The Helsinki School

The Helsinki School was a name introduced in an article by Boris Hohmeyer, Aufbruch im hohen Norden (Breakthrough in the Far North), in Art Das Kunstmagazin in 2003.

Yrjö Sotamaa the then acting Rector of the University, envisioned a program that would offer as well as create a different set of measurements in how one would evaluate graduating MA students.

By joining all these generations together, it became the vehicle used by the Helsinki School artists to present their works on an international level through its participation in art fairs, publications, Pop-Up exhibitions and museum shows.

[2] The Helsinki School was based upon a Professional Studies program that was unique in how it used its academic platform to create an environment that blended its teachers, students and former graduates together in a contextual dialogue through group exhibitions, publications and the utilisation of the international art fairs as a means for teaching, referencing and presenting these artists' works to the international community.

And the Düsseldorf School, which emerged in the late 1970s under the guidance of Bernd and Hilla Becher, followers of the 1920s German tradition of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity).

These movements combined with the influence of the Icelandic minimalism and artists like Donald Judd, played a pivotal role in understanding the roots of the Helsinki School.

Many Helsinki School pictures bear signs of Finnish culture, unconscious or not, meanings related to nature and remoteness.