Riitta Ojanperä (Finland), PhD in art history, is Director of Central Art Achives at the Finnish National Gallery. From 1998 to 2011 she worked as curator and later as senior curator and head of exhibitions at the Ateneum Art Museum, Finnish National Gallery.In the core of her research interest has since 1990s been art criticism and especially the forming of discourses, rethoric, meanings and values within Finnish (mostly) art world and cultural policies. The title of her PhD thesis (2010) is Kriitikko Einari J. Vehmas ja moderni taide (The Critic Einari J. Vehmas and Modern Art) and it discusses the ideas and expressions of modernity, Finnishness, nationality, internationality and vitality in Finnish art discourse read through the critic’’s literal career.
Riitta Ojanperä’s own literal production, which started in 1980 as free lance art critic, includes tens of articles mostly concentrated on interpretations of Finnish art history in its international, cultural and philosophical contexts. She has edited (editor or editor in chief) and contributed in numerous exhibition catalogues, examples of which are:
- The Kalevala in images. 160 years of Finnish art inspired by the Kalevala. Ateneum Art Museum 27.2.-9.8.2009
- Échappées nordiques. Les maîtres scandinaves et finlandais en France – 1870/1914