The Sara Hildén Art Museum of Tampere presents Thomas Houseago’s first exhibition in the Nordic countries. The exhibition is open September 18, 2022 - January 15, 2023.
Thomas Houseago is a world-renowned artist, known for sculptures in plaster, rebar, bronze and wood. For this exhibition, the British-born artist is also presenting new paintings and sculptures in redwood and plaster including responding to work in the collection of the Sara Hildén Foundation,
Thomas Houseago is presenting his own sculpture and paintings alongside a ceramic series by tbe artist and singer-songwriter Nick Cave and sculptures by the film actor Brad Pitt.
Nick Cave’s narrative series of glazed ceramic figurines depicting the life of the Devil in 17 stations, from innocence through experience into confrontation of our mortality. The Devil - A Life is Cave’s first major body of visual work. It includes 17 individual pieces ranging between 15 and 50 cm tall, each hand-crafted, painted and glazed by Cave in England, between 2020 and 2022. Aesthetically the series nods to the artist’s interest in Victorian Staffordshire Flatback figurines, of which he is a collector. Cave was assisted with the series by Corin Johnson.
Presented in public for the first time, a range of sculptural works by Brad Pitt includes a molded plaster panel depicting a gunfight narrative scene, cast using multiple impressions of the human body, as well as a series of plinth-mounted, house shaped sculptures molded in clear silicone that each have been shot with a different gauge of ammunition, revealing its trajectory and freeze framing the destructive motion. Another house structure - Pitt’s first ever sculpture, entitled House A Go Go (2017) - is a 46 cm tall composite of timber off-cuts.
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The Sara Hildén Art Museum museum is situated on the beautiful shores of Lake Näsijärvi in Tampere, South Finland. The museum is located next to to the Näsinneula observation tower and the Särkänniemi amusement park. The museum building was designed by Pekka Ilveskoski Architects. It opened in 1979 at the same time as the sculpture park that surrounds it. Lovely Café Sara is located on the museum premises.
The Sara Hildén Art Museum focuses on international modernism and contemporary art.
The museum, maintained by the City of Tampere, is the permanent home of the collection of the Sara Hildén Foundation, which was founded in 1962. The foundation’s collection has more than 5 000 works of modern and contemporary art, including works by Joan Miró, Francis Bacon, Paul Klee and Alberto Giacometti. Among the latest works to have been acquired are pieces by Kiki Smith and Marcel Dzama. Finnish modern and contemporary art is represented by a wide range of works by some of Finland’s most renowned artists.
Sara (Saara) Ester Hildén (1905-1993) was a Finnish businesswoman and art collector. She developed an interest in contemporary art. In the 1950s, Sara Hildén established successful fashion shops in the cities of Tampere and Lahti in Finland. In 1961 she was able to build an outstanding collection of contemporary Finnish art which was expanded over the years to include items from the world's top international artists. In 1962, it became the basis of the Sara Hildén Foundation.