Kirpilä Art Collection seeks exhibition proposals for 2022 – send your proposal by 12th April
Calling all curators, artists and makers! The Kirpilä Art Collection, a private art gallery maintained by the Finnish Cultural Foundation in Helsinki, will turn thirty in the summer of 2022.
The gallery presents a collection of more than 500 Finnish artworks from the period 1850–1980, amassed by Dr Juhani Kirpilä (1931−1988). It has also hosted three contemporary art exhibitions: Table Scenes (2017), curated by Jenna Sutela, Waiting for the Hidden Gardens to Draw Us – Closer (2019), curated by Nayab Ikram and Ramina Habibollah, and As Seen on Television (2020), curated by Tytti Rantanen. Furthermore, we co-produced a location-specific dance artwork entitled Kehys – Frame (2020) with Raekallio Corp.
We are now looking for fresh ideas and new perspectives for celebrating our collection’s anniversary in 2022!
The budget for the anniversary exhibition can be up to EUR 20,000–30,000, including your and the participating artists’ pay, any materials, travel, transport, insurance, printed materials, etc.: i.e., the whole package. We will contribute our efforts to communications and the hanging process.
At this point, we are requesting proposals for a project you would like to carry out or a perspective from which you would approach the celebrations. The exhibition may include events or be mostly online, and consist of fine art or be multiartistic or cross-disciplinary. We will request more detailed project plans for the most interesting ideas by June 2021, paying EUR 500 per plan. The decision on which plan to implement, if any, will be made by August 2021.
- Duration of exhibition/event: June to August 2022 (or other period within 2022).
- Venue: Kirpilä Art Collection in Helsinki (or partly/wholly online).
- Starting point: finding a new perspective from which to approach the Kirpilä Collection.
- We appreciate aspirations of accessibility and diversity with respect to both the artists and the visitors. Include a description of the artists and target audience you envisage for your project in your proposal.
- At the project planning and budgeting stage, you must also account for the exhibition’s climate impact, striving to minimise it to the extent that it is possible.
The Kirpilä Art Collection is currently closed to the public, but if you wish to familiarise yourself with the collection and gallery before submitting your proposal, please contact Museum Curator Pia Hyttinen for an in-person or online tour: ph@skr.fi, tel. +358 50 351 4337. Email your proposal by 12 April to Museum Director Johanna Ruohonen, jr@skr.fi. Johanna can also provide further information by telephone (after 15 March) on +358 40 5163475.
Information to include in your proposal:
- The basic idea behind the exhibition/event
- Brief information about yourself, including contact details
- The other artists or team members, if known
- A rough budget (detailing at least your own fees and the total sum)
- The target audience
