Free for release 22 Sept 2017
EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art opens up fresh perspectives on reality and the subconscious mind in its spring exhibition programme for 2018. The season’s main show is a wide-ranging retrospective showcasing the surrealism of Meret Oppenheim. Also featured this spring is an immersive installation by the Danish artist John Kørner as well as No Ordinary Moments, a group exhibition featuring highlights from EMMA’s collections. All three shows invite audiences to open their imagination and reflect on the many different dimensions of reality.
Meret Oppenheim: Mirrors of the Mind. 14 Feb - 12 Aug 2018
Mirrors of the Mind is a comprehensive retrospective presenting the work of the avant-garde artist Meret Oppenheim who pushed surrealism in new directions. The show forms part of EMMA’s series of exhibitions featuring international modernists.
Meret Oppenheim (1913–1985) ranks among the most intriguing and influential exponents of surrealism. Her life and work continues to hold relevance today with its playful intellectualism, experimentalism and feminism. Oppenheim endowed everyday objects, items of clothing and furniture with a new identity by reincarnating them in a variety of surprising disguises. Issues related to identity and sexuality form an overarching theme in her oeuvre. Rejecting conventional gender stereotypes, Oppenheim believed that the human mind is androgynous.
The exhibition features an additional selection of works by Oppenheim’s contemporaries from French and Swiss surrealist circles (such as Man Ray and Daniel Spoerri) as well as photographs and portraits of Oppenheim herself. The exhibits are on loan from various European private and public collections. The exhibition was produced in collaboration with ARTOMA GmbH.
John Kørner: Lampedusa – Tripoli. 14 Feb - 29 Jul 2018
EMMA has invited Danish artist John Kørner, a significant renewer of contemporary painting, to create an exhibit for EMMA’s Areena gallery space. Kørner will create a site-specific installation transforming the space into an immersive ‘total work of art’. Kørner’s art touches upon subjects ranging from global topics such as migration and inequality to more personal themes such as identity, relationships and happiness, sparking the viewer’s imagination with his poetic, open-ended style of expression.
No Ordinary Moments - 11 Apr 2018 - 6 Jan 2019
Opening alongside Meret Oppenheim in April is No Ordinary Moments, an extensive group exhibition featuring recent acquisitions and picks from EMMA’s collections. The show forms a bridge between Oppenheim’s world and contemporary life with a selection of surrealist-inspired contemporary works celebrating small, everyday miracles. The featured exhibits have an uncanny, otherworldly quality that transcends daily reality and plunges into the depths of the subconscious and unconscious mind.
The exhibition is an engaging, experiential compilation of installations, media art, paintings, sculptures and photographs by Finnish and international contemporary artists like Oscar Furbacken, Jeppe Hein, Juhana Moisander, Miikka Vaskola, Anna Estarriola, Ernst Billgren, Mahlin Ahlsved and Nabb + Teeri. Many of EMMA’s recent acquisitions were made specifically for this exhibition. Works from EMMA’s collection are also on permanent display in public venues around Espoo.
Three of EMMA’s current shows will continue to run through spring 2018. These are Touch, an exhibition of works from the Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection, the viewing depository of the Tapio Wirkkala Rut Bryk Foundation Collection, and Still / Life, a Tapio Wirkkala retrospective curated by Harri Koskinen.
The museum will also continue its monthly EMMA Talks series sharing expert insights into topics related to the exhibitions.
For more information on the Meret Oppenheim exhibition:
Pilvi Kalhama, Museum Director, EMMA
[email protected], p. +358 40 533 4070
For more information on the John Kørner exhibition:
Arja Miller, Chief Curator, EMMA
[email protected] , p. +358 50 336 1980
For more information on the No Ordinary Moments exhibition:
Henna Paunu, Chief Curator, EMMA
[email protected], +358 43 824 6354
Press images:
Password: emmamuseum
Meret Oppenheim: https://kuvat.emma.museum/kuvat/Lehdistokuvat-Press/Meret+Oppenheim/
John Kørner: https://kuvat.emma.museum/kuvat/Lehdistokuvat-Press/John+Korner/
No Ordinary Moments: https://kuvat.emma.museum/kuvat/Lehdistokuvat-Press/No+Ordinary+Moments/
EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art is one of Finland’s central art museums. Located in Tapiola, Espoo, EMMA’s collection and exhibition programme profiles Finnish and international modernism, contemporary art as well as design. EMMA’s exhibition spaces – the largest in Finland – are situated in the architecturally impressive WeeGee building designed by Professor Aarno Ruusuvuori. The modern architecture adds to the experience-focused presentation of the changing exhibitions and permanent collections of EMMA, the Saastamoinen Foundation and Tapio Wirkkala Rut Bryk Foundation.
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