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OLA KOLEHMAINEN
The Art Of Looking And Seeing VOL. 2
Apr 10 - May 3, 2026
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Ola Kolehmainenis one of the first-generation artists of the ‘Helsinki School’. He has become known for his minimalist-abstract approachusing 20th and 21st century modern architecture as a starting point. In his works, Kolehmainen examines the meta-level of art and architectural history through a minimalist lens.Kolehmainen has explored numerous years museums and archives, both as architectural sites and as shells for collections. He is in a process of creating a memory theatre of our own time: an in-depth journey to the history of science, art, experiments and experiences. Kolehmainen presents places, spaces, people and works, that open new routes into the history of Western thought. Kolehmainen has also worked with e.g. Ottoman and Byzantine sacred monuments developing an abstract-constructive way of photographing these historically enriched edifices.The narrativeness of Kolehmainen’s works re-views the reality and reveals us conversions of structures as the basis of abstract patterns. His use of vivid color further destabilizes conventional perceptions of architectural space, shifting the viewer’s attention from representation to perception itself.Kolehmainen has graduated from the University of Art and Design Helsinki and also studied at the University of Helsinki. He has accomplished over 60 solo exhibitions, published five monographs, and participated in numerous group exhibitions around the world. His works have been shown e.g. at the Helsinki Art Museum, Alvar Aalto Museum in Jyväskylä, the Finnish National Gallery, the National Museum of Sweden in Stockholm, the National Museum of Norway in Oslo, the State Art Library in Berlin, EMMA -Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, The New Art Gallery Walsall, 17th Biennale of Sydney, 1st Kyiv Biennale, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany, Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul, Whitechapel Gallery, London, Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art, Vaasa, Sara Hildén Art Museum, Tampere, Kunsthalle, Helsinki, Es Baluard Museu d'Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma, Palma de Majorca, Spain and Kulturhaus Obere Stufe, Steinam Rhein, Switzerland.Kolehmainen’s works are included in collections such as the Anita and Poju Zabludowicz Collection, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the European Central Bank, Helsinki Art Museum, the Finnish National Gallery, the National Museum of Norway and Société Générale in France, Carnegie Museum of Art, Borusan Contemporary and Elgiz Museum, Istanbul, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, the Saastamoinen Collection, the Miettinen Collection, Jerry I. Speyer Collection, New York and DZ Bank, Germany. In 2015 The Royal Institute of British Architects awarded Kolehmainen the RIBA honorary Fellowship.
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We Look in Order to See
by curator Susanna Pettersson, PhD.
Ola Kolehmainen takes his viewers into the midst of the history of Western thought, visual imagery and places of presentation. The works have been photographed in European museums and palaces and their collections. They challenge us to look and experience.
If we look, will we see?
Kolehmainen’s images lead the way to museums as spaces and paths to the works. They invite us to consider where and by what principles these entities – private and public collections – were opened to the public and what kind of language did architecture develop into? Through museums and collections, we reflect on the aesthetic ideals of our time, the choices and their impact on our understanding of the history of art and science.
What do we see when we encounter a work of art? What does the experience of looking leave us with?
The current exhibition includes iconic works such as Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s The Tower of Babel (1563, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), which disintegrates and is reborn under Kolehmaisen’s gaze. Alongside it, we are looking at religious motifs such as crucifixes and relics, but also more secular settings which remind us of how a connection to the fundamental questions of existence can emerge through engagement with everyday phenomena. Book of Universe (2024) brings together all the knowledge we need, at least at the level of thought.
The Art of Looking and Seeing (2024) presents a plaster copy of the Venus de Milo, considered one of the most famous works of Hellenistic art. The marble sculpture in the Louvre has been acquired as a plaster copy for the collections of numerous Western museums and art academies as an example of masterful sculpture. Kolehmainen photographed his work at the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, which, by presenting plaster casts of antiquity, anchors art history in a long tradition. Kolehmainen presents how the work is reflected in our time – again and again.
In this exhibition, the places of viewing and experiencing are depicted by large-scale works – a kind of stage for power and thought. The earliest buildings of Versailles, situated to the southwest of Paris, were erected as early as 1624, but the most significant phases of construction took place between 1661 and 1668. During his numerous visits, Kolehmainen has awaited the right light, and built a new, imaginary space from what he has photographed. Among the Venetian palaces, Kolehmainen’s works have been inspired by the Scuola Grande di San Rocco and the Palazzo Ducale, known for the paintings by Tintoretto.
In Kolehmainen’s photographs, saints, rulers such as Queen Christina and cardinals, as well as models who have remained anonymous over the years, speak. They look at power, beliefs, science and art.
What kind of ideas did each of them carry with them? What traces of these thoughts have remained?
At its best, art is eternal and may carry the thread of experience through centuries and millennia, thus connecting countless generations. And experience stays with us even after we have left the physical essence of the work of art behind us.
Several studies and general presentations have been written about the history of Western thought. The history of our material culture, in turn, is recorded in private and public collections and in works that address them. These two fields, the history of science and art, meet in discussions between artist Ola Kolehmainen and docent Susanna Pettersson, who specializes in museum history and collection studies, and in the way we look at both museums and works known from the history of our art.
Ola Kolehmainen's work has been supported by the Saastamoinen Foundation.
