Image: Piece of the original fresco from the Jusélius Mausoleum, Satakunta Museum. Photo: Arttu Merimaa. Shown in 'Contra Conservatio', Pori Art Museum, Pori
Pori Art Museum's summer exhibitions are in their final week, 25 to 30 August 2026, and close on Sunday 30 August. When 'Contra Conservatio' comes down, the surviving remains of the ceiling fresco that Akseli Gallen-Kallela painted for the Jusélius Mausoleum in Pori return to the collection of the Satakunta Museum.
The museum's own exhibition page describes these as the remains of the fresco, saved from the fire that destroyed the mausoleum building in 1931, rather than an intact decorative scheme. They belong to the Satakunta Museum, which lent them for the exhibition, so their return is the end of a loan and not a change of ownership. Neither the museum's notice nor its exhibition page gives a separate date for the physical move.
'Contra Conservatio' ran from 28 March to 30 August 2026 in the museum's Hall. It sets destruction against revival, working through preservation and restoration on one side and change, metamorphosis and entropy on the other. The exhibition was assembled by Arttu Merimaa, chief curator of exhibitions at Pori Art Museum, and alongside Gallen-Kallela it shows Cyprien Gaillard, Markus Luiro, Iida Nikitin, Kosti S. Ruohomaa and Veronica Ryan, with existing works and works made for the occasion. Loans came from Sprüth Magers and Gladstone Gallery, Paula Cooper Gallery and the Satakunta Museum, and the project is supported by the Finnish Heritage Agency. A Hands on Zone display, 'Art Collections and Preservation. Fire in the Art Museum', with texts by curator Jasmin Lehtiniemi and conservator Johanna Nikander, sets out how collections are preserved and conserved.
Two exhibitions in the Wing close on the same day. 'De Se Attitude' (28 March to 30 August 2026) ends with a performance on Sunday 30 August at 3 p.m.: 'WOMAN/DEATH: an augury', a new play by Mia Wennerstrand and Melanie Jame Wolf commissioned for the exhibition. Through the uneasy pairing of its two protagonists, Woman and Death, it asks how womanhood and dying might be written and rewritten, taking its cue from Hélène Cixous and from the question of what écriture féminine, a term Cixous coined in 1975, might mean in 2026. Attendance is covered by museum admission, the Museum Card and the museum's own annual pass.
'Maire Gullichsen and the Turning Points of Modernism', on view since 1 February 2025, also closes on 30 August, making way for 'Grace Ndiritu: PoriPostModern', the British-Kenyan (Maasai Kikuyu) artist's solo exhibition, which runs from 26 September 2026 to 28 February 2027. The autumn season opens with an event on Friday 25 September, for which a bus will run from Helsinki and at which Ndiritu will be present. The exhibition will place her own work alongside selections from Pori Art Museum's collections and the collection of the Villa Mairea Foundation.
At the Poriginal Gallery, the group exhibition 'Household', with Paavo Kärki, Otso Prunnila, Aino Tillonen and Ossi Vuori, continues to 18 October 2026. Pori Art Museum is at Eteläranta, FI-28100 Pori, and opens Tuesday to Friday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday to Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; it is closed on Mondays. Admission is free for students and for visitors under 18 at all Pori museums.
