unintentional; everything is there on the stage to be seen, even if pushed aside for the next act.

The costumes designed by Birgit Wentsch followed delightfully the central concept, but Savonlinna’s grand scale did tricts again; to be truly enjoyed, a much more intimate setting would be needed.

While the evening proceeded, I often wondered about the magic of Mozart, and the never-changing human nature regarding love, lust, jealousy and greed, passion and longing, and what tangles all this can create. Somehow the timelessnes of the topic, and the love of Mozart for all his characters, and life, made the directorial concept work.

As a quite talkative opera, with the many recitatives here accompanied with either harpsicord or pianoforte by the conductor Omar Meir Wellber, Figaro is intimate, ultimately a chamber piece. The Savonlinna scale naturally calls for a verismo sweep in the repertoire choices.

Jonas Kaufmann in Turku, skills & charm in spades.

Jonas Kaufmann in Turku

Jonas Kaufmann recently had his debut recital in Finland. It was organized by the Turku Music Festival as a pre-festival event in July. The talented and ambitious tenor Topi Lehtipuu is the festival’s artistic director, but this particular recital was the result of the connections and will-power of the festival’s managing director, Ms. Liisa Ketomäki.

This was an orchestral recital with opera arias, spiced with overtures and interludes that built a convincing program of Puccini, Giordano, Leoncavallo, Verdi, Massenet, Bized and Wagner to showcase the Kaufmann talent.

Jonas Kaufmann clearly added heat to the already hot summer evening in the practically un-airconditioned Turku Concert Hall. It is a plain 1952 building with mediocre acoustics, and presently in a shabby connection. (There was a serious plan to build a new concert venue in Turku by the year 2011 when the city was a European Culture Capital. Unfortunately populist political horse-trading distroyed the plans, alas the poor venue.)

Kaufmann brought along his own conductor, Jochen Rieder. The Finnish orchestra, Jyväskylä Sinfonietta (expanded with musicians from major orchestras) rose to the occasion, but would have benefited from more rehearsal time amidst the holiday month, and from lesser heat and humidity inside the hall.

The surroundings were soon forgotten as Kaufmann was in his element and revealed himself to be genuinely a “gift from heaven”. Every music lover present at the recital will have marked that day in the mental calendar of life: I was there then.

The nouanced warmth and depth of Kaufmann’s voice is not what you would expect from a “tenor”, but all the tenor qualities needed were at his disposal when required for. The interpretations were touching and genuinely felt but also clearly intelligent. Those sublime pianissimi that carried through the hall, and the uncanny ability to thin the voice and build it into a formidable crescendo! Time and again, he brought the house down.

An artist and a singer quite in his own league. Also remarkable how unfussy and un-divo his stage presence was; no grand gestures, no mannerisms. Just a man who knows how to -and loves to- sing!

The Finnish audience was in ecstacy from early on, and a beaming Kaufmann gave four sublime encores.

Initially the recital had been quickly sold out, and the 1000 seat capacity could have been sold three times over. The recital set a great example. Finnish venues have long tended to bring to Finland vocal artists who are at the end of their careers. They may have enjoyed decades of success and fame, and this populist view of the names’ familiarity and fame has over-ridden the actual remaining singing skills. It is OK to appreciate a singer for the memory of what the voice was, but boy, does it make a difference to actually hear a singer in his peak!

WNO and Manon Lescaut at Savonlinna Festival

Every summer, The Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland gives the audiences a possibility to also get acquainted with a foreign opera company, usually with two different productions, in the month-long festival.

The medieval castle in the rapids is the venue for the Savonlinna Opera Festival.

It’s a good opportunity to compare the skills and the approaches with Savonlinna Festival’s own productions, and with Helsinki’s National opera, too. (The possibility to compare is oddly strengthened in the next season when both Savonlinna Festival and the National Opera are presenting Boris Godunow, Figaro and The Merry Widow, despite their planning committees’ joint sessions to avoid such clashes.)

This summer, the Wales National Opera (WNO) paid a welcome and on many levels, successful visit.

Upon my arrival in Savonlinna, I heard from many friends in the music business that the previous evening’s premiere of Nabucco had been quite impressive: a first-class orchestra, the mixed chorus in great form, and many good singers in the lead roles. I was eagerly awaiting my evening’s Manon Lescaut.

Reconceived by Mariusz Trelias as a Film Noir style melodrama and set in a vague “modern times” with visual influences from the 1960’s to the 80’s and the 2010’s, this Manon Lescaut was a fascinating experiment where Puccini and the orchestra came out as the winners.

Convincingly conducted by Lothar Koenigs, the WNO orchestra sounded roundly lush, exact, seductive and made one think about reasons for such a sound: musn’t it, behind the collective polish, be based on the musicians’ sociability? In addition to the skills and the conductor, a matter of personality and culture? Must a good orchestra player be a chamber musician at heart first?

Film Noir moods and various spaces were created on stage with three large video screens which cleverly changed the sets from a subway station with rushing trains to a lonely bar, or more symbolically, into an expanding crimson pool of blood/passion, or a thinning flame of life. At its most successful, Puccini’s orchestral passages were seamlessly interwoven with the video screens’ calmly nocturnal runs through a wistful city gleaming with neon-lights; stunning.

Film Noir urban gloom in WNO’s Manon Lescaut.

Puccini and Film Noir have much in common: a sea of melancholy through which sparks of hope for love or bursts of passion break through, a sense of doom or fatality, the arch of drama and The Inevitable at its conclusion. Associations of the music and this production reminded me how much the film composers of epic style & ambitions actually owe to Puccini. A live opera production as cinematic as this presented Puccini as the The Film Composer of All Times.

Despite the effort, the transition into modern times did not quite work. Towards the end, the events started to feel scattered, the props seemed to clutter, something vital of the story vanished. The direction seemed lost, and certainly Manon, the Roman soprano Chiara Taigi, was lost: she ran around the stage trying to choose a place to die, and upon death, remembered to fold her skirt to fall more attractively on her legs… This concept called for a Femme Fatale and a calmer approach; Taigi’s Manon was girlish and hysterically jumpy.

Taigi’s soprano had a fascinating darkness to it, and a depth surprising for a soprano. But her top notes came out forced and sometimes neared screaming. As the lover des Grieux, the tenor Gwyn Hughes Jones’s Italianate voice took its time to warm but reached an impressive splendour. Unfortunately the chemistry between Taigi and Jones did not blossom on stage, they remained strangers, and that had an impact on the believability of the whole story.

The most spot-on scene in the concept takes place in the house of Manon’s keeper, Geront, when visiting musicians start to sing madrigals. The chanteuses have identical glitter miniskirts and 1960’s blond wigs. The music is sung into microphones with The Supremes -poses, and with good vocal skill. The concept works, and Manon’s boredom in the Salon receives an ironic underline; Poor Little Rich Girl.

The Mirjam Helin Competition

Mirjam Helin, photo: Mona Mannerheimo

The Finnish soprano Mirjam Helin (1911-2006) became a singer and a pedagogue despite her father’s and fiance’s warnings and threats. She studied singing in Rome, Vienna and Paris, had her praised debut recital in 1938 and completed her diploma in 1941. A solo recital in Paris in 1950 was a great success, and offers landed for Wagner roles even from the Paris Opera. But instead of a career in opera, she had chosen a married life in Finland and to work for her father’s business as he had insisted. Ultimately she became a beloved vocal coach.

In 1981, as a 70-year old widow, she decided to depart with a grand portion of her financial wealth, and with the Finnish Culture Foundation, an international signing competition was established under her and her late husband’s name. The first competition was held in 1984, and they have taken place every five years since.

Miss Helin was a formidable character who relished the possibility to follow the success of her competition well into her 90’s. She loved cars, and even when old and frail, she possesed the stamina to drive her own. She had a wonderful sense of style and occasion. I was invited to a private dinner with her not long before her death. She arrived well coiffed, wearing an elegant suit by Chanel, the perfect heels and simple but important jewellry to match, and a nicely understated bag. Her wit was sharp as ever, and we had a ball!

The Mirjam Helin competition is going on in Helsinki right at this moment, and what a special opportunity it is for all involved! Nearly 400 singers had applied to the competition, and 46 singers were chosen. Nineteen singers continue to the semi-finals on August 9 and 10 at the Helsinki Music Centre, with the final on the 13th. Master classes are arranged, and one of the jury members, the American soprano Deborah Voight, gives a Q & A “tell all” to vocal students.

The competition gives a great boost to music lovers and students alike, to the pianists and the producers. A fabulous time for budding talent, vocal blossom, and the future!

Link to the competition’s official web page: http://mirjamhelin.fi/en

The ambitious Amos Anderson Art Museum, a private institution in the center of Helsinki, explores the early development of French Art Deco in the arts, and the period’s impact in Finland. The exhibition lasts until July 21.

Expressive, brilliant Fauvism delighted but caused alarm in some art circles and resulted in seeking classicist ideals; Henri Matisse: “Woman with a Hat”, 1905 (San Francisco Art Museum)

Influence of Art Nouveau and ideals of Classicism; Maurice Denis: “Nausikaa”, 1914, oil on canvas. Musée national du Sport, Paris. © ADAGP Photo Michel Erlich

The emphasis of the exhibition is in the painting and fine arts, paving the way for the style that later became known as Art Deco and most glamorously recognizable in 1920’s & 30’s design, interiors, architecture, fashion and film. The exhibition’s curator, art historian Laura Gutman, makes a point of the 1910’s attack against the exceedingly expressive and colorful Fauvism (1900-1912…) –think of  Matisse‘s “Woman with a Hat”, 1905, or the work of André Derain– a backlash that favored the emergence and popularity of Classicism, which in some ways joins hands with the early steps of the evolving Art Deco in design, crafts and architecture.

The exhibition gives valid scholarly arguments on the early stages of the development of Art Deco, but it misses the heart and soul of Art Deco and its finest achievements. Art Deco defies exact defininitions in its many-faceted call for naughty, vibrant, urban, eclectic and initially elitist way of design, a call for a new, modern life and sense of fun, a change of outlook after the grim Great War of 1914-1918. Art Deco never became a favored style in Finland. Our 1920’s Classisism, the Nordic Classicism, rooted here much more easily, as did the strict and pure, modern Bauhaus ideals in the 1920’s and 1930’s Finnish “Funkis” or Functionalism. (We Finns are still often too cool and sober for much sense of fun in design).

The Amos Anderson exhibit presents several paintings by Maurice Denis as influential to the Finnish artists of the era, such as Juho Rissanen, Eero Järnefelt and Venny Soldan-Brofelt. The organic, twining lines and flat surfaces of Maurice Denis owe as much to the Art Nouveau style (1890-1915) as Classicism, and the attempt to discover the Art Deco spirit of the Finnish painters amongst the folds of the models’ robes and dresses, aking to the Ideals of The Antique, seems a bit forced. None of the Finnish artists’ works exhibited in this context can be considered their strongest, and the exhibition presents only a few works of art that I would consider great.

Iconic ART DECO painting, Tamara de Lempicka: “Spring”, 1928. Originally Polish, de Lempicka was the first woman artist to become a glamour star.

Sonia Delaunay‘s 1920’s geometric paintings find their way for fashions for women and as designs for stage sets and costumes.

Certainly it is interesting to see the way the Finnish sculptor Wäinö Aaltonen carved the hair of his models in stylized three-dimentional tubular swirls and remember that Tamara de Lempicka painted the hair of her models in her iconic Art Deco portraits in a similar style. But this flashback only emphasizes what is missing in this exhibition: indeed, the decadently glamorous work of de Lempicka, the geometric yet sensuous and theatrical designs and art of Sonia Delaunay and her husband Robert, the tubular stylizations of Legér, the angular and energetic influence of Cubism (peaking around 1909-1915 with Picasso and Braque and continuing to the 1920’s) bringing fore the echo of cities, technology, Machine Age, jazz, and new angles to view the world.

Fernand Legér: “Creation of the World”, 1923; painting for a theater set.

Sonia Delaunay‘s simultaneous fashion for liberated women and speedy cars, 1923.

The wonderful, few pieces of furniture and objects in the exhibition, both French and Finnish, do represent Art Deco, but have less to to with the paintings of the show. An exception is the Finnish Nikolai Kaario whose 1920’s and 30’s works are designs as much as they are paintings, stylized, they are or could be plans or parts of Art Deco interiors or stage sets.

Nikolai Kaario‘s  “Masquerade”, 1927, could  also be a plan for an Art Deco interior or stage design. (Turku Art Museum, photo: Vesa Aaltonen)

Alas, the exhibition tells a fascinating but marginal tale of the early emergence of Art Deco, and in this context the name in a big bold font, ART DECO, is a teaser that does not fulfil its promise. The exhibition lacks the energy, mystery, pizzaz, decadence, and sense of fun that is in the core of Art Deco.

There is a great wealth of material to build a show on Art Deco! Victoria and Albert Museum in London did one in 2003; different resources there! In 2010, a special exhibit in New York featured furniture and interiors of the legendary oceanliner Normandie (1935-1941). In the fast-evolving fashion industry, Art Deco has been an inspiration in the last couple of years. The witty, daring and visually talented director Baz Luhrmann is bringing out in 2013 his new film version of The Great Gatsby, a tale of wealth and misfortune in the 1920’s, designed very much in the mood of Art Deco.

Leisure travel is the ultimate luxury in the 20’s and early 30’s. The pinnacle of French Art Deco in 1935, S/S Normandie offered glamour for its mostly 1st class passengers The  restaurant was said to equal the mirrored hall of Versailles in its wow-impact.

Legendary graphic designer and painter Cassandre‘s 1935 poster for S/S Normandie

Major influences

The Italian Futurism (Futurismo, 1909-1916) was a cross-cultural movement that involved all the arts, design and architecture. It glorified the ideals of future, technology, speed, urban living and youth. Futurism was influenced by Cubism, and it inspred both Constructivism and Art Deco.

A key member of Futurism was the architect Antonio Sant’Elia whose drawings for an industrialized and mechanized futurist city with its interconnected skyscrapers, “Citta Nuova” turned out to be vastly influential. There is much in Sant’Elia’s elegant architectural drawings that remind you of the elements that were to become familiar in the later Art Deco buildings. Sant’Angelo was killed in the World War I. – It is fascinating to watch Fritz Lang‘s film Metropolis (1925/27, Germany) and draw parallels between the film’s cityscape and that of Sant’Elia’s visions.

Many Russian avant-garde artists studied and lived in Paris, and Cubism was influential in their workl. Futurism has its links with the arts and theater movement in Russia, too, and Kazimir Malevich (active in 1910-1935) their spiritual brother.

Leon Bakst designed the costumes, sets and the program for “Afternoon of a Faun“,

Incidentally, the Imperial Russian porcelaine factory Lomonosov produced some of the most fabulous Art Deco tableware in the early 1920’s, before that modern style was deemed “corrupt” and the factory shifted into communist propaganda porcelain. (The old skills and designs have resurfaced in stunning new production since the Soviet system’s collapse.)

During times of distress, people have a tendency to seek solace in romance or entertainment involving far-away, exotic and longed-for places. After major catastrofies, such as wars, people eagerly expect and embrance a change, something different. The French Orientalism and Exotism of the 1910’s and 20’s blossomed in fashion, silent films, music and ballet. Sergei Diaghilev‘s Ballet Russes presented exotic tales in exuberantly fashioned costumes and scenography by Leon Bakst, with new music commissioned and composed by Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky and Satie.

Parade, a 1917  ballet with music by Eric Satie on a story by Jean Cocteau, sets and costumes by Picasso; a video glimpse of its later recreation:

After the horrors of the World War I, a changing world, developing technology, new ideas, a new kind of life would seem to be in order. The growing popularity and fascinating possibilities of film as mass entertainment, changing tunes in popular music and the arrival of jazz, the ideals of speed (cars!), height (skyscarapers!), the growing independence of women, expressed as boldly in clothes, haircuts as in the right to vote, the belief that developing technology, faster production methods and the human brain behind it all could lead into a better world, changed ideals, styles and fashion. The world was becoming modern.

Art Nouveau’s pastoral curving lines received cubist fractures and jazzy urban syncopation.

The treasures and style of Tutankhamun influenced design, architecture and fashion from 1922 till the 1930’s. The dispersing sun-ray motif typical in Art Deco can be seen in the back of the gold mask.

Tutankhamun

A style revolution emerged towards the mid 1920’s that seemed to tie in all the before mentioned elements: change, cubism, cars, orientalism, exotism, modernism, sensuality and angularity, luxury,  jazz, joy & fun and a kind of unabashed physicality. The great inspiration and kick was the stupendous world-news of the 1922 finding of the intact tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt, and a decade long major trend that followed. Melted into the imagery and shapes of the King Tut findings, Art Deco blended traces of the ideals of classism, of German Bauhaus movement and the Dutch De Stijl, a touch of Futurismo, ideals of technology, speed and height. The modern was embraced but ornamentation and decoration were not discarded. In Art Deco style, Art Nouveau’s pastoral curving lines received cubist fractures and jazzy urban syncopation.

1. Drawing of the Egyptian papyrus plant  2. Egyptian Papyrus column (Metropolitan Museum)  3. Papyrus motif in facade tiles; Sun Reality Building, Los Angeles (1930)  4. Wall lamp, Hotel Bauer-Grünwald, Venice  5. Courthouse detail, Boston  6. Stacked, interlocked papyrus flowers in table lamp at the Parliament of Finland (1931)  7. Chrysler building door (1930) 8. Papyrus inspired chandelier (Olde Good Things antique store, Manhattan)  9. Stylized papyrus flower as seen from above; dancing girls in a Busby Berkeley 1930’s movie spectacle.

Colour woodblock poster for the Paris 1925 Exhibition, by Robert Bonfils for Imprimerie Vaugirard, Paris, France, 1925. Museum no. E.1200-1925. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

In the 1925 Paris World’s Fair, or The International Exhibition of Modern and Industrial Decorative Arts (Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes) in Paris, the French were the pioneers and decided to show only what was “modern”. Art Deco came together and blossomed in the French entries, and excited and intoxicated the visitors who included hoards of influential producers, art directors and designers of the fast developing Hollywood movie industry. Art Deco found a welcome home in the fantastical sets of Hollywood pictures as they were being dreamt up and built for mass consumption. In this respect, the American Art Deco’s emphasis on “entertainment” quality, and the oversize styling as if all was a stage spectacle, is understandable in American architecture also.

Exotic Japanese influence in Art Deco: “Fortissimo screen”, 1925–26 by Jean Dunand, Séraphin Soudbinine; Lacquered wood, eggshell, mother-of-pearl

Tourbillons (Whirlwinds) vase, glass, ca. 1925, René-Jules Lalique
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

I have a fascinating portfolio book, published in Paris in 1925, of Madame Pangon‘s batiks. Her scarves and dress and upholstery materials feature Art Deco’s typical geometric elements and dispersing sun-ray motifs.

Erté (Romain de Tirtoff) was a Russian born artist-designer who made a career in France and USA as illustrator, fashion illustrator and costume and set designer. His long life and career saw the renewed popularity of Art Deco style, when his illustrations were sold as as signed editions of prints. (WikiPaintings)

In the 1926 French film La Vertige, directed by Marcel L’Herbier, the actor Jaque Catelain in an Art Deco interior, and a bath robe designed by Sonia Delaunay. In the 1929 Greta Garbo film The Kiss, the city interior is by the famous designer for films, Cedric Gibbons, who visited and was greatly inspired by the 1925 Paris exhibition.

In Paris 1920’s and 30’s society, a muse to great artists, Josephine Baker oozed beauty, fun, sex and glam.

Josephine Baker in Art Deco jewelsI

If Isadora Duncan is the dancer for the classicists, then Josephine Baker is the choice for the wild and wicked Art Deco society.Originally from St Louis, she came via Broadway to Paris, gradually developing into a glamorous entertainer icon who socialized with the cultural elite and was a muse for famous artists, including Cocteau, Hemingway and Picasso. Here in the video, in her earlier, earthier incarnation in 1927, she jimmies & kicks to Charleston with relaxed abandon, clad in a post-cubist frock. And look at the faces she makes! In 1934 she became the first African-American female to star in a major motion picture, Zou-Zou (1934, with Jean Cabin).

Travel as tourism

In the 1920’s travel as tourism developed, by train, car, ocean liners and by air. Far away and exotic places were closer, and inspired the imagination of artists and any other travelers. Art Deco became the distinct design style for the finest trains and passenger ships, as well as the era’s travel posters. The Finnish national airlines, Finnair, was founded in 1923 under the name AERO.

From the 1920’s, the world’s wonders were closer for travelers by train, car, ocean liner or by air. Art Deco reflected in the 20’s and 30’s graphic design and posters. Charles Lindbergh was the first to fly non-stop solo over the Atlantic. When the hero landed in Paris, he was greeted by 100 000 spectators.

Deco in Finland?

If Art Nouveau as a style is feminine, romantic, organic, whimsical, winding and flowing, and deeply rooted in Nature’s inspiration, then Art Deco that follows is masculine, angular, urban, bursting, whirling, climbing, jumping and speeding. Even Art Deco’s feminine curves are usually in tension, in contrast or counterpoint with rhythmic, geometric elements. In the work of the Vienna Secession artistic group of the great architect Otto Wagner, the designer-architect Josef Hoffmann and the painter Gustav Klimt, or the grand cafes of Prague, or the apartment houses of Barcelona, you get a sense that the Art Nouveau style develops effortlessly into the more geometric and iconically urban Art Deco style. In Helsinki, the popular National Romantic Style, as we call our Jugendstil or Art Nouveau, takes a more robust form and less excessive than in France, Belgium or Germany. The Finnish architect and designer Eliel Saarinen echoed some early Deco influences in his major works, and by the time of the excitement of his near-win of the Chicago Tribune Tower competition and 1923 move to the USA, Saarinen was a budding modernist of international quality. In his architecture and furniture designs for the Cranbrook Academy, Art Deco styling is evident.

Eliel Saarinen’s influential entry for the Chicago Tribune Tower competition, 1922.

Saarinen‘s dining room at Cranbrook. The furniture (1929) features typical Art Deco elements of stylized sun-rays.

Instead of the entertaining Art Deco, Finland followed more the ways of 1920’s Classicism and the more modern, somber and reduced Bauhaus movement’s functionalistic aspirations. Alvar and Aino Aalto‘s 1924 travels in Italy so inspired them that the plans for the Workers’ house in Jyväskylä were changed mid-building. The completed house (1925) combines elements of Nordic Classicism and Art Deco. The new, thrilling means of mass entertainment, the movies, offered architects and designers exciting possibilities. When the new Bio Capitol (1925/26) opened, it was the finest, coolest, largest movie theater in Helsinki. Designed by the architect W.G. Palmqvist, with interiors by Hilding Ekelund and interior decorations by noted artists Toivo Vikstedt, Gunnar Finne, Göran Hongell and Gunnar Forström; it was a melange of Nordic Classisism and Art Deco. Architect Martti Välikangas designed both the building and the interiors of Bio Athene (later named Orion), and his work is pure Art Deco, with the entrance hall as if to a royal Egyptian palace with glossy columns and gilded details. In Tampere‘s massive 1929 building named Tuulensuu of condominiums and shops (by the architect Bertel Strömmer), a glamorous movie theater with the same name opened, too, and was later named Kino Palatsi. It was recently renovated into dinner-theater, carefully utilizing the original interiors.  Art Deco style in Finland is so little appreciated that it was impossible to find good photo material of the movie palaces in the internet.

Bio Capitol, opened in 1926 in Helsinki; audiences entering in 1931. Photo: Helsinki City Museum/Olof Sundström

Kino Palatsi (originally called Tuulensuu) was a grand movie theater in Classicist/Art Deco style, opened in Tampere in 1929.

Alvar Aalto‘s 1925 Workers’ house in Jyväskylä. Aalto and his wife Aino travelled in Italy in 1924. Clearly inspired by the Italian Renaissance palaces, the Workers’ house reflects the Nordic Classicism but also Art Deco influences. /Photos: Alvar Aalto museum

The only major Art Deco building (left) in Helsinki is the Parliament. The architect J.S. Siren won the architectural competition in 1926, clearly inspired by the international King Tut craze of the 1920’s. The building was completed in 1931, a young independent nation’s proud achievement. The exterior is grandly classicist, with the side entrances as if into the tombs in Egypt’s Valley of The Dead. The interiors are quite “hollywood” in their flamboyant elegance. Wonderful staircases of marble, brass and chrome, glossy paint surfaces in smooth accent colors, geometric, patterned linoleum floors, exotic dark woods, fabulous Art Deco chandeliers (made in Finland) and the Tutankhamun inspired furniture create an impressive artistic whole. Arttu Brummer (works seen at the Amos Anderson exhibition) designed furniture and Gunnar Finne painted the sublime ceilings. Even the papyrus plant, a popular Art Deco motif, received its interpretation by Siren as a Parliament table lamb.

The Parliament in Helsinki was designed by J.S. Siren in 1926 and completed in 1931. The exterior is grandly classicist with Egyptian influence in the side entrances.

Art Deco styling in the Parliament interiors.

The State Room in its grandeur, patterned stone floor, massive golden doors, Tutankhamun inspired furniture and Art Deco chandeliers made in Finland.

The Finnish Parliament’s ceilings in rich colors.

Tutankhamun inspiration in the Stateroom chairs of the Parliament.

The Metropolis

The Chanin Building (1929); entertaining Art Deco ornamentation close to the street level in Manhattan, 42nd St.

New York City was my home for ten years. For a young designer hungry for inspiration and fascinated by Art Deco, Manhattan is a true treasure trove. Countless hours of walks with a camera, poking one’s nose into lobbies and halls, checking out staircases and elevators…

Radiator covers for the Jazz Age (or Machine Age); The Chanin Building.

In Manhattan architecture, the sky is truly the limit, and in the mood of “higher, faster and prouder” and with a reliance in the advancement of technology, Art Deco became the style of the new Machine Age’s skyscrapers. Zoning laws and building permissions allowed added height to the buildings if special attention was given to the artistic quality and decoration of the buildings’ first 2-3 floors’ facades and public spaces. This gave the architects, designers and skilled craftsmen ample opportunity to show what they can. The results are often impressive and entertaining.

The mood, speed, danger and sex of the new modern city is shown as a feverish vision in Fritz Lang‘s 1927 film Metropolis; Manhattan meets Metropolis, or vice versa. In 2008, the film’s original cut -thought forever lost- was found in Argentina, and Metropolis has since been restored. It is the first film ever to have been inscribed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register. In the enclosed clip, a dancing Art Deco siren or goddess –with a head-dress inspired by the Egyptian papyrus flower– climbing out of an Art Deco jewel box is suitably seductive and drives a crowd of gentlemen so wild that The Grim Reaper is alarmed! The editing of the montage is nothing short of sensational.

New York’s Empire State Building (1931) is possibly the most famous landmark Deco tower, and the occasional home of King Kong. The most magical skyscraper, however, must be the Chrysler Building (1930) in Manhattan. With an internal steel skeleton, it is still the tallest brick building in the world.  The lobbies, stairways and elevators are masterpieces of craftsmanship, with Egyptian motifs stylized in colored marbles, inlaid brass and exotic woods. The top exterior is an interpretation of the classic Egyptian inspired Art Deco theme of the sun and its dispersing rays.

Chrysler Building, 1930. Photo: David Shankbone

Chrysler Building stairway, like a chamber in an exotic temple. The polished marbles, brass, gold leaf and the Art Deco mood would have impressed King Tut. Photo: Brian Dubé.

Chrysler Building’s elevator designs echo Egypt’s papyrus plant, a typical Art Deco motif; inlaid hardwoods and brass.

Circular motifs meet the zig-zag V-shapes; Art Deco’s Egyptian and Mayan influences. Chrysler’s symbol, a stainless steel eagle, has landed in a corner.

Rockefeller Center (1932-39) is a proudly planned, elegant consortium of 14 Art Deco buildings; fantastic reliefs in the facade, fascinating paintings in the public hallways. But a great pity that the original Diego Rivera fresco (100 square meters) of the RCA building was destroyed as Nelson Rockefeller disliked the small Lenin face included. The fresco was replaced with a stunning, larger mural by the Catalan artist Josep Maria Sert.

A Grand Concourse lobby. Photo: Sara Krulwich, N.Y.Times

A European inspired boulevard, the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, north of and leading into Manhattan, is a nearly five-mile stretch with a number of significant Art Deco apartment buildings; it makes an interesting walk for an architecture and design enthusiast.

The magic of movies

Art Deco style became a megatrend in the United States from the early 1920’s till the mid-1940’s. The power and growth of the film industry was a great means of building the trend. Movies offered unheard-of magic, and great movie palaces were built to take the breath away, with exotic Mayan and Egyptian motifs already before Tutankhamun was found. The Egyptian Theater (1922) and The Pantages in Los Angeles, (1930), Loew’s King’s Theater (1929) in Brooklyn, Radio City Music Hall (1932) in Manhattan are all landmark Art Deco theaters of many in the USA. I once toured Atlanta’s wonderfully ornate and very Egyptian Fox Theater (1929) , conceived as if it was to be a world’s wonder. I wonder what it must have felt like to the contemporay audiences to experience then and there a showing of Claudette Colbert’s famed film Cleopatra (1934) with its iconic Egyptian style Art Deco sets and costumes. In the Radio City Music Hall interiors, luxury materials such as exotic hardwoods and gold leaf were inventively combined with new industrial materials like bakelite and aluminum.

Radio City Music Hall was completed in 1932. With 6 000 seats and showing movies and song-and-dance spectacles, it became “the people’s palace”, and the home for The Rockettes, dancing girls famous for the precision footwork.

The Hollywood musical is an art form in itself. It reaches its black-and-white best in the work of the actor-dancers Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers. Here a glimpse of a new hit dance, The Continental (to Oscar winning music), amidst some grand Art Deco hotel sets, in the 1934 Gay Divorcee.

Top Hat (1935) is one of the ultimate Hollywood Art Deco musicals. The art directors, set and costume designers were at the top of their game in this most elegant, stylized black-and-white film. The lack of color emphasizes the Deco sets, and the glow of the materials, lit to offer genuine movie magic.

The director/choreographer (auteur) Busby Berkeley develops the Hollywood film musical into powerful, highly kinetic expressions of storytelling and art. In The Gold Diggers of 1935, Berkeley builds a moving spectacle on a simple story of one day in the life of “ordinary” folks living in New York. There is a stylized reality to the sequence, a strong undertone of sexuality and hope, a great physical quality, almost like an American parallel to Socialist Realism. The strong artistic vision, set to Harry Warren‘s haunting show tune The Lullaby of Broadway, reaches a great, tapping climax when the evening in the city changes into night…

In Cleopatra, the 1934 hit film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, the Egyptian King Tut background of Art Deco meets the grand skills of the new Hollywood “dream industry”.

Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra and Henry Wilcoxon as Marc Anthony in Cleopatra, 1934. – During the 1980’s the film’s massive outdoor sets were found outside Hollywood, covered in sand. Excavating Hollywood history…

When Claudette Colbert arrived at the filming of Cleopatra, she had her costumes redesigned to be even more glamorous.

Art Deco’s oversize elegance as presented by Hollywood in 1930’s films. The wall lamps continue the interlocking papyrus plant motif typical of Deco since the 1922 found of the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Art Deco became the trendy style to create impressive interiors for clubs, restaurants, hotels, theaters, bars, oceanliners and the houses, villas and apartments of the rich and the famous. The rich & famous still enjoy this style; both Madonna and Barbra Streisand have owned large Art Deco collections of furniture, and paintings by Tamara de Lempicka.

Streamlined Deco for the masses

The stock exchange crash of 1929 and the Great Depression had a profound influence in the American life, but Art Deco continued to flourish in design and the movies; people wanted to be entertained. In the developing design trends of the 1930’s, Art Deco’s angular elements became more streamlined.

The stage designer, Norman Bel Geddes opened his design studio in 1927, and in the 1930’s was influential in shifting the angular Art Deco into Streamline-Modern, and into consumer products and everyday life. The work of the all-round designer Raymond Loewy is a great example of that, designing everything from buses and trains to mass-produced china and cutlery. The whole Miami Art Deco district is fun streamlined-deco with pastel color accents and a beach feel.

With the help of designers as Raymond Loewy, Art Deco became streamlined in the 1930’s to early 40’s. Loewy designed everything from trains and buses to kitchen- and tableware.

Miami’s streamlined Art Deco glows with tropical seaside accents.

In America the Art Deco influence continued in architecture and design through the 30’s towards the mid-40’s. It became a standard in government or municipal buildings, with a layer of austerity added. It  then sometimes brings to mind the official buildings that Mussolini had built in Italy, or what Albert Speer designed for Hitler’s Germany. Stalin‘s architectural dreams for Soviet Union could not have come about without the preceding Art Deco, though both in Hitler’s and Stalin’s favored architecture, Neoclassicism prevails.

Let’s close with two highly energetic, escapist and optimistic Art Deco musical numbers from an era of depression, oppression, rising  fascism and upcoming war. We’re in the Money from Golddiggers of 1933, and Marika Rökk singing Ich brauche keine Millionen, 1939 – I need no millions, as long as I have music, and your love…

ART DECO TIMELINE © Markku Piri 2013

CHECK OUT: May 10-19, 2013, Fashion in Film -project of Saint Martins College in London presents the work of French director Marcel L’Herbier.

Masterful Japanese fiber artists at the Design Museum in Helsinki

The successful and surprising Fiber Futures exhibition at the Design Museum in Helsinki (until May 5) is co-organized by Japan Society, New York, International Textile Network Japan, and Tama Art University Museum, and originally curated by the esteemed, experienced and energetic professor Hiroko Watanabe.

Strength and subtlety; Naoko Serino’s innovative use of fiber in a sculptural piece at the Design Museum.

The exhibition is rewarding on many levels and goes to the core of the Japanese approach (philosophy) in the arts and crafts tradition. This difference in the attitude between the Finnish (our western) approach and the Japanese is also a reason why arts and crafts in Japan are part of such long, evolving and strong tradition, with a freedom for the masterful use of new -and old- materials and techniques,

Japan represents the approach, tradition and culture of thinking and doing, of mastering the craft, of developing skills through repetition, slowly gaining the understanding of materials, their nature, behavior and “soul”, and by painstakingly doing, and doing over again. This awareness of the exterior and interior qualities of materials and the meaning of different methods is extraordinary in Japanes arts and crafts.

The reach of superb skills open a new, different freedom and liberty for expression. And, for a reason, an experienced master-artist or artisan can be acknowledged with a status of a National Living Treasure in Japan.

The western culture, Finland included, is a culture of seeing, not doing. We believe that once we see something, we posess it and that we gain the ability to make someting perfectly just by having observed it, instantly. The idea of spending years and years learning a special craft, polishing skills, makes us anxious and intimidated. Dedication, patient hard work in arts and crafts is not for most Finns.

Tetsuo Kusama’s woven works are often developed in collaboration with architects to be an integral part of an inspirational space. Textures, colours, shapes, scale and light in fascinating dialogue.

The architect’s spiral meets the spiral of fiber artist Tetsuo Kusama.

Anyone who can weave rag carpets or knit a sweather can call her- or himself a textile artist in Finland. Part of the problem of evaluating -and pricing- the works of finest crafts in our culture is that our sense of quality has slipped, thus qiving the possibility for mediocre (and lazy) artisans to try to sell their works at a higher price as “art”.

The Fiber Futures exhibition showcases the work of 30 Japanese artists and designers, and their works clearly demonstrate the importance of serious thinking and doing, and through that, being liberated in their choice of materials and most laborious processes. The works can be enjoyed as art or sculpture. For anyone contemplating the substance, the possibilities, and the difference between art and craft, this exhibition is a horn of plenty.

I have been personally very strongly influenced and inspired by the Japanese textile and design culture. I received my first grant from the Finnish Culture Foundation in 1980, to visit Japan and to learn about the Japanese design & craft tradition. During a month long stay, I met with several important artists & master craftsmen. Tetsuo Kusama, Naomi Kobayashi and the late Masakazu Kobayashi were amongst them. It was a special delight to meet the two former visiting in Finland and find their work in the exhibition.

Tetsuo Kusama’s three horizontal weavings in the show, with magically shifting colours, are but a fraction of his major output of large scale works, often created for public spaces in close collaboration with architects. One would certainly hope that new generations of Finnish architects could find a way to include fiber arts as a possibility in creating inspirational spaces.

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Galerie Forsblom has been a major player in the Helsinki art scene for decades. The new gallery space, opened in a historical landmark building in central Helsinki in May 2011, and designed by Gluckman Mayner Architects, New York, adds to the status and expectations of the gallery and the “over-all ambiance of a pleasant gallery visit”.  There is light, height, elegance to the space, and even a refined scent through the materials used (solid cedar wood?).

Hannu Väisänen is one of my favorite Finnish contemporary artists, and, though based in France, one of the most cherished visual artists in Finland. Through his 40-year successful career, he has been often surprising, versatile, touching and thoroughly witty in his output. Paintings, graphic art, stage design for opera, performances. Decade after decade, new facets of his artistry come to the fore, adding to the story, and at this point, to the legend.

I adore his visual interpretations for the Kalevala epic (1999), a major undertaking that paid off brilliantly. Significantly inspired by and involved with music, Väisänen has also created most successful public art in Finland; his two giant paintings, with integral sculptural elements, are breathtaking at the Finnish National Opera.

Hannu Väisänen’s key painting “The Mother of Colours” (2012) at Galerie Forsblom.

“Silent Yellow”, my favorite Hannu Väisänen painting in the Forsblom show.

Väisänen is also a successful author, and that is part of the problem of his new exhibition at Galerie Forsblom. The third installment of his life’s story, told through the alter ego Antero, was just published and has become No1. best-seller in Finland. The second of the series (2007) won him the esteemed Finlandia prize.

Most of the works at the new exhibition seem hastily painted, and without enough enthusiasm that would make them look self-evident. Thin layers of paint, little vibrancy or life in the colours, they bathe in glorious light in the vast elegant space of the Forsblom gallery, and start to evaporate.

The subject matters of the paintings have become mostly so personal that only the keenest followers of the painter, or readers of Antero’s adventures in the published books, get a sense of connection or reason in front of the paintings. The painter’s time and passion seem to have become the writer’s; one has to know and love Antero first in order to “get” the paintings.

I recall a premiere of the Finnish dancer-choreographer Jorma Uotinen‘s new spectacle in Helsinki in the early 80’s. The flamboyant Uotinen had become such a favorite with the critics and the Helsinki audiences that he could get away with anything on stage. Feeling apparently let down by the choreographer’s latest flight of fancy, Hannu Väisänen was heard shouting from the audience, calling for “relevance onto the stage!” (asiallisuutta lavalle!).

Great paintings are simply not created by writing.

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Leaving the Forsblom gallery somewhat disappointed, I happened to stop by a store window a block away, and was awakened by delight. A small gallery (G12 Galleria) specialized in lending/renting (and selling by installments) works of art, had four paintings of clouds by the wall next to the front windows. My heart stood still, I had to go in.

“Vapauden kaipuu” (Longing for Freedom, 2012) by Tuomo Saali

“Anabasis (extreme)”, 2012, show’s Tuomo Saali’s masterful sense of color and technique in oils, and a fresh interpretation of a classic theme, Man and/versus Nature.

What an utterly magnificent series of paintings! They were full of air and thought; enjoyable, skilful painting; most voluptuous but not self-conscious use of colors. No matter their actual size, each painting seemed to fill a vast space, create a universe on its own. I felt genuinely elevated, contented.

The theme underneath touched, too, the scale, grandness and beauty of the world, the scope of the skies, the feeling of longing (“kaipuu”), the seeming smallness of man. Man meeting and measuring his boundaries, the disappearance of shores, mountains and borders into the skies or the sea. Men in the company of men, explorers on the journey, with a hint of threat and danger. And beyond that, the questions of the health of the globe and our responsibilities in it.

There was a pleasant reference towards the Romantic era in the works, but the painting style, natural swiftness and ease of the brushwork, studied and vibrant work of a master colorist gave the paintings a modern and timeless feel. Fresh!

Tuomo Saali, I exclaimed to myself after having been immersed into the world of these new paintings. One of my heroes in Finnish painting! From his studies of air, light and architecture in Venice to his buddhas and flowering paradise, I have been in awe of his work. And now these incredible skies!

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In the winter season of Helsinki art, the painter Marjatta Tapiola created a show-stopping appearance in her triple act of a retrospective at the Helsinki Art Museum, a show of new paintings at Galleria Sculptor, and the commisioned portrait of the former Speaker of the Parliament, Mr. Sauli Niinistö, Finland’s current president; all revealed in the course of a week.

Marjatta Tapiola’s masked ball at a grand scale at the recent exhibition at Galleria Sculptor.

Marjatta Tapiola’s “The Wonderer” (Vaeltaja), 1995, at the Helsinki Art Museum retrospective; fluidity of line, painting at her best.

Tapiola as a painter is not a colorist. Her works these days are large in scale, have a fluent drawing quality, and are filled with expression, distortion, layers of lines. The show of nine new works has a unity, networks of lines on a pale ground, and themes from minotaurs and masked balls, bulls stopped and seized before an attack, to fragmented horses captured in mid-gallop. There is a feeling of speed and events, as if interrupted by the stopping of clocks, of erotic tension, passion and death. Sometimes the references to Picasso (his minotaurs and hers) are obvious. An impressive and energetic entity.

The retrospective exhibition at the Helsinki Art Museum tells the story of the painter’s path from the 80’s till today. Compared to the exceeding superlatives lavished on the artist in the media, the path according to this show seems sometimes surprisingly hesitant. Tapiola’s interest in skulls is not unlike Georgia O’Keeffe‘s, and one painting on display also experiments with O’Keeffe’s style of painting. In some of the new works, I notice myself removing in my mind the painter’s later layers and additions, a head there, for example, to “improve” the work.

Many of the paintings I am stunned by, but some of the early work appears clumsy, and I soon become irritated by how the show is curated and hung. There is little dialogue or interesting tension between the works, and I am startled by discovering (unwanted) dialogue between the works and the museum’s physical quality, of the shape and condition of the walls, the lists, the pipes running in the ceiling, lighting fixtures, all those things that would need to be improved and that scream: we need a proper, elegant exhibition space for the Helsinki Art Museum.

Crisp solid colours of the news anchor contast well with the space.

When something ordinary and daily in your routines goes through a significant change, you realize in a simple way the ever-evolving, changing nature of life, and feel refreshed. Just as important as it would be for any person to change something in the rhythm or environment of their life every 5 to 7 years, it feels natural for the daily tv-news format and design to change, too, in similar intervals.

The Finnish Broadcasting Corp., YLE, just launched an in-depth design renewal of its news broadcasts, both on tv and in radio (audio design included).

The massive undertaking has been in the works for three years now, and most active during the last two. Part of the conceptual and design team was brought out-of-the house: the London based agency The Council is specialized in broadcast design, the Helsinki based firms Fake Graphics in 3-d animation and Bob Helsinki in brand architecture. At € 600 000, the design bill doesn’t include YLE’s in-house personnel’s major efforts.

The result is like a breath of fresh air! Congratulations, YLE!

The new concept and look work vividly and crisply with colours! The gentle sky blues, turqoises, off whites with leaf green details and other stronger accent colours are immediately refreshing and yet reliable. (They hint towards the “blue and white” of the Finnish national colour combination, but aren’t as stark, and the blues on the tv screen are far from the -in reality- dusty-dirty blue of the Finnish flag.)

Streamlined design in sky blues and off whites.

The studio has a great spatial impact. The furniture and the oversize screen frames have a highly stylized sculptural effect that imply to the scale of the WORLD behind the news. The streamlined design is both up-to-date and has a hint of the grandly styled, oversize movie sets of 1930’s Hollywood spectacles, with a touch of the yester-year designer-guru Raymond Loewy thrown in. The 3-d animations add to the elegant spatial feel.

Part of the energized atmoshpere of the new tv-news is due to the shifted importance of the news anchors. They no longer sit behind the desks but stand, and move. They are whole human beings, a bit of host’s duties added to their responsibilities, and it seems to work splendidly. Kudos to the styling of the outfits; solid colours & clear cuts emphasize the anchors’ personality and credibility, and work wonders in the overall colour design.

Sculptural furniture, the range of key colours.

The anchors appear confident, appealing and very professional in this new environment; no need for “celebrity status” anchors as with competing news programs.

Additional thanks for the new design of the weather forecast visual presentation and symbols. The crispier and well contrasting colours and smoothly styled elements land somewhere between cartoon design and fine art, never losing their vital way to carry information.

Watching the news on a 48 inch HD flatscreen, some of the title graphics and a few of the insert photos and film footage appeared not good enough in resolution.

Dr. Janne Gallen-Kallela-Sirén‘s appointment as Director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y. inspired an article by the journalist Kaisa Viljanen in Finland’s most influential newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat. Titled “Art Museum’s director roulette started”, with the ambitious subtitle ANALYSIS, the writer offers some naive opinions and an emphasis (and indirect approval) of some populist views.

Janne Sirén appointed Director, Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Viljanen claims that Sirén will be remembered -in good and bad- mostly for, what she calls the embarrassment of the failed attempt to launch the Guggenheim museum’s branch in Helsinki. She repeats (“truth” is created by public repetition) opinions of Sirén as too self-assured, too American in his manners to fit in Helsinki. The writer also tries to associate a causal link between Sirén and the mildew problems of the Helsinki art museum’s Meilahti gallery, as if the closing of it for health reasons and the subsequent drop in total attendance numbers would be Sirén’s personal failure.

For me the appointment of Siren in 2007 as the director of Helsinki art museum was a welcome breath of fresh air, and his tenure is a great symbol of that! That appointment was against major odds. A seemingly unbreakable status quo existed between the leading visual arts critic Marja-Terttu Kivirinta of the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, her choice of approved Finnish artists, in close collaboration with her choice of art museum directors and gallery owners. Kivirinta opposed Sirén’s selection fiercely behind the scenes and in published articles, and openly campaigned for “her” candidate. Sirén’s appointment to the position was a first major crumble in Kivirinta’s absolute power in the Helsinki (Finnish) art scene and politics, a first sign of long overdue perestroika. Incidentally, Helsingin Sanomat was, for a reason, nick-named “Pravda” in its use of power as the overwhelmingly largest Finnish newspaper, making and breaking careers. (Only the emergence of internet, facebook and the ease with which diverse opinions now circulate and can be published has softened Helsingin Sanomat’s influence.)

In her “analysis”, Viljanen writes that judging by the first reactions, “the Americans seem to be in heat for Sirén. And if he does well, even other (foreign) museums may start to look into Finnish arts professionals“.

I have read some 20+ articles or blogs about Sirén’s new appointment, and they are friendly, interested, welcoming, but hardly in heat!

What is most curious, though, is the writer’s understanding of Sirén’s possible impact. I know Sirén as a higly intelligent, optimistic, ambitious professional with natural and polished social skills, quick mind; superbly fluent in English. He’s an excellent listener and communicator, a smart delegator. He has great capacity to engourage, to make you feel important as a team member. His networking skills are truly unusual for a Finn. His perspective is wide and open, he’s curious for possibilities and options, even the option of a Guggenheim success in Finland.

These are not qualities that Finnish art professionals are known for. I know of many career arts professionals and museum directors in Finland who cannot utter a sensible sentence in any foreign language (perhaps not even in Finnish), and who have attended seminars in silence in foreign countries without ever engaging in them. Possibilities for international dialogue?

Would Sirén’s success suddenly improve Finnish arts professionals’ language and social skills, leadership, communicative and networking skills, intellectual and professional capacity? Would Sirén’s presence, body language, friendly facial expressions, visible sparkle of the mind open up other Finnish arts professionals from thoughts of morose jealousy, visible angst, lame resignation?

I don’t think so. Sirén’s qualities are personal, certainly not national. Congratulations to Albright-Knox Art Gallery!

Helsinki Art Museum shares the old Tennis Palace location with a multriplex cinema. Museum visitors at the joint lobby are first met with the stench of pop-corn grease. With or without Guggenheim, a new museum space would ideally be a harmonious combination of location, inspirational architecture, exhibited art and the multi-functions of a modern museum.