Foto: Otso Pietinen

Focus on Form – Design photography by Matti and Otso Pietinen

Finnish design had its heyday in the 1950s. Successful designers had a trusted go-to photography partner in Finland: the Pietinen family business and, in particular, the brothers Otso and Matti Pietinen. They were the ones who took photographs of the internationally recognised designs by, for example, Timo Sarpaneva, Tapio Wirkkala, Nanny Still, Kaj Franck and Saara Hopea.

Otso and Matti Pietinen worked in cooperation with designers, using the means of photography to translate the designs into powerful, simplified forms or surreal poems. The photographs were used in advertising and design exhibitions, and they spread around the world through the international press.

The images were part of a national project and were used to create an image of the superiority of Finnish design. In the photographs by the Pietinens, the objects detach themselves from the physical world, and its laws and constraints, and are transported into their own reality. Material and use give way to iconic forms.

The works on display are the original exhibition prints. The photographs were exhibited in Reykjavik, Iceland, in March 1955, and were donated to the Finnish Museum of Photography in the spring of 2016. The exhibition celebrates the centenary of the birth of Otso Pietinen. 

 

The Finnish Museum of Photography
collections space Angle

The Cable Factory, The Cable Factory, Tallberginkatu 1 G, 00180 Helsinki

18.5.–11.9.2016
Images
Address
Kämp Galleria
Mikonkatu 1, 00100 Helsinki
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Kaapeliaukio 3, 00180 Helsinki
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Museokortti
Under 18 y.o. free admission