Narrowly shot down by the Helsinki City Board in May 2012, the never-say-die Guggenheim is bouncing back with a new proposal, to be unveiled in September.
In a brief statement released today to answer media inquiries, the Guggenheim disclosed this:
This week the director of the Guggenheim Foundation, Richard Armstrong, and deputy director Ari Wiseman held talks with officials from national government and the City of Helsinki [including Mayor Jussi Pajunen, Minister of Culture and Sport Paavo Arhinmäki and several other ministers and state secretaries], as well as with representatives of the arts and business communities….
Armstrong explained that the Foundation will take the findings gathered from these discussions into account in drafting the new proposal: “We will engage in active dialogue with Finnish stakeholders and the general public throughout the process to ensure that the new proposal best benefits the citizens of Finland and the Guggenheim Foundation. Our commitment to Helsinki is still very strong. We believe it’s the best possible location for a Guggenheim Museum,” Armstrong said.
The make-or-break issue will likely be funding. The rejected plan involved payment of a $30-million “licensing fee” to the Guggenheim, in addition to the $2 million for the completed 186-page feasibility study. Now, according to a report published today on the website of Yle Uutiset (Finland’s national public broadcasting company), Culture Minister Arhinmäki has indicated that “a Guggenheim art museum would be welcome in Helsinki, as long as the bulk of the needed financing comes from private contributions [emphasis added].” He observed that “there were more questions than answers” during his meeting with Guggenheim officials.
According to another Yle Uutiset report, Defense Minister Carl Haglund, who also met with Guggenheim officials, revealed that Armstrong and Wiseman “are sounding out members of the cabinet about a state contribution to a project to open a Guggenheim art museum in the Finnish capital. Haglund told Yle that the Guggenheim Foundation’s representatives are approaching national and local leaders with a modified concept under which the state, the City of Helsinki and the private sector would participate in funding the venture. He added that the two representatives did not yet have concrete proposals on how costs would be shared out, what the museum would cost, or where it would be located.”
For his part, Armstrong said in this video on the Helsingin Sanomat website that the Guggenheim would, in its new proposal, seek to dispel “ambiguities” about “location, funding, purpose, relationships to existing institutions. One thing that we suggest people think about is that it is not an expenditure but rather an investment. [Good luck with that.]
“In the case of the location, there aren’t so many principal spots in the city, because the city is beautifully built out….We have to be clear about how private investment and money would be utilized, and what that number might be, as well as the public expenditure investment.”
In response to questions that I sent her earlier today, Eleanor Goldhar, the Guggenheim’s deputy director and chief of global communications, relayed to me Armstrong’s comment that the new proposal “will be given out in September.” She added that although she had not had an opportunity to confirm her responses to my questions with Armstrong, “I trust this is accurate”:
—Richard stated: “I can tell you that we are aware of private investors, as well as the importance of public funds. I think that the Finnish Government involvement in the funding process would be a good idea.”
—Richard presented numerous possibilities for the site [of the proposed new museum] but also emphasized that [a new proposed site] has not been confirmed yet.
—Richard stated that “compared to [the rejected proposal] last year, there are no attempts to merge Helsinki Art Museum and Guggenheim into one.”
One person who presumably won’t be involved in a Guggenheim Helsinki is Janne Sirén, who as director of the Helsinki Art Museum was a prime promoter of the original Guggenheim proposal and was involved in crafting its feasibility study. He was then thought to be in line for the Guggenheim Helsinki’s directorship:
Sirén has relocated to the U.S., as the new director of the Albright-Knox Gallery.
That, of course, suggests another exciting satellite launch: What about a Guggenheim Buffalo? (“BuffGugg,” for short?)