Finnish Pavilion
Kiasma and FRAME in Venice
This year marks Kiasma's debut appearance at the Venice Biennale. The Finnish Pavilion will host Jussi Kivi's Fire & Rescue Museum, an international exhibition co-produced by Kiasma and FRAME. The pavilion opening and press conference will be held in the Biennale grounds on 5 June 2009 at 1 pm.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma revs up its international activities by participating for the first time in the Venice Biennale. The exhibition in the Alvar Aalto-designed Finnish Pavilion is a co-production between Kiasma and FRAME Finnish Fund of Art Exchange. The exhibition hosted in the pavilion is Fire & Rescue Museum by the Finnish artist Jussi Kivi. The exhibition commissioner is Berndt Arell, Director of Kiasma. The curator team comprises Director Marketta Seppälä and Curator Marita Muukkonen from FRAME, together with Chief Curator Arja Miller from Kiasma.
”Participation in major international art events has become increasingly important, and the Kiasma–FRAME partnership is a natural choice. Together our organizations will be able to extend and strengthen our international contacts to promote contemporary Finnish art in international forums. To support this goal, we need a common resolve across the field of Finnish contemporary art, and also concrete measures. One of the goals of future development is to guarantee the operations of the Aalto Pavilion and its strategic development,” says museum director Berndt Arell.
The exhibition is based on a collection of firefighting material that is the result of Jussi Kivi's lifelong
passion. This spring Jussi Kivi worked in the Johan Tobias studio, a sculpture studio managed by HIAP (Helsinki International Artist-in-Residence Programme) and owned by the governing body of the Suomenlinna fortress in Helsinki, cataloguing and documenting objects and archive material for the exhibition. He was assisted by Filippo Zambon, a student at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts. A broader thematic context for the exhibition is presented in issue 10 of Framework: The Finnish Art Review published by FRAME.
The preview days for the Biennale are 4–6 June 2009
Additional information:
www.labiennale.org/en/art/press/
The opening of the Aalto Pavilion will be on Friday, 5 June 2009, at 1 pm.
Participants of the preview days are welcome to attend.
Please note that admission to the Biennale grounds is reserved for
accredited participants only.
More information and media images
FRAME: Marketta Seppälä, Director, tel. +358 (0)40 594 64 82,
marketta.seppala@frame-fund.fi and Marita Muukkonen, Curator, tel. +358 (0)50 5758504,
marita.muukkonen@frame-fund.fi
Kiasma: Piia Laita, Communications Manager, tel. +358 (0)40 590 8805,
piia.laita@kiasma.fi
