EXHIBITIONS

CHEN JIAGANG 27.1–28.4.2024

Photographer Chen Jiagang’s images combine hypnotic depictions of the Chinese countryside, the factories and marketplaces of megacities, industrial architecture and still-life human figures. The large photographs open up vast landscapes, revealing the immense proportions of a special kind of nature and, at the same time, the human handprint left there. China’s rich natural resources and huge population have enabled the country’s rapid economic growth. At the same time, they have created a vicious circle of production and consumption, with big factories producing more and more goods. Chen’s work conveys a reflection on the relationship between history and the present and, through this, a concern for the future.

Chen Jiagang, originally trained as an architect, now lives and works in Beijing. His photographic works have been exhibited at solo and group exhibitions around the world in Asia, Europe and the United States. His works are in the collections of major museums such as MoMA in New York and LACMA in Los Angeles.

NUUTTI KOSKINEN: PRIMARY SUCCESSION 27.1.–28.4.2024

Veturitalli’s Gallery Sivuraide presents a two-channel video installation by Nuutti Koskinen (b. 1975) Primary Succession (2023), which tells the story of the relationship between archipelago nature and humans. The work deals with the infrastructure of representing, experiencing and shaping nature.

Primary Succession highlights systems that guide the way we experience, shape and value our environment. The archipelago is an example of a national landscape where the influence of modern man and nature’s own history form layers that are partly incompatible but also partly invisible. Koskinen is interested in the pieces that make up our relationship with nature and what influences the formation of that relationship.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM

MUSEUM BUILDING

The building of the Salo Art Museum is an old locomotive shed. More than 100 years old, the roundhouse has in its history gone through several phases of expansion. As a result of the last expansion, the building was converted into a modern art museum. The old brick section was renovated into exhibition halls, and next to that was built a new section, in which offices and work areas, art storage, and an on-demand café are located. The roundhouse was opened as an art museum in October 1998.

Salo Art museum, photo: Niclas Warius

OLD LOCOMOTIVE

In the inner courtyard of the museum stands a locomotive on the rotating turntable. The locomotive was purchased at the time of the museum´s opening from the Locomotive Park of Haapamäki. The renovation of the “chicken” type of locomotive was done by the Locomotive Museum Association of Haapamäki. The locomotive is dated to 1921, and it was in use until 1970. It got its nickname due to its characteristic “pecking” type of movement.