The Species of People. The artist bestows the features of her faux-leather figures with the innermost conflicts of life: ageing, sexuality and death: works from the 1998 to the present.
Artist of the Year Heli Ryhänen (b. 1971) fills the Kunsthalle with her large faux-leather sculptures.
Heli Ryhänen bestows the features of her faux-leather figures with the innermost conflicts of life: ageing, sexuality and death. While blurring the boundaries between good and evil, the familiar and the strange, the works are not without glimpses of humour.
Ryhänen ‘sculpts’ her works with an industrial-grade Mitsubishi sewing machine.
The Species of People in Kunsthalle Helsinki is the most extensive review to date of Ryhänen’s impressive output, covering works from the 1998 Bruise to the present.
Heli Ryhänen has exhibited her work for nearly 20 years in several group and solo shows. She has also created many public sculptures, the latest of them City Animals (2013), a group of five bronze figures on cobblestone-covered mounds in the district of Kontula in Helsinki. Located in the centre of Huittinen, her Roundabout Loonies (2012) was awarded the Environmental Artwork of the Year honorary diploma by the Finnish Foundation for Environmental Art. Balancing (2010), located in Sinetti, the tax administration and employment service centre in Jyväskylä, is the largest public work of art in Finland to be made of artificial leather.
Meet the Artist: Sunday 27 Apr at 3 pm.
Family Day on 10 May 1-4 PM: Bring your whole family to the Kunsthalle! The Family Day includes fun activities inspired by the Heli Ryhänen exhibition.
The exhibition is supported by Alfred Kordelin Foundation, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, K-Rauta Merituuli
Image: Heli Ryhänen Reviiri, 2011
Kunsthalle Helsinki
Nervanderinkatu 3
Tue, Thu, Fri 11–18
Wed 11-20
Sat-Sun 11-17
Mon closed
Admission
€ 10 / € 7
Under 18s - no charge