Exhibition of contemporary art exploring illness to open at Villa Gyllenberg in April 2025

Health as a project

The body and health have become a life-fulfilling project, with no room for reflection on vulnerability or death. We fear illness and the decay of the body. We believe we can control our bodies and monitor our health using various devices and applications. Through diet, exercise, medication, beauty treatments and surgeries, we strive for unrealistic physical perfection.

Exhibition curator Magdalena Åberg explains how practicing yoga stimulated her interest in physicality in a new way. While Googling, she came across old medical posters, which inspired her to paint her own versions of the subject.

“I used to find everything related to illness repulsive, and you could say that painting illnesses and internal organs is my way of facing this fear,” Åberg says.

The exhibition features artists whose works explore the theme of corporeality or illness: disease, medicalisation, internal organs, body parts, and mental health. Art can be a way for both creators and viewers to confront fears related to illness, physical and mental decline, and ultimately death.

Illness and death as a part of life

The fragility and infirmity that are part of being sick remind us of our mortality and foster compassion for one another. The art presented in the exhibition asks whether we can find beauty within our bodies, even in their illness?

“Illness today is studied and narrated by many different professions, and there is a diagnosis for everything. I wanted to choose art for the exhibition that makes one think about larger existential questions, because it is a perspective that is often overlooked. Art is a way of approaching these difficult topics,” says Åberg.

Morbus is Latin and means disease or illness. The exhibition was inspired by the medical research support activities of the Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation. The founders were interested in the connection between the mind and the body, and the foundation continues to support psychosomatic medicine by awarding substantial grants.

The artists presented in the exhibition are: Oscar Chan Yik Long, Saara Ekström, Raija Jokinen, Ulla Jokisalo, Tapani Kokko, Ida Koitila, Henrika Lax, Johanna Naukkarinen, Eeti Piironen, Jyrki Riekki, Mari Sunna, Pauliina Turakka Purhonen, Hanna Vihriälä, Viggo Wallensköld and Magdalena Åberg, as well as Albert Edelfelt, Helene Schjerfbeck and Rafael Wardi.

A trilingual exhibition publication authored by Magdalena Åberg will be published in connection with the exhibition.

Contacts

Lotta Nylund, Chief Curator, lotta.nylund@gyllenbergs.fi, +358 40 576 1753
Siiri Oinonen, Head of Customer and Program Services, siiri.oinonen@gyllenbergs.fi, +358 40 825 4763
Magdalena Åberg, Exhibition Curator, magdalena@aberg.fi

Tour bookings

villa@gyllenbergs.fi

Address

Kuusisaarenpolku 11
00340 Helsinki