Turku: Admission to Turku Art Museum

Alongside a high-quality exhibition programme, the museum also stages events presented in a beautiful setting that invites interaction and relaxation. The cozy Café Victor is the place to stop for a coffee, and in summer one of the city's most spectacular terraces offers views over the city.

The Turku Art Museum's collection, which has been amassed over a hundred years, focuses on both Finnish and Nordic art. The collection is particularly known for Finnish Golden Age, surrealism, pop art, as well as self-portraits. Today, the museum's collection consists of more than 7 600 works, which are shown in the museum's temporary collection exhibitions and as loans worldwide.

The museum's National Romanesque granite castle is one of the city's most prominent landmarks and an attraction in itself. Designed by Professor Gustaf Nyström, it was the second building designed as an art museum in Finland when it was completed in 1904. Voted Turku's most beautiful building, the museum has just celebrated its 120th anniversary!

Exhibitions 2025

WHAT A COLOUR
From 26 November 2024 (on view throughout 2025)

This exhibition, compiled from the Turku Art Museum's collection, explores how the significance of colour in visual art can be interpreted through contemporary art research. The gaze travels through the spectrums of the Golden Age, Modernism, and Contemporary Art, presenting over 60 works by 39 artists. The exhibition draws on theories from art, science, and philosophy, with accompanying texts that include reflections on colour by contemporary artists featured in the show.

HOLMBERG – MUNSTERHJELM – WESTERHOLM
THREE VIEWS ON THE LANDSCAPE
31 January – 18 May 2025

Three Views on Landscape delights lovers of classical painting by showcasing the work of Werner Holmberg (1830–1860), Hjalmar Munsterhjelm (1840–1905), and Victor Westerholm (1860–1919). The exhibition looks at how these three successive artists introduced open-air painting to Finland and laid the foundation for the depiction of the Finnish landscape, as seen through a contemporary lens. The exhibition also highlights the influence of the Düsseldorf School on Finnish art, positioning nature as the artist's most important teacher. Natural details and phenomena—such as morning mist, evening sun, approaching thunderstorms, or romantic moonlight—captured in outdoor sketches, were transformed into captivating oil paintings in the studio.

GUNNEL WÅHLSTRAND
6 June – 14 September 2025

Gunnel Wåhlstrand (b. 1974) is known for her large-scale ink paintings that depict memories, people, and landscapes with almost photographic precision, evoking a powerful sense of presence and sensitivity. Her works, based on family photo albums, engage in a subtle dialogue with the artist’s personal history, as well as with the passage of time and the human condition. Her unique technique and slow, meditative working process convey a deep reflection on identity, memory, and loss. The exhibition is produced in collaboration with Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde.

STUDIO

AXEL STRASCHNOY: TOWARDS SPACE
28 March – 18 May 2025

Axel Straschnoy’s long-term and multifaceted space project originates from a sociological and artistic interest in Finnish futurism and, in particular, the Finnish Space Research Society. Founded in the 1950s to promote space research, the society now focuses on launching model rockets. To become part of Finland’s space dream, Straschnoy began building his own rockets and has since launched over a hundred into space.

ROLAND PERSSON
6 June – 14 September 2025

Roland Persson is known for his surreal silicone sculptures, which he casts using moulds made from real objects. He colours the silicone with pigments and handles the material so skilfully that the result is astonishingly illusionistic—both sculptural and painterly. Persson’s humorous and compassionate works often deal with the emotional relationship humans have with nature. His personal interest in theoretical psychoanalysis is strongly reflected in his work, where nature often serves as a projection surface for the subconscious and emotions, as well as the stage for metaphorical events.

DARKROOM

ARTTU NIEMINEN: LIFT UP YOUR VOICES
28 March – 18 May 2025

Lift Up Your Voices (2023 / 11 min) is a surreal requiem that flows through time, ideologies, and worlds, reaching for a better future. A collective consciousness in the form of artificial intelligence speaks to a dying humanity. The hypnotic and powerful format of the work forces us to confront the deadly consequences of our human desires.

JULIANA HUXTABLE: PRETTY CANARY
6 June – 14 September 2025

New York-based multimedia artist, writer, and performer Juliana Huxtable explores issues and contemporary discourses related to gender, race, identity, queerness, and sexuality. For her first exhibition in Finland, Huxtable presents her music video-style work Pretty Canary (2023) in the Darkroom.