Visual arts around the city at Helsinki Festival

Tips for the festival:

An exhibition of Finnish sculptor Tommi Toija will be held at the Amos Anderson Art Museum. The exhibition will be complemented by an eight-metre high concrete scuplture, Bad Bad Boy, due to go on display at the Kauppatori Market. (exhibition 15 Aug – 27 Oct 2014)

Hotel Manta by japanese artist Tatzu Nishi is a joint project with the Helsinki City Art Museum. In Hotel Manta, Nishi will construct a hotel room around the city’s iconic Havis Amanda statue to highlight and render visible the boundary between the public and the private realms. During the day, the space will serve as an exhibit, while during the evening and night it can be booked like any ordinary hotel room. (15 Aug – 12 Oct 2014)

At the Finnish Museum of Photography, the #snapshot exhibition turns its attention to selfies and other contemporary forms of photography. Consisting primarily of photographs taken by ordinary people, images sourced from the internet, historic snapshots and selfies as well as an overview of the history of the selfie, the exhibition also features new works commenting on the phenomenon by international artists Catherine Balet, Erik Kessels, Niklas Kullström and Sisse Stroyer. ( 21 Aug 2014 – 15 Jan 2015)

Checkpoint Helsinki will be bringing To the Square 2 to the Glass Palace Square, asking whether the square will be filled with the demands of protesters or taken over by a celebration of art. (22–31 Aug 2014)

In addition, Kunsthalle Helsinki will be hosting the most extensive collection of works by Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) ever exhibited. The exhibition produced by Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 2013 made the work of the pioneering artist both world-famous and the talk of the day. The Pioneer of the Abstract exhibition will showcase the oeuvre of this unique artist, who drew inspiration from spiritism, thesophy and anthroposophy. (16 Aug – 28 Sep 2014)