Lars-Gunnar “Nubben” Nordström (1924–2014) is one of Finnish art history’s best-known Concretists. His style is easily recognisable – many people see in it visual music and a powerful spatiality. Both interpretations are well-founded – Nubben studied and worked as an interior designer, while jazz music was his passion.

He wrote: “Jazz is living touching hearing seeing – and replicating”. (Jazz är att leva känna höra se – och åter-ge.) The underlying idea behind the In the spirit of Nubben in five ways exhibition is the importance of multisensory experience and variation in artistic work. Nordström’s art epitomises the modernist ethos, in which the multisensory and intersensory are at the core of artistic thinking and of experiencing an artwork. It is worth noting that abstract modernism is a highly polyphonic, diverse network of artistic ideas and thoughts, rather than a unified, coherent ‘ism’.

The exhibition at Gallery Elverket presents five contemporary artists, all with their own style and voice, but they all dare to make unrestricted variations within the scope of their own artistic thinking, and to reflect critically. Their works go from multisensory to figurative to non-figurative and back, while creating new viewpoints on art and spaces for art.

The artists are: Oscar Hagen, Ville Laurinkoski, Sasha Rotts, Jarkko Räsänen and Man Yau.

Read about the works