Helsinki day 3 – National museum and Untamed art

Originally posted: 2023-08-09

On day 3 it still rained cats and dogs, so dressed in our rain-ponchos and looking like Harry Potter friendly wizards we navigated our way to the metro.

metrostation_helsinki
Futuristic metro vision

Many museums are closed on Mondays so we decided to wait until Tuesday before heading to Amos Rex and the Generation 23 exhibition. But surprise surprise! While yanking the very stubborn museum door that refused to open, we found out that Amos Rex actually is closed on Tuesdays and not Mondays!
A bit confused we headed to the nearby Kiasma to escape the rain while we come up with a plan B.

two_wizards_in_helsinki
The wizards at Kiasma, plotting the next move

What should we do? We had already visited the Tom of Finland exhibition a couple of days before, so that was not an option. I didn´t want to go se Albert Edelfeld at Ateneum since I´m not very into realistic painting.
Many of the interesting art galleries like Galerie Forsblom and Galleria Huuto were closed for the summer.. But then we found out that the National Museum had an Art Brut exhibition – Untamed Art!

The National Museum

The National museum was located near by, housed in a big old church-like building of gray stone.
We greeted the bear standing outside and entered.
The admission costed 15 euro for me and 11 euro for my mother.

nationalmuseum_helsinki_untamedart_artbrut1

The entrance hall was full of scaffolding and it turned out that there were some maintenance going on that slightly disturbed the views of Axel Kallen-Gallelas amazing Kalevala-themed frescoes from 1928.
But we were not here to look at them anyway, even though Kallen-Gallelas Kalevala pictures are an important component of the Finnish folk-soul.

nationalmuseum_helsinki_untamedart_artbrut8
Ignore the scaffolding

Untamed Art exhibition

The Untamed Art- exhibition started with Hanna Viitalas sparkling busts!
Strange and alluring they greeted us welcome.

nationalmuseum_helsinki_untamedart_artbrut7

Many had painted scenes from every day life, like farming, election day, factory work. Nature and religion were also popular themes.

nationalmuseum_helsinki_untamedart_artbrut9
Lisa Kreitmeier depicts an election campaign

Art Brut or Outsider Art refers to art that is “raw”, natural, uneducated, primitive. Maybe made by people who are mentally ill or people who don´t conform to the rules of the art world.

nationalmuseum_helsinki_untamedart_artbrut2

nationalmuseum_helsinki_untamedart_artbrut3
Franjo Klopotan seemed to really have liked roosters

I have a hard time wrapping my head around the description. How do you define who belongs to this group or not? Who gets to say what is outsider art?

After the exhibition we drank some tea in the cafeteria before we headed out to the rain again.

xoxo/Salla V
Originally posted: 2023-08-09