The City of Hyvinkää owns a collection of about 2,600 works of art, which are looked after by Hyvinkää Art Museum. The collection comprises works that the museum has bought or received as donations and works deposited in its care. The pieces are by Finnish artists, mainly produced in the 20th and 21st centuries by artists who lived and worked in Hyvinkää and its surroundings. The majority of the works are paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures. The city’s public art works, memorials and works acquired for the city’s building projects as part of the Percent for Art scheme also belong to the city’s art collection.
The art museum’s collection consists of six separate collections. Measured by the number of works, the largest of these collections is the Hyvinkää Art Museum collection. The City of Hyvinkää collection includes works of art acquired as part of the Percent for Art scheme and works the city has bought for its public facilities. In addition, the art museum manages a small Hyvinkää City School Museum collection.
A large share of the works in Hyvinkää Art Museum’s collection are displayed in the city’s administrative buildings or the museum’s collection store, but they can also be viewed in the museum’s permanent exhibition space, the Art Lab, which opened in 2019. The Art Lab is a 180-square-metre exhibition space, learning environment and permanent exhibition with a selection of works from the museum’s collection, arranged on the basis of specific themes.
Picture: Teemu Heikkilä
Accumulation of works
The Hyvinkää Art Museum collection accumulates new works of art each year. New pieces are bought with funds allocated for this purpose as an annual acquisition budget. The museum also accumulates new public art works through the Percent for Art scheme.
The existing collections’ composition and identity are always taken into account when new works are acquired for Hyvinkää Art Museum’s collection. The main criterion is the high artistic quality of the works. The collection is added to with works that complement it in terms of art, themes and artists it represents. A special focus is placed on professional artists who lived and worked in Hyvinkää and its surroundings.
New works are also accumulated through donations. Each year, the art museum is donated pieces that become part of its collection. The museum also has the right to turn down gifts or works of art offered to it on deposit.
The accumulation of an art collection requires human labour, and selecting works entails power and responsibility. Decisions on the types of art that are presented in exhibitions, commissioned for buildings and bought for collections are not inconsequential. Choices are inevitably affected by various goals, ideas and preferences. Tastes, likings and the value placed on art also change over time.
Picture: Teemu Heikkilä
The Art Lab permanent exhibition
Launched in summer 2019, the Art Lab is Hyvinkää Art Museum’s permanent exhibition and learning environment, which showcases works from the museum’s collection. While all the works come from Hyvinkää Art Museum’s collection, the exhibition presents just a fraction of its 2,600 works.
With the Art Lab, the space has been transformed into a multisensory entity that presents a curated selection of works from the museum’s collection. The space has been designed to adapt and change.
The Art Lab offers an opportunity to explore the works via various themes. In one of the rooms, visitors can study painter Yrjö Saarinen’s strong use of colours. A second space is dedicated to Helene Schjerfbeck’s art and her models in Hyvinkää. The third space invites visitors to explore shapes and abstract compositions. In the fourth room, landscape paintings take the visitors to nature. The fifth space highlights artistic processes and artists’ tools and materials.