In collaboration with:

Accidents Happen – On the Defence of Risks and Creativity

First We Take Museums is a contemporary art exhibition and event that
traces urban and street art in the footsteps of the URB Festival. Many
artists in the exhibition explore urban life and its conflicts,
especially from the viewpoint of young people. The subject matter or
form of some of the works come close to street art or graffiti,
although the exhibition as a whole, the selection of works and artists,
exhibition architecture and graphic design, all seek to make room for
critical thinking, participation and discussion. In other words, it is
not an exhibition of street art, nor a post-graffiti show, but an
attempt to create a cultural space for dialogue.

Although Kiasma makes no claim to street credibility as a museum, one
of its main objectives has been to participate in the discourse on
contemporary culture.
First We Take Museums does not wish to appropriate any aspects of urban
or street art, but to present different perspectives, pleasant and
provocative encounters, and opportunities to relax and spend time in
the museum.

The title of the exhibition is a paraphrase of Leonard Cohen's song
title First We Take Manhattan. Popular culture has played a key role in
shaping the contemporary scene, and it is typically an area where tiny
revolutions take place constantly, despite the commerciality. It is
also part of the 'secret history' that is typical of urban energy and
self-subverting art. In fact, one of the inspirations for the
exhibition has been Grail Marcus' classic Lipstick Traces – The Secret
History of 20th Century.

Subcultures and countercultures in cities occupy a constantly narrowing
cultural space that is dominated by commercial interests and pragmatic
values. Urban artforms live and die in this charged atmosphere of
partly invisible, partly high-profile, public struggle. Urban art and
street art have the gift of revealing and making us aware of 'givens,'
such as space and the social contracts inherent in it. It keeps alive
the paradox of youth, glorified and feared at the same time, and of the
city engaged in a balancing act between risk avoidance and the demands
of creativity.

Risk-taking and living with risk are key questions also for art
institutions and are directly proportional to their ability to remain
independent, open and playful. Museums can be more than just the memory
of a nation, they can be centres of civic action in an increasingly
ahistorical world. Above all, the museum is an arena for art and
artists, an arena where art and creativity should have absolute
dictatorial powers. After all that has been said here, we should
remember that the substance of the exhibition is the art and the works
that cannot be exhausted with such as summary declaration as this. This
is a conquest that is necessarily contradictory and doomed to failure,
yet the momentary public space created by it enables discussion and
encounters, and will hopefully also promote tolerance and
understanding.

– With love for the city, Virve Sutinen