Silent Beauty

Nordic and East Asian art share the idea of everyday beauty and a connection with nature. The exhibition will juxtapose architecture, ceramics, and textile art from Finnish and Swedish collections, the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo, and the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama.

The works display a reduced aesthetic: geometric shapes, sophisticated colours, and an appreciation of materiality and texture in ceramics, textiles and abstract art, created using various techniques. The everyday objects are beautiful and functional.

Silent Beauty – Nordic and East-Asian Interaction is a continuation of the exhibition Japanomania in the Nordic Countries 1875–1918, which was seen at the Ateneum in spring 2016. The popular exhibition prompted an examination of how the phenomenon continued in the 20th century until the 1970s, and what new forms it took. Artists took influences from China and Korea, as well as Japan.

The artists featured in the exhibition include Aulis and Heidi Blomstedt, Rune Jansson, Aimo Kanerva, Carl Kylberg, Maija and Ahti Lavonen, Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada, Kyllikki Salmenhaara, Helene Schjerfbeck, Jaakko Sievänen and Esko Tirronen. The exhibition will be curated by the chief curator Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff and the curator Anne-Maria Pennonen.