COMMENTARY: Big Bad G is coming to town

print this

By Saska Saarikoski
     
      Barely than a week has passed since the Guggenheim Foundation story broke and awakened Helsinki residents from their normal winter hibernation.
      On the basis of the wild hubble and bubble that has marked the discussion since then, we have nevertheless witnessed a minor miracle in these few days.
      Perhaps for the very first time ever, a topic has been found that can unite the hearts and minds of the so-called common people and the cultural elite: "We don't want no steenkin' Guggenheims round here!"
     
The massed ranks of the hoi polloi generally take a dim view of money being spent on the arts.
      Right at the top of their hit-list in this respect is contemporary art, which the public has never approved of.
      Even though the Ars exhibitions have tried on several occasions since 1961 to bring contemporary art to Finnish eyes, the Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum is generally deserted, while people queue up in the snow for hours outside the Ateneum to catch shows featuring the national romantic works of Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931).
     
When the famously well-educated Finns cannot be persuaded to tolerate contemporary art, how was it possible to sell the Guggenheim project to the citizens of Bilbao?
      It may of course have been helpful that thereabouts they had a hundred years of experience of artists that nobody could make head or tail of, such as Picasso,Dalí, Miró, or the architect Antoni Gaudí.
      This means that the "And what's that supposed to be in aid of?" brigade have found themselves put to shame on so many occasions in the past that they now understand the wisdom of keeping quiet on the subject.
      By contrast, Finns still suffer from the phenomenon that playwright and stage director Kristian Smeds recently described in a magazine interview as "truth fetishism": literature should be realistic, the pictorial arts should look like what they purport to represent, and theatre should be entertaining - otherwise the Finnish audience will get fits of angst and pique.
     
It is not only the public's loathing of art that must be overcome; the Guggenheim project is seen as a challenge to Finnish culture.
      The venture's primus motori is Janne Gallen-Kallela-Sirén, Director of the Helsinki City Art Museum, whose grinning visage alone is enough to get the left wing of the cultural classes into paroxysms of rage.
      Causing the American-style museum director to fall on his face is for many a sufficient reason to hope that the Guggenheim project will founder.
      The annoyance is further fuelled by a sense among many that their own pet projects will be swamped by the museum.
      What is common to these projects is that they do not greatly startle anyone or attract in the curious from abroad, but that they do achieve what is for many the most important objective: they offer work and visibility for their own particular discipline in Finland.
     
For my own part, I do not believe that the Guggenheim Museum should be spoken of in the context of other arts edifices.
      The Guggenheim is an investment in Helsinki's economy and future - and that is how it should be judged.
      If the calculations indicate that it is worth locating a Guggenheim Museum here, then it should be built, and the money for it should not be siphoned away from the arts.
      Those companies that stand to benefit from the museum should be brought in to pay the bills, and the wealthy can have their shot at getting into the history books.
      But if the Foundation's calculations end up showing red ink, there is absolutely no sense in building a museum based purely on arts values.
     
I hope that the money can be found. It would also be a victory for culture and the arts.
      A successful Guggenheim would make Helsinki an arts city: the pictorial arts would be brought right into the core of urban thinking.
      And even if its walls might not be filled to the rafters with the work of Finnish artists, it is hard to believe that it would not raise the profile of contemporary art and in so doing also boost the standing of the artists.
     
And if these opinions do not meet with general approval, I have others.
      The next one is definitely going to be hard to resist:
      The Guggenheim should be established in the House of Parliament, and the entire art collection of the Bank of Finland (to see which countless more Finns lined up in the cold last week) should be moved there.
      The number of MPs would be summarily halved, and they would be given the task of running the museum's garderobe and cloakroom, and of shining the shoes of museum visitors.
      Janne Gallen-Kallela-Sirén would perform the duties of a footstool for this purpose.
      The Central Public Library would take over the premises of the neighbouring Pikkuparlamentti Annex to Parliament, currently in use as MPs' offices.
      The flat roof of the main Parliament Building would have houses built on it for dance, children's culture, design, and multiculturalism.
      These buildings would showcase less well-known artists, who should in the case of domestic examples all belong to a trade union, while the foreign ones should question the hegemony of commercial Western art.
      That ought to do it.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 25.1.2011
     
     
The writer is the head of Helsingin Sanomat's Culture Desk.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Helsinki could get its own Guggenheim (18.1.2011)

See also:
  Guggenheim chooses Helsinki over Taipei, Rio, and Guadalajara (19.1.2011)

SASKA SAARIKOSKI / Helsingin Sanomat
saska.saarikoski@hs.fi