Frame Contemporary Art Finland

Last updated

Frame Contemporary Art Finland (previously Frame Visual Art Finland) is a foundation whose mission is to promote Finnish contemporary art internationally.

Contents

Frame supports international projects, awards grants to artists and art professionals, facilitates professional partnerships, and acts as an information centre for Finnish contemporary art. Frame commissions and produces Finland's exhibitions at the Venice Biennale.

Frame's international programme includes an expert visitor programme for non-Finnish contemporary art professionals, networking and research projects such as Frame Curatorial Research Fellowship programme, Peer-to-Peer programme, Finland-Russia Curatorial Exchange and Helsinki International Curator Programme (HICP), which is run in collaboration with HIAP (Helsinki International Artist Programme). For years 2019-2023 Frame organises Rehearsing Hospitalities programme, which consists of different forms of offline and online events such as talks, performances, gatherings, readings, and podcasts.

Frame is supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. Frame's director is Raija Koli. Its office is located on Ratakatu [street] in central Helsinki. Frame Foundation is the successor of FRAME – Finnish Fund for Art Exchange (1992-2011).

Frame was founded in December 2011 by the cities of Espoo, Helsinki, Lahti, Oulu, Tampere, Turku and Vantaa, the Fine Arts Academy of Finland, the Finnish Art Society and Stiflesen Pro Artibus. The foundation was registered in May 2012.

Finland at the Venice Biennale

Frame commissions and produces exhibitions for the Pavilion of Finland at the Venice International Art Exhibition (Venice Biennale, La Biennale di Venezia). Finland also co-exhibits with Norway and Sweden in the Nordic Pavilion. The Finnish pavilion is designed by architect Alvar Aalto (1954), and the Nordic Pavilion by architect Sverre Fehn (1964). Both pavilions are located in the Giardini, the main exhibition venue at the Biennale.

In 2022 Finland's representative at the 59th Venice Biennale is Pilvi Takala. Takala's exhibition is curated by Christina Li. [1]

In 2019 Finland exhibited A Greater Miracle of Perception by The Miracle Workers Collective (MWC) at the Finnish pavilion. The MWC is formed by writer Maryan Abdulkarim, scriptwriter Khadar Ahmed, writer Hassan Blasim, choreographer Sonya Lindfors, artist Outi Pieski, artist Leena Pukki, artist Martta Tuomaala, artist Lorenzo Sandoval, cinematographer Christopher L. Thomas, storyteller Suvi West, curator Giovanna Esposito Yussif, curator Christopher Wessels and curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung. Exploring the miracle as a poetic vehicle from which to expand perceptions and experiences, the exhibition presented MWC's collective film work The Killing of Čáhcerávga (2019), which was in dialogue with the site-specific sculptural installation Ovdavázzit – Forewalkers (2019) by Outi Pieski. [2]

In 2017 the Finnish pavilion featured The Aalto Natives, an exhibition by Erkka Nissinen and Nathaniel Mellors. It was curated by Xander Karskens, artistic director of the Cobra Museum (from 1 December 2016). [3]

Representing Finland at the 2015 Biennale was the artist duo IC-98 (Patrik Söderlund and Visa Suonpää) with their site-specific installation Hours, Years, Aeons. The installation combined research, drawing and animation, and it formed part of the duo's Abendland series. The exhibition was curated by Taru Elfving, PhD, Frame's Head of Programme at the time. [4]

In 2013 Finland exhibited both in the Finnish pavilion and the Nordic pavilion. The Falling Trees exhibition featured Antti Laitinen in the Finnish pavilion and Terike Haapoja in the Nordic Pavilion. The exhibition was curated by Gruppo 111 (Marko Karo, Mika Elo and Harri Laakso).

FRAME - Finnish Fund For Art Exchange

Frame Foundation's predecessor, FRAME – Finnish Fund for Art Exchange, was an organisation dedicated to promoting Finnish contemporary art internationally. The organisation operated as an independent unit under the administration of the Foundation for the Fine Arts Academy of Finland from 1992 to 2011. From 2004 to 2009 FRAME published a bi-annual contemporary art publication called Framework (later FRAMER).

Related Research Articles

Venice Biennale International arts exhibition

The Venice Biennale is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of its kind. The main exhibition held in Castello, in the halls of the Arsenale and Biennale Gardens, alternates every second year between art and architecture. The other events hosted by the Foundation - spanning theatre, music, and dance - are held annually in various parts of Venice, whereas the Venice Film Festival takes place at the Lido.

The 57th Venice Biennale was an international contemporary art exhibition held between May and November 2017. The Venice Biennale takes place biennially in Venice, Italy. Artistic director Christine Macel, the chief curator at the Centre Pompidou, curated its central exhibition, "Viva Arte Viva", as a series of interconnected pavilions designed to reflect art's capacity for expanding humanism. The curator also organized a project, "Unpacking My Library", based on a Walter Benjamin essay, to list artists' favorite books. Macel was the first French director since 1995 and the fourth woman to direct the Biennale. A trend of presenting overlooked, rediscovered, or "emerging dead artists" was a theme of the 57th Biennale.

Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung

Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung is a contemporary art curator and writer. He lives in Berlin.

National pavilions at the Venice Biennale

The national pavilions host each participant nation's official representation during the Venice Biennale, an international art biennial exhibition held in Venice, Italy. Some countries own pavilion buildings in the Giardini della Biennale while others rent buildings throughout the city, but each country controls its own selection process and production costs.

Swiss pavilion

The Swiss pavilion houses Switzerland's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.

Belgian pavilion

The Belgian pavilion houses Belgium's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.

Spanish pavilion

The Spanish pavilion houses Spain's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.

Brazilian pavilion

The Brazilian pavilion houses Brazil's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.

Korean pavilion

The Korean pavilion houses South Korea's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.

Serbian pavilion

The Serbian pavilion houses Serbia's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.

Polish pavilion

The Polish pavilion houses Poland's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.

Israeli pavilion

The Israeli pavilion houses Israel's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.

Finnish pavilion

The Finnish pavilion houses Finland's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.

Nordic pavilion

The Nordic pavilion houses the national representation of the Nordic countries Sweden, Norway, and Finland during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.

The Danish pavilion houses Denmark's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals. The building was designed by Carl Brummer and constructed between 1930 and 1932, and restored and expanded by Peter Koch in the 1950s.

Pilvi Takala is a performance artist presenting candid camera as art. Takala won the Dutch Prix de Rome in 2011 and the Emdash Award in 2013. Her works have been exhibited in various exhibitions worldwide, most recently in London, Aarhus and Glasgow. She is known best for being in time-based media.

The 59th Venice Biennale is an international contemporary art exhibition to be held between April and November 2022. The Venice Biennale takes place biennially in Venice, Italy. Artistic director Cecilia Alemani will curate its central exhibition.

Zoé Whitley American art historian and curator

Zoé Whitley is an American art historian and curator who has been director of Chisenhale Gallery since 2020. Based in London, she has held curatorial positions at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tate galleries, and the Hayward Gallery. At the Tate galleries, Whitley co-curated the 2017 exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, which was described by ARTnews as one of the most important art exhibitions of the 2010s. Soon after she was chosen to organise the British pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale.

Bita Razavi is a contemporary artist living and working between Helsinki, Finland and Mahu, Estonia. Her works, which have been exhibited in various exhibitions worldwide, look into the inner workings of social systems in relation with the political structures and national events of historic proportions in various countries. She works with a broad range of media including video, photography, installation, sound and performance.

References

  1. Selvin, Claire (2020-02-05). "Celebrated Video and Performance Artist Pilvi Takala Will Represent Finland at 2021 Venice Biennale". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2022-02-17.
  2. Russeth, Andrew (2018-05-08). "Finland Taps Miracle Workers Collective for 2019 Venice Biennale". ARTnews. Retrieved 2022-02-17.
  3. Abrams, Amah-Rose (2017-02-03). "Artists Representing Finland at Venice Biennale Announced". Artnet. Retrieved 2022-02-17.
  4. "IC-98 at the Finnish Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale - Announcements - e-flux". e-flux. 2015-04-11. Retrieved 2022-02-17.