Turku: Admission to Turku Art Museum

Alongside a high-quality exhibition programme, the museum also stages events presented in a beautiful setting that invites interaction and relaxation. The cozy Café Victor is the place to stop for a coffee, and in summer one of the city's most spectacular terraces offers views over the city.

The Turku Art Museum's collection, which has been amassed over a hundred years, focuses on both Finnish and Nordic art. The collection is particularly known for Finnish Golden Age, surrealism, pop art, as well as self-portraits. Today, the museum's collection consists of more than 7 600 works, which are shown in the museum's temporary collection exhibitions and as loans worldwide.

The museum's National Romanesque granite castle is one of the city's most prominent landmarks and an attraction in itself. Designed by Professor Gustaf Nyström, it was the second building designed as an art museum in Finland when it was completed in 1904. Voted Turku's most beautiful building, the museum has just celebrated its 120th anniversary!

Exhibitions 2024

Handle with Care

28.3.2023 – 10.11.2024

Handle with Care explores Turku Art Museum’s contemporary art collection from the perspective of care and caring. The exhibition proposes care as a way of doing and being, where we live responsibly and reciprocally with both human and non-human worlds. The texts providing background information on the selected works combine ideas from scientific research, contemporary philosophy, and art theory. They shed light on the multifaceted nature of our existence, interdependence, reciprocal care, the active agency of animals and plants, and the constant presence of nature everywhere.

Emma Helle: Vaihtoehtoinen paratiisi / Parallel Paradise

7.6.–15.9.2024

Parallel Paradise presents sculptor Emma Helle’s latest production and works from the past decade. This is her most extensive museum exhibition to date, featuring both ceramic and wooden sculptures and offering insight into the artist’s central themes and artistic methods. Helle is known for her lively works, which bring a breath of fresh air to traditional sculpture and its interpretations of gender. The playful references to art styles and myths, to sacred and secular imagery, highlight overlooked figures from art history and shape alternative narratives. They challenge us to consider whether everything is actually the way we assume it is.

Eeva Honkanen: Trapped in Time

Studio 7.6.–15.9.2024

Eeva Honkanen is an artist specialized in large-scale ink drawings. She combines both personal and historical imagery with surreal parallels. The humans and animals depicted in the drawings live simultaneously in two worlds: in the real world and in the artist’s imagination. Although the drawings reflect on the estranged relationship between humans and nature, they also pay homage to humans and the diversity of nature.

Nastja Säde Rönkkö: Those Who Kept the Light

Pimiö 7.6.–15.9.2024

Those Who Kept the Light (2022) is a series of works that focuses on the sea and related myths and stories. It consists of ten poetic videos created on the basis of stories and legends about women who oftended the light in the lighthouses. Often they were family members of the actual, male lighthouse keepers: wives, sisters, daughters who performed the task on behalf of the lighthouse keeper. The video works are based on the idea of love or affection that transcends the boundaries set for ways of loving. Love appears as between people, but also between humans and other beings. The wind and the sea have awareness, emotions and a voice of their own.

Elina Merenmies: Kaikki näkyy

4.10.2024–12.1.2025

Elina Merenmies is a painter and draughtswoman known for her drawings and paintings that combine expressionist expression with meticulous detail. The subjects of her works are often portraits or grotesque stories, containing psychoanalytical imagery and references to classical art. The reality depicted in her works is a mix of internal visions and intricate narratives. Merenmies is interested in both art history and the everyday life of the past. The gallery of characters and stories in her works reflects how, for Merenmies, the beauty of life can be found in unconventional places and phenomena. Her art is multifaceted: it ranges from humorous to frightening, or from black and white to rainbow-hued vibrancy. It is characterized by complexity and challenges its viewers.

Sini Pelkki

Studio 4.10.–24.11.2024

Sini Pelkki’s installation in the Studio space consists of photographic works, and an invisible, changing rhythm and movement determined by the viewer. Also on display is Pelkki’s 16 mm film work Present (2024).

Jenni Toikka: Preludi Op. 28 nro 2

Pimiö 4.10.–24.11.2024

Prelude Op. 28 No. 2 is a film work named after Chopin's well-known composition. During a single long shot, we see two people taking turns playing the piano and listening alternately. The piece is the same on both times - Preludi Op. 28 No. 2 by Chopin - but when the performer changes, the interpretation of the song changes along with the perspective from which the song and its performance are viewed.