30 Works from the Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection, 2018

This book is a record of encounters with thirty works in the collection of the Saastamoinen Foundation. Each artwork tells something of its own time-of the kind of art being made at that moment and of the world in which the works were created. At the same time, they reveal different ways of perceiving and exploring issues such as humanity, the self and the surrounding reality. This is also the aim of the text written for this book. The writers come from EDIT that is an online publication ,established in 2014. Edit is focused on discussing contemporary art and its current developments. The contributors to EDIT have academic and professional backgrounds in art history, art education, visual art, journalism and gender studies.

The Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection contains a total of some 2,600 items. Between 30 and 50 works of Finnish and international contemporary art are purchased annually for the collection. The criteria for selecting the works are their quality, interest, topical and contemporary nature, their potential contribution and suitability to the collection and its focuses, as well as links to the exhibitions policy of EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art. The Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection originated in the 1910s with purchases of works by Ilmari Aalto and Tyko Sallinen, along with other artists for the home of the Saastamoinen industrialist family of East Finland. Preserving the collection was one of Liisa Saastamoinen's and Osmo P. Karttunen's core ideas when they instituted the Saastamoinen Foundation in 1968. At present, a main task of the foundation is to develop and display its art collection. The collection has influenced the founding of the Kuopio Art Museum in the 1980s and EMMA-Espoo Museum of Modern Art at the turn of the millenium. In 1999 it was deposited with the City of Espoo. The artworks are owned by the foundation and the collection is located in EMMA-Espoo Museum of Modern Art.

The publication is available with blue and yellow covers.

2018
Hard covers
Language: Finnish and English
107 pages
Editing: Päivi Karttunen ja Anna Tuori
Texts: EDIT: Rosa Kuosmanen, tuomas Laulainen, Sanna Lipponen, Anu Pasanen ja Viivi Poutiainen
Production: Gareth Hayes
Graphic design: Tom Backström
Coordination at EMMA: Laura Kokkonen
Photographs: Ari Karttunen/EMMA, Ella Tommila/EMMA, Jussi Tiainen, Jonna Kina, Tommi Grönlund
Translations: Jüri Kokkonen
Printing: Grano Oy, Helsinki
ISBN: 978-952-69029-0-6

Artists included in this book: Karoliina Hellberg, Jenni Eskola, Maiju Salmenkivi, Pink Twins, Leena Nio, Jonna Kina, Jani Ruscica,  Camilla  Vuorenmaa, Elina Merenmies, Elmgreen & Dragset, Jan Ijäs, Shirin Neshat, Päivikki Alaräihä, Maija Luutonen,  Olafur Eliasson, Candice Breitz, Tacita Dean, Heini Aho, Olli Keränen, Anna Estarriola, Nabb+Teeri, Grönlund-Nisunen, Jussi Goman, Wolfgang Laib, Kaisaleena Halinen, Anne Koskinen, Chantal Joffe, Sanna Kannisto, Päivi Sirén, Timo Vaittinen