Running and biking tours of public art for the participants of the WG2015

HAM of­fers two sculp­ture routes of dif­fer­ent lengths for sporty friends of art.

RUN, 7 km

Run­ner statue of Lasse Virén by Terho Sakki, 1994
Lasse Virén (born 1949) is a Finnish long-dis­tance run­ner known not only for his suc­cess in the Olympics, but also for his per­se­ver­ance in run­ning com­pe­ti­tions. In the statue de­signed by Terho Sakki, Virén is rep­re­sented as be­ing con­cen­trated and in the run­ning out­fit from his best years, which were the 1970s. The statue made of bronze has been chis­eled roughly, which adds an­gu­lar­ity to the fig­ure and brings out Virén’s char­ac­ter. The pedestal of the statue is made from gran­ite from Virén’s home­town, Myrskylä.

Run­ner statue of Paavo Nurmi by Wäinö Aal­to­nen, 1925/1952
Paavo Nurmi (1897-1973) is one of the best known Finnish ath­letes of all time. His suc­cess in the Olympic Games of Antwer­pen, Paris and Am­s­ter­dam in the 1920’s was a huge na­tional pride for Fin­land. Sculp­tor Wäinö Aal­to­nen de­signed the statue al­ready in 1925, but Nurmi’s statue has been run­ning in front of Olympic sta­dium only since the Olympics of Hel­sinki in 1952. Along with clas­sic Olympic spirit, typ­i­cal ide­al­i­sa­tion of body cul­ture of the 1920’s can be seen in the naked statue. Af­ter the com­ple­tion of the statue, it was seen as the ideal for Finns. The fact that the statue only lightly touches the pedestal makes the run­ning mo­tion look easy.

Tahko Pihkala by Nina Sailo, 1987
Lauri ”Tahko” Pihkala (1888-1981) worked ac­tively for the Finnish sports and is known as the de­vel­oper of Finnish base­ball (a Finnish ver­sion of base­ball). The statue is lo­cated near Pihkala’s for­mer home near the Olympic sta­dium. It has been told that in the win­ter he used to se­cretly ski on the sta­dium field. At the back of the statue there is a grind­stone, which is a round tool made of stone for sharp­en­ing metal ob­jects. Pihkala’s nick­name, ”Tahko” (lit­er­ally grind­stone), makes ref­er­ence to the fact that he is known for im­prov­ing the fit­ness level of the Finns.

Con­certo to the Val­ley by Denise Ziegler, 2001
Con­certo to the Val­ley that has got it’s shape from a con­duc­tor’s stand and the con­cen­tra­tion of sports are­nas of Hel­sinki sur­round­ing the statue in­ter­twine to­gether in an ex­cit­ing way. With her piece, Denise Ziegler has wanted to cre­ate a di­a­logue be­tween the sport scene and the viewer. The piece doesn’t come to life un­til the viewer steps onto the pedestal to see the sur­round­ings. De­pend­ing on the viewer and the tim­ing, the piece can be any­thing from birds singing to a sport crowd cheer­ing. The Con­certo to the Val­ley gives the chance to ex­pe­ri­ence, hear and see sports and art and to en­joy them both at the same time.

Re­lief by Kalle Räike, 1966
The Re­lief was com­pleted at the same time as the Hel­sinki Ice Hall in 1966 and it is de­signed by the same ar­chi­tect, Kalle Räike. The piece is an ab­stract re­lief ris­ing straight from the wall of the build­ing. The Finnish name (ko­hokuva) of the piece makes ref­er­ence to the shape, but also to a well-known Finnish com­pany called Koho that used to man­u­fac­ture ice hockey equip­ment. Fol­low­ing the ideals of the sculp­ture art in the 1960’s, Re­lief is made of an in­dus­trial ma­te­rial, re­in­forced con­crete. The piece changes de­pend­ing on the view­point. It is pos­si­ble to see Re­lief as an ab­stract piece, but to­gether with the Ice Hall there is a no­tion of move­ment and the charge of an ice hockey game. Per­haps you can even see a puck fly­ing on the ice.

Arisen from the sea by Kauko Räsä­nen, 1953
Rep­re­sent­ing a woman af­ter swim­ming trip, the Arisen from the sea re­minds that the sea is near the sub­urb of Pasila. The fig­ure made of bronze seems to be bal­anc­ing her­self and has a fo­cused fa­cial ex­pres­sion. Arisen from the sea dries her­self in an ev­ery­day way on low con­crete pedestal. Swim­ming and get­ting clean has a con­nec­tion to sports. For ex­am­ple the ath­letes dur­ing the An­tiq­uity might have bathed not only af­ter the per­for­mance, but also be­fore it to carry out a rit­ual pu­rifi­ca­tion.

Gun­nar Bär­lund by Ni­ilo Rikula, 1991
Gun­nar Bär­lund (1911-82) was a Finnish boxer and the heavy­weight cham­pion of Eu­rope in the 1930’s. The sculp­ture made of bronze is lo­cated in the sub­urb of Vallila, where Bär­lund lived a great part of his life. The sculp­ture was erected as a trib­ute to Vallila’s own cham­pion. Like most sports he­roes, Bär­lund also is rep­re­sented do­ing his sport in the sculp­ture. It is roughly sculpt and the fig­ure is shown naked and in a big­ger scale than nat­u­rally. The piece is an ref­er­ence to the long tra­di­tion of sports and the idolised body im­age. How­ever, the fig­ure of Bär­lund is not smoothened out and also the boxer’s bro­ken nose is recorded in the sculp­ture.

Play of the Young by Kai No­ramies, 1959
Kai No­ramies’s sculp­ture Play of the Young rep­re­sents bal­anc­ing, play and flex­i­bil­ity. In the sculp­ture, fe­male fig­ures lean to dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions and hold an ob­ject that re­sem­bles a gym­nas­tics wheel. This brings to mind not only one of art his­tory’s well known themes, The Three Graces, but also a group do­ing gym­nas­tics. One of the fig­ures of the bronze sculp­ture seems to have let go of the wheel. The fig­ures have ease and the name of the piece re­fer­ring to youth brings an airy at­mos­phere to it.

BIKING ROUTE, 10 km

Lasse Virénin juok­si­jap­at­sas Terho Sakki, 1994

Paavo Nur­men juok­si­jap­at­sas Wäinö Aal­to­nen, 1925/1952

Kon­sertto Laak­solle Denise Ziegler, 2001

Tahko Pihkala Nina Sailo, 1987

Nuorten leikki Kai No­ramies, 1959

Gun­nar Bär­lund Ni­ilo Rikula, 1991

The line drawn in the wa­ter by Timo Heino, 2014
The line drawn in the wa­ter con­sists of a kayak made of car­bon fi­bre which is fol­lowed by a steel rod stand­ing up to 12 me­tres, rep­re­sent­ing the line in the wa­ter. The piece has a strong feel­ing of go­ing up and for­ward. While work­ing on the piece, Timo Heino es­pe­cially thought about the de­vel­op­ment of tech­nol­ogy and the achieve­ments of mankind. ”Faster, higher and stronger” – the on­ward push­ing motto of the Olympics is suit­able also when ex­am­in­ing this piece. The real kayak used in this piece also works as a con­ver­sa­tion starter about how a recre­ation in­stru­ment gets new mean­ings in a work of art.

Box­ers by Jo­hannes Haa­pasalo, 1932
In this piece called Box­ers, the sports it­self has the main role. Mem­bers of a box­ing club from Hel­sinki acted as the mod­els for the bronze sculp­ture. The piece is not meant to be a sculp­ture of these said mod­els, but a study of the ten­sion and bal­anc­ing be­tween two box­ers, the box­ing match it­self. The naked fig­ures rep­re­sent the ideal im­age of a hu­man. The au­di­ence of the decade last­ing match con­sists of the vis­i­tors of the park and the build­ings that have risen around the piece through the years.