Collection Kakkonen: Finnish glass and ceramics at Espoo Museum of Modern Art

The most surprising thing about the new Finnish glass and ceramics gallery showing works from Collection Kakkonen at the Espoo Museum of Modern Art (EMMA) is that it has taken so long. That it has happened at all is thanks to the efforts of the museum’s directors and the benevolence of Finnish collector Kyösti Kakkonen, who together spent a decade deciding what would fill the 1,000 sq m space.

Collection Kakkonen: 1,300 Finnish glass and ceramics objects

All the great names – Kaj Franck, Timo Sarpaneva, Tapio Wirkkala – are there, along with lesser-known names, and female designers, who make up half of Kakkonen’s 10,000-piece collection. EMMA only has access to 1,300 works (so far) and will rotate them frequently, but the debut show kicks off in splendour. Oiva Toikka’s 2m-long Forest of Glass, made for an exhibition at the Finnish Embassy in Washington DC in 2003, marks the entrance, and an opening wall features a work from each of the 38 designers in the show, along with background information on each.

Kakkonen’s first purchase, in 1988, was the estate of Toini Muona – ‘a bohemian with many (male) lovers’, whom he wished he had met. She died in 1987, but worked during the Golden Age from the 1930s to the 1960s, when Finland evolved from post-war poverty into a prosperous nation state – with design clout, thanks in part to the Arabia porcelain factory, which encouraged its artists to experiment. Kakkonen, the eldest of six brothers born into a poor farming family, made his fortune during this time with discount retail chain Tokmanni, which is still the largest in the country.

Works are grouped thematically and range in colour, form and scale, from Franck’s Art Kiwi figurines to Markku Salo’s Gazebo, a ceiling-height glass tepee with its own ecosystem. Techniques include frosted glass, popularised by Wirkkala in the 1960s, and the translucent rice grain technique, reserved for special-occasion ceramics. Many of the works are one-offs, but a section titled ‘Art for Every Home’ includes pieces that were commonplace in Finnish households, among them Aino Aalto’s ‘Bölgeblick‘ series and her husband Alvar’s ‘Savoy’ vases, which are still in production today.

With 6,500 sq m of gallery space, EMMA is the largest museum in Finland and is located inside the WeeGee Exhibition Centre, a 1960s landmark designed by Finnish architect Aarno Ruusuvuori. A prime example of Finnish constructivism, the building features acres of concrete, a 100m-long glass façade and no fixed internal walls. Displaying glass and ceramics in such brutalist surroundings can be challenging, but the curators have conjured a soft, warm space thanks to display tables made from rammed earth and 100-year-old larch logs felled near Kakkonen’s hometown. Matti Suuronen’s Futuro House, a portable yellow ski cabin that looks like a UFO, sits on the forest floor outside and is also free to visit.

Kakkonen is still an avid collector and a quarter of the exhibition is dedicated to contemporary artists. Sculptor Kim Simonsson’s acid-coloured, pixy-ish Moss People sit alongside colour-popping abstract pieces by glassblower Alma Jantunen. To celebrate the new gallery, Kakkonen commissioned female artist Heini Riitahuhta to make a piece. Entitled Song of the Rooster, it features 2,000 ceramic disks, took 2,500 hours to make and features a cockerel and a church in homage to ceramicist Rut Bryk (whose open studio, along with that of her late husband Wirkkala, is on the first floor).

But Kakkonen’s favourite work is Bead Bird (Curlew) by Birger Kaipiainen, which won a Grand Prix at the Milan Triennale in 1960. The late Kaipiainen favoured motifs such as birds, flowers, and clocks, and the bird’s chest features disks depicting a time of 12.15pm. For Kakkonen this was serendipitous: ‘It was the time I was born,’ he says. ‘When I saw this, I knew it was a sign.’

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