The Finnish National Gallery’s Art Museums Attracted Nearly 800,000 Visitors in 2017

“A year of excellent exhibitions has strengthened the status of the Finnish National Gallery art museums alongside two other major attractions in the greater Helsinki area: the Linnanmäki amusement park, with one million annual visitors, and Helsinki Zoo, with half a million visitors”, says the general manager, Risto Ruohonen. “Our museum professionals have succeeded in building a programme that speaks to both national and international visitors.”

In addition to the diverse exhibitions, a wide variety of public events were held at the museums. At the Ateneum, the collector Tuomo Seppo's personal guided tours of an exhibition of works from his collection, and the public lectures related to the Stories of Finnish Art and Alvar Aalto exhibitions, attracted art lovers. The Sinebrychoff Art Museum organised a meet-and-greet event with the YouTuber Mariieveronica, which drew many young people to the museum. A Night of Philosophy appealed to Kiasma visitors, whilea joint Finnish National Gallery Christmas event was held at all its museums at the end of November. Both the Ateneum and the Sinebrychoff Art Museum broke their one-day visitor record on a free admission day, organised in honour of the centenary of Finland's independence, with the number of visitors at the three museums totalling 17,337.

Key exhibitions in 2017

The year 2017 at the Ateneum art museum started with the Amedeo Modigliani exhibition, which had opened in October in 2016. Light Changes Everything – the Tuomo Seppo Collection and the Tuulikki Pietilä exhibition, both opened in February, and Alvar Aalto – Art and the Modern Form, which ran in the summer, attracted large audiences. In autumn, the exhibitions Treasures from the National Gallery of Duckburg and The von Wright Brothers attracted particularly high numbers of visitors.

The Mona Hatoum exhibition, and Meeri Koutaniemi and Arman Alizad's After the Turmoil exhibition drew audiences to the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma right at the beginning of the year. Opened in March, ARS17 – Hello World! and, in particular, the LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner artist trio's #ALONETOGETHER performance introduced many visitors to contemporary art in spring. Works by the candidates for the Ars Fennica visual arts award were unveiled in October, and they are being exhibited at Kiasma (second floor) until 2 February 2018.

At the Sinebrychoff Art Museum, the Icons and Caesar van Everdingen exhibitions enjoyed brisk attendance in the spring. The exhibition I am not I – Famous and Forgotten Portraits, which was a part of Finland’s 100 years of independence celebrations; and the Terribilis est locus iste exhibition by Andrea Angione, ensured a steady flow of visitors up to the very end of the year. 

The Museum Card boosting museum attendance

Launched in May 2015, the Museum Card has contributed to the increase in visitors to the Finnish National Gallery museums. In a visitor survey commissioned by the Finnish National Gallery in 2016, as many as 61% of Ateneum visitors had visited the museum at least ten times, with the share of first-time visitors at 9%. In contrast, in 2014, 28% of the visitors had visited the Ateneum at least ten times, and as many as 34% of the visitors had attended the museum for the first time.