Art and Capital: A Seminar on the Relationship Between Art and Economics
Is art an expenditure, a luxury, an investment or a value in itself?
The seminar focuses on the relationship between art and economics by looking at the history of patronage and art collecting, and their impact on the development of the art scene in Finland and Estonia. The first half of the day will be dedicated to historical examples and contemporary practices. We will get an overview of the share of art and creative industries in the economy and have a discussion on how to better harness the potential of creativity. In the second half of the day, art collectors and promoters of creative industries will discuss what it means to participate in the art scene, what value space we create when we decide to support art, and what the role of art in today’s society is.
Programme
10.00‒10.30 Arrival and opening of the seminar
10.30‒10.50 Art Patronage in Cultural and Economic Development, Pauli Sivonen (Director of the Serlachius Museum)
10.50‒11.20 Gösta Serlachius’s Contribution to the Finnish Art Scene between 1919 and 1942, Tomi Moisio (curator of the Serlachius Museum).
11.20–11.40 The Serlachius Foundation as an Institutionalised Follower of Art Patrons, Pauli Sivonen (Director of the Serlachius Museum).
11.40 am ‒ 12.10 Estonian Art Collectors of the Early 20th Century, Eero Epner (art researcher, and a member of the board of the Konrad Mägi Foundation).
12.10‒13.00 Break
13.00‒13.25 Is Estonia Harnessing the Full Potential of Its Creativity and Creative Industries? Helery Tasane (post-doctoral researcher, Tallinn University of Technology).
13.25‒15.00 Panel discussion with Linnar Viik (an IT visionary and art collector, and the founder of the PoCo Pop Art Museum), Reigo Kuivjõgi (an art collector from the Art&Tonic Gallery) and Monika Kallas-Anton (a SEB board member)
Moderator: Kadi-Ell Tähiste
15.00 Guided tour with the curator Greta Koppel at the exhibition Symphony of Art and Nature: The Serlachius Collection
Pauli Sivonen is the Director of the Serlachius Museums. Since the beginning of the 2000s, he has been developing and redesigning the local museum in Mänttä into an international cultural centre, where Serlachius’s industrial legacy meets contemporary art. Under his leadership, the museum has also focused on environmental protection and emphasised the role of art and culture in the sustainability of small towns, in uniting local and global experiences, and in climate responsibility.
Tomi Moisio, PhD is an art historian and a curator of the Serlachius Museum. His research topics range from 17th-century Netherlandish art to Gösta Serlaichius’s collecting principles and the history of the Serlachius Collection. As an Estophile and translator, he has acted as a mediator of Estonian and Finnish literary heritage.
Eero Epner is an art researcher and dramatist. His research focuses on interpretations of 20th-century and contemporary art, and on the broader cultural context of the oeuvre of artists. As a researcher of the oeuvre of the painter Konrad Mägi, Epner has significantly contributed to the analysis of the artist’s legacy.
Helery Tasane, PhD is an economist, a post-doctoral researcher at TalTech and a cooperation partner of the Ministry of Culture. Her fields of study include maximising the potential of creativity and creative industries, the role of research and innovation in creating a sustainable economic environment, and increasing the export capability of creative industries.
We thank: the Finnish Institute in Estonia and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia
The exhibition “Symphony of Art and Nature: The Serlachius Collection” is the first time that one of the most abundant art collections of Finland, the collection of the Gösta Serlachius Art Foundation, is being displayed in Estonia. The industrialist Gösta Serlachius (1876–1942) was one of Finland’s most influential art patrons in his lifetime. His personal ‘contacts with artists and the inclusion of professionals in selecting works of art led to the creation of a collection that includes masterpieces of Finnish art, as well as more intimate examples of the creative processes of artists, e.g. sketches and designs. The collector’s idea was that art should not be displayed only in big cities, but should be accessible to everyone. That is why the Serlachius Collection is located in Mänttä, between Tampere and Jyväskylä, by a lake and forests, in a landscape that reflects the deep and almost sacred perception of nature that is characteristic of Finnish art.
