Afterthoughts on the Hugo Simberg exhibition

On 10 October I went to see Näkyvän takaa, Turku Art Museum's Hugo Simberg exhibition (2.10.2026–17.1.2027), and these ideas came to me afterwards. Its title means "from behind the visible", and I took it literally. The poster and three Instagram reels are my own proposal, not a commission.

Fig. 01 The yellow poster in a black frame on a slatted wall. Piiritanssi shows through the round window, and the name Simberg runs down the right edge in black ink that has bled.

Piiritanssi (1898) shows through a round window in a sulphur-yellow mount. Outside it, the devils dance on as a blind emboss pressed from behind, so you only see what the window lets through.

Fig. 02 The 50 × 70 cm poster. Round the window are the solitary man, the boys carrying the Wounded Angel, Death on skates and Frost.

Each work carries a number, like a note in a text, keyed under the museum's name.

Fig. 03 A detail at 100%: the solitary man from Piiritanssi stands on the window's bevelled rim with his hands behind his back, next to his note 1.

The name is the poster's one contemporary touch: IvyBodoni Bold in ink that spread under the plate. Before that it was rocky chrome, then black foil.

Fig. 04 The e and the r at 100%: the serifs swell into balls, the mottled ink is flecked with yellow, and the devils' emboss runs across it.

The reels don't repeat the poster. They move through ten of Simberg's works, which ride a ring round the type or pass behind the window, while the name's ink bleeds out and draws back once a loop.

Fig. 05 Frames from the three reels, left to right: Piiri on the yellow mount, Yö with the poster's two colours swapped, and Ikkuna, where the works pass behind the round window and a key names each one.

I scripted the poster in Photoshop, the ink bleed and image layers in Python and the reels in Cavalry. Photos: Finnish National Gallery / Jenni Nurminen, Hannu Aaltonen, Hannu Pakarinen, CC0.