Helsinki Public Art, the Nonconventional Edition

Helsinki has its share of huge metal lumps, in boring shapes of important middle age white men from the days past. Luckily, there is another kind of public art too, well worth seeing. Or hearing. Or even experiencing. In this first part, I'll list some of my own favourites in the central Helsinki area. Outskirts of Helsinki will follow, one day. Of course, there's a map, which will be updated as I go.



Holy Cows of Intersection

Artist Miina Äkkijyrkkä is known for her fondness of cows. They're a recurring theme in her works, including textile patterns, paintings and graphics. She has studied husbandry and even maintained a herd of eastern finncattle herself, even though that didn't end too well.

In Finland, cars are often regarded as holy cows of a kind, and Äkkijyrkkä indeed uses cars and car parts as material in her cattle themed sculptures. The ones in Hakaniemi, called Joy (2006) are of a smaller kind, the biggest may include a whole van in the body of the cow. And what could possibly be better place for these statues than a busy traffic intersection?

Getting this close is a tad dangerous and probably illegal, since
you have to cross a few car lines with absolutely no pedestrian crossing

Golden Showers in the Harbour

Manneken Schmanneken, we have it bigger and... more endearing? Tommi Toija's Bad Bad Boy (2013) was originally exhibited in Sweden, and in Finland first installed in front of the presidential palace, but only temporarily. Wonder why. In 2015 it was once again re-erected in Jätkäsaari, on the grounds of Verkkokauppa.com store of everything, welcoming people arriving from Tallinn by boat. It was supposed to be, again, temporary, but there it still stands in it's 8,5 m glory, years overtime. Which is great!

At first, the statue stroke me as horribly ugly, but on the second sight I began to see the laconic humour and appealing bluntness of it. It's kind of cute in the same way as a baby owl. The body of work of the artist Tommi Toija includes a lot of characters similar to Bad Bad Boy, just smaller and more hazardous in their looks, on the edge of horrible and heartbreaking. Judging from the internet commenting, not all bother to look twice, and/or see Bad Bad Boy merely as a joke. I beg to disagree. And dare you to take a shower in the jet on a hot summer day.

"Never mind me, I'm just on my way..."

Sound Art Hidden in Plain... Sight?

Every day at 5:49 pm, ever since 2005, there is a 5 or so minutes of sound art to be heard in the Senate Square. The likelihood is that uneducated ears don't even recognise it, since Senaatintorin ääni (The Sound of the Senate Square) is composed of very church bell -like sounds and thus is easily mixed with the bells of the actual church by the square. But they are not quite the same.

The sounds emanate, in turn, from different rooftops around the square and every version is different. The work is not just recordings of different bells, but an electronic composition by Harri Viitanen and Jyrki Alakuijala. If you really want to feel like in the know, linger by the statue in the middle of the square, listen to the beautiful sound art and scorn the tourists (and Helsinki dwellers) around you, who have no idea there is art going on.

The art work is audible on the whole square, but the best place to listen is the
area around the statue of Alexander the II, marked with white square in the image

Art under Your Feet

One probably notices Denise Ziegler’s public art works by accident or by already knowing what to look for. Even though I’d very much like the crowds to find them, the subtlety is a part of the poetic charm of the works. Epigrams for Helsinki Citizens (1999) series consists of eight manhole covers, spattered around Helsinki centrum, every one of them adorned with a sentence defining the site in a more or less poetic way. Here the text goes ”in the backroom of the city you’re enjoying the sea view”, which is very much true behind the market hall.

Note the more than fitting cigarette stub.

Sounds from Sewers

Markku Puustinen's Mutta minä lähden (But I shall leave) has been reciting under Torkkelinpuistikko parklet since 2003. The well pronouncing voice utters notifications of flights departing, heard from the sewer in the corner nearest to Avikainen bakery (which supported my wellbeing during my years in the nearby arts high school with their crescents and munkkis, so that you know).

At the time I first heard the piece I regarded it quite optimistic, as a kind of dream of freedom. Now, of course, this has all changed and the voice feels more like a harbinger of the inevitable doom. During the winter the art work hibernates, since the the battery can't stand the minus degrees. Let's see how the climate change will affect that.

The horror here is way more cerebral than in Stephen King's IT

Some Lumps are Okay I Guess

OK, these are lumps indeed, but not made out of metal, nor in shape of men. Even though Maria Duncker’s six part work of huge pieces of stone, Too Heavy Guests (2010), remind me of Pushkin’s play The Stone Guest, the awkward creatures still feel friendly to me. There they stand, a bit mopey, somehow in a wrong place and yet part of the community of buildings around them, old and new. I especially enjoy the combination of roughly chiseled stone and the finest detail of traces of decoration on their surface. No evil thing would have a tattoo of a jolly candy kane on them, would they?

I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out what's the deal between these two.