Artists Space

Touko Laaksonen (Tom of Finland)

Harri Kalha, Kati Mustola and Leena-Maija Rossi

Talks & Discussion
June 14, 2015, 5pm

This program is the first in a series of talks, screenings, and discussions organized in conjunction with Tom of Finland: The Pleasure of Play. Art historian Harri Kalha and sociologist and LGBTQ historian Kati Mustola will each give a presentation discussing Tom of Finland's work with a particular emphasis on gender and queer histories in Finland. Following the presentations, Kalha and Mustola will be joined by Leena-Maija Rossi to moderate a discussion. Rossi is the Director of the Finnish Cultural Institute, New York, and was one of the first Finnish critics to write on Tom of Finland's art in the early 1990s.

A drawing shows a man reading a magazine while sitting on the couch. A shirtless man leans on the couch behind him, reading the magazine over the seated man
Tom of Finland, Untitled, 1985. Graphite on paper. Tom of Finland Foundation, Permanent Collection. [A drawing shows a man reading a magazine while sitting on the couch. A shirtless man leans on the couch behind him, reading the magazine over the seated man's shoulder.]

Harri Kalha is Adjunct Professor of Art History and Gender Studies at the University of Helsinki, and Adjunct Professor of Visual Studies at University of Turku. Kalha recently edited a scholarly anthology on pornography, Pornoakatemia! (2007), which won the Finnish award for "Erotic Charge of the Year", and was the author of Tom of Finland: Taidetta seksin vuoksi (The Art of Having Sex) (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2012).

Kati Mustola has written and edited books, articles and museum exhibition texts on LGBT history. Her research specializes in the situation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the workplace. Mustola's most recent English-language publications include Criminally Queer: Homosexuality and Criminal Law in Scandinavia, 1842–1999 (Amsterdam: Aksant Academic Publishers, 2007), co-edited with Jens Rydström; and Tom of Finland: Ennennakematonta – Unforeseen (Helsinki: Like, 2006), co-written with Berndt Arell.

Leena-Maija Rossi is the Director of the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York. She has previously worked as researcher and teacher at the University of Helsinki, and as a cultural critic and freelance curator. She has published widely both in Finland and internationally; her most recent book Muuttuva sukupuoli (Versatile Gender) is forthcoming in Finnish in 2015, published by GAUDEAMUS Helsinki University Press.