5 March - 19 September 2004
In this exhibition the Sara Hildén Art Museum revealed the truth about nudity and nakedness. Ranging over a period of one hundred years, the exhibition comprised a hundred paintings, sculptures and drawings, all on the theme of the naked human being.
The exhibition dealed with the theme of a person gazing and being gazed at. The naked human figure, man or woman, has been a popular theme with both artists and the public throughout art history. Nakedness is associated with sexuality, which in turn is an important social and cultural phenomenon. Sexuality has a biological foundation, too. Nakedness tells us about the relationship between a man and a woman; it also tells us about being looked at, about a man or woman gazing, about the power of a person’s gaze, and about the artist’s work itself.
Who has been undressed and who is posing? Who has been objectified and who objectifies? When is a woman naked? What is meant by gender technology? What is the relationship between a male artist and a female model? How does the viewer regard his or her own body when seeing a depiction of nakedness? Questions arise more often than answers. What was Giacometti’s relationship to prostitution? Why is a woman depicted as a monster? What is the difference between homosexuality and homosociality? Why is the depiction of a naked man spurned? What does Kienholz’s work tell us about pregnancy and abortion? How does war effect the interpretation of nakedness? Was Sara Hildén the model for one of Erik Enroth’s earliest nude paintings?
Alaston•Naked•Nude was being held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Sara Hildén Art Museum. It fulfilled the vision of the Sara Hildén Art Museum, which is verified in the following words: “The Sara Hildén Art Museum is an internationally renowned museum of Finnish and international modern and contemporary art in which the most important works of the Sara Hildén Foundation are continually on display. The museum is known for its positive attitude to the latest innovations and developments in art and for its emphasis on art education”.
The SAHIM journal, the first number of the Sara Hildén Art Museum’s latest publication, was published in conjunction with the exhibition. The journal is dialogical in character, and there are comments on each exhibition in turn. There are articles written by many different writers, and there are also a large number of illustrations. It is aimed at helping art-lovers both to look and to see art works more closely, and it is excellent quality for a reasonable price.
29 085 visitors attended the exhibition.