“Ahtila has always bridged disciplines and shows us alternate viewpoints on things. The artist has created a more balanced image of life on our planet. For example trees can be protagonists in her stories”, says Hans Ulrich Obrist, who chose the winner this year.
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Watch a video from the announcement event 3.3.2022 at Hämeenlinna Art Museum.
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How did Ars Fennica get its start? The film opens up the origin of why a fine art award was needed in Finland over 30 years ago.
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ARS FENNICA 2021 candidate exhibition was opened on 15th October 2021 at Hämeenlinna Art Museum. See photos and from the opening.
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ARS FENNICA, Finland’s most prestigious art award, is presented by the Henna and Pertti Niemistö Foundation, established in 1990. Presented in recognition of an outstanding and distinctive contribution to the visual arts, the prize marks its 30th anniversary this year. In honour of the occasion, the winner will receive an enhanced monetary prize of EUR 50,000. The anniversary year will also be marked with an exhibition and exhibition catalogue.
The past three decades have seen 157 Nordic, Baltic and St Petersburg-based artists nominated for the ARS FENNICA award. In total, the Henna and Pertti Niemistö Foundation has presented 26 main prizes, two lifetime achievement awards and one award for an early career artist.
This year’s shortlisted nominees are Eija-Liisa Ahtila (Finland), Anne-Karin Furunes (Norway), Jesper Just (Denmark), Viggo Wallensköld (Finland) and Magnus Wallin (Sweden).
An exhibition of works by the nominees is soon to go on display at Hämeenlinna Art Museum. Titled ARS FENNICA 2021, the exhibition will run from 15 October 2021 until 3 April 2022.
The winner will be announced on 10 February 2022.
Since 1995, the Henna and Pertti Niemistö Foundation’s significant collection of contemporary art, comprising several works by previous ARS FENNICA shortlistees, has been housed at Hämeenlinna Art Museum, in the founders’ hometown.
A total of 77 300 people, who visited Amos Rex’s first summer exhibition, had the opportunity to vote for their favourite work. Petri Ala-Maunus’ works attracted the largest number of votes.
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This year’s ARS FENNICA award has been won by the Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson. Watch videos from Kjartanssons interview, speech in Award Ceremony and the whole award ceremony in Bio Rex, Helsinki.
This year’s ARS FENNICA award has been won by the Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson.
The prize is awarded by the Henna and Pertti Niemistö Art Foundation – ARS FENNICA sr. It is worth 40,000 euros and is now being given for the 24th time.
The Director of the Museum Tinguely in Basel, Roland Wetzel, chose the prize winner. He explains his decision as follows:
This years’ exhibition by the Ars Fennica candidates at Amos Rex in Helsinki is impressive proof of the cutting-edge, vibrant artistic scene in the Nordic countries, represented by five outstanding artistic positions: Miriam Bäckström, Aurora Reinhard, Petri Ala-Maunus, Ragnar Kjartansson and Egill Saebjörnsson. All of them would have deserved to be selected from the shortlist. Everyone’s specific practice opens up a complex, thoughtful examination of aspects of the world we are living in. Therefore, I would first of all like to thank the artists for their excellent contributions and for the chance to engage in insightful conversations with all of them. I also thank and congratulate the donors of the Ars Fennica award, represented by Leena and Kari Niemistö, and Kai Kartio and his team from Amos Rex for the excellent show they have organized.
My choice for the ARS FENNICA award 2019 tries to recognize the presented artworks in the wider context of their creators’ respective art practices. It is at the same time a personal choice inspired by topics that are dear to me: New forms of reconfiguring established modes of representation, humour and irony in questioning conventions, and the relevance of sound and music as ‘auratic’ aspects in creating specific space-time and collaborative experiences.
I nominate Ragnar Kjartansson for Ars Fennica 2019.
With his presentation of The Boat, one of nine videos from the Scenes from Western Culture series (2015), Kjartansson addresses core subjects of his versatile artistic practice, which centres around topics and interrelations in music and theatre. The idyllic Swiss mountain scenery of The Boat provides the freeze-frame backdrop for an ever-repeating scene of a couple in love arriving at a landing stage. The heteronormative conventionalism and moral uprightness of the plot are emphasized through a seemingly endless loop in slight, chance-driven variations played off to the point of absurdity.
Kjartansson’s attitude to operating as a minimalistic Trickster is at the core of his manifold practice. The way he exposes himself or other actors as fragile personalities challenging failure, and his ambiguous inclination towards nostalgia and romanticism reflect his authentic and empathic oscillation between ‘playing’ and ‘being’. With his pivotal performances and films about music (making), he emphasizes collaborative work and friendship with a twist towards melancholia and meditation, creating this fascinating and irresolvable tension between the sublime and the mundane.
Roland Wetzel, Director of the Museum Tinguely in Basel
The ARS FENNICA is Finland’s biggest visual art prize. It is awarded every other year by the Henna and Pertti Niemistö Art Foundation – ARS FENNICA sr. The Foundation was set up in 1990 to promote visual art, to open up new international avenues for Finnish visual art, and to inspire artists in their creative work.
The candidates for the award were chosen by an Award Panel appointed by the Foundation, chaired by Leena Niemistö, MD, with members Museum Director, Kiasma Leevi Haapala, Museum Director, Amos Rex Kai Kartio, and the artist Jussi Kivi.
The ARS FENNICA 2019 exhibition of works by the candidates is open at the Amos Rex art museum in Helsinki until September 8, 2019.
Ars Fennica sr has issued an electronic publication in Finnish, Swedish and English, which can be downloaded from the Foundation’s website: www.arsfennica.fi
Further information for the media:
Secretary General Päivi Rajakari
+358 40 7084469
paivi.rajakari@arsfennica.fi
Amos Rex:
Head of Communications Timo Riitamaa
+358 41 529 2620
timo.riitamaa@amosrex.fi
Communications Officer Iia Palovaara
+358 50 544 3331
iia.palovaara@amosrex.fi
On behalf of the Henna and Pertti Niemistö Art Foundation and on behalf of Foundation’s Award panel I, Leena Niemistö, have the honour to announce that the art expert choosing the Ars Fennica 2019 award winner is Roland Wetzel, the Director of Tiquely Museum in Basel.
Roland Wetzel has studied art history, economics and musicology in Zurich. Before Tinquelu museum, from 2000 to 2009 he worked as a curator at Kunstmuseum Basel and Kunstmuseum Winterthur.
Main focuses of his research and interests are the transdisciplinarian art forms of the 1910th and the 1960s and contemporary art.
At Museum Tinguely, he conceives an exhibition program, defined between Tinguelys artistical references, his friends and contemporaries, and his actuality and influences on todays art and life.
Roland Wetzel has a number of positions of trust on the boards of Swiss and French foundations and art organizations
The ARS FENNICA 2019 prize winner will be published the 21st of August in the Amos Rex museum.