video 8,41 min
Photos by Marja Pursiainen
lauantai 25. elokuuta 2007
tiistai 14. elokuuta 2007
PENTTI OTTO KOSKINEN
"Pentti Otto Koskinen is the great silent figure of Finnish performance art. He is created performances at random since the late 1970s, often presenting them in venues that are unorthodox in view of the traditions of presenting art.
Koskinen is a genuinely politically critical artist underlining the freedom of man to choose justice instead of injustice, restraint - even destitution - instead of ostentatious consumption, spirituality instead of materiality.
Born in the working-class district of Kallio in Helsinki, Koskinen has had his studio there for thirty years. The Salvation Army's bread line is next door, and it has given him the theme for a number of telling works: In his own words: "Bread lines are familiar to me from the 1950s. I used to go in them with my mother, a cleaning woman. She was crushed by poverty, and I, too, felt shame when I lined up for bread as a grown-up. But the experience changed. I did not feel shame, but instead bliss. There is hope in a damned area."
Koskinen is a genuinely politically critical artist underlining the freedom of man to choose justice instead of injustice, restraint - even destitution - instead of ostentatious consumption, spirituality instead of materiality.
Born in the working-class district of Kallio in Helsinki, Koskinen has had his studio there for thirty years. The Salvation Army's bread line is next door, and it has given him the theme for a number of telling works: In his own words: "Bread lines are familiar to me from the 1950s. I used to go in them with my mother, a cleaning woman. She was crushed by poverty, and I, too, felt shame when I lined up for bread as a grown-up. But the experience changed. I did not feel shame, but instead bliss. There is hope in a damned area."
maanantai 13. elokuuta 2007
perjantai 10. elokuuta 2007
VILLE LENKKERI: REALITY IN THE MAKING (2006)
Ville Lenkkeri: Reality in the making (2006)
"Evolution"
"Authority"
"Canned Heat"
"Sometimes it is as if we were living a life less unique. As if experinece had largely been replaced by simulations and models and books and recordings, and as if life were known to us by its fragments. Also it is as if our lives were gradually becoming a compliance with preset standards, since all the possible shapes a life can take are already known and learned. That would turn us into mere spectators of our own lives, since life would escape our will and only be shown to us like a movie on TV.
But then again, if it were like that - or when it gets to be like that - we would turn our backs in frustration on this evolution of control and return our gaze from the preserved and the exhibited to life itself. A sample can present the whole only when the whole is a known entity. Fragments of life always fail to reveal the whole of it."
"Evolution"
"Authority"
"Canned Heat"
All pictures from the serie "Reality in the Making"
90x120 or 100x125cm, digital c-print / Diasec.
"Sometimes it is as if we were living a life less unique. As if experinece had largely been replaced by simulations and models and books and recordings, and as if life were known to us by its fragments. Also it is as if our lives were gradually becoming a compliance with preset standards, since all the possible shapes a life can take are already known and learned. That would turn us into mere spectators of our own lives, since life would escape our will and only be shown to us like a movie on TV.
But then again, if it were like that - or when it gets to be like that - we would turn our backs in frustration on this evolution of control and return our gaze from the preserved and the exhibited to life itself. A sample can present the whole only when the whole is a known entity. Fragments of life always fail to reveal the whole of it."
torstai 9. elokuuta 2007
KRISTOFER PAETAU: ART FORUM ACCIDENT (2005)
Kristofer Paetau: Art Forum accident (2005)
"I started to feel really bad at the opening of the Art Forum 2005 Art Fair in Berlin. And suddenly I couldn't help myself, I had to vomit."
S. HELKE & V. SUUTARI: THE IDLE ONES (2001)
Susanna Helke & Virpi Suutari: The Idle Ones (2001)
Summer with the old friends. Experiencing the end of childhood together. Days and nights of fishing at a most beautiful lakeside, driving around the town, hanging around at the gas station...Not because they want to - but because there is absolutely nothing else to do. THE IDLE ONES is touching and revealing, and nonetheless, funny documentary on three young men, Lötkö, Hapa and Bodi, living in soon an empty area in Northern Finland.
Cast: Hapa / Harri Moilanen
Crew script & director: Susanna Helke & Virpi Suutari
cinematographer: Harri Räty
sound designer: Pekko Pesonen
80 min, 35mm, 1.85, Dolby Digital, color, Finnish dialogue
MAIJA BLÅFIELD: SAVING THE WORLD (2005)
Maija Blåfield: Saving the World (2005)
"Saving the World looks at the reality and experiencing it through the life of my friend Marcel Bloemendal. Marcel has schizophrenia, which he describes the following way: "If I did not have it, I could be just boring and average. But now I can save the world." In the film Marcel takes the place of a travel guide to the world today. Marcel has been incessantly travelling around Europe since 1976. I joined his journey occasionally during the five year period of film making. The film looks at the problematics of normality and abnormality, usual and unusual, insanity and reality. The main language used in the film and its important element is the common language of today - the broken english. Marcel believes that he can make an eternal peace in the world. As the weapon industries would collapse in financial crisis in case that all wars would end, they have hired secret agents to eliminate Marcel. He travels from country to another in order to escape the agents, which he allways does with the advices of the mystical clearvoyant Madame Pilz. Working with Marcel was more like a co-operative project than just documenting a persons life. The film is constructed completely from documentarial material, but the question of spreading out some kind of information or facts is irrelevant for this film . The film is an art piece which has chosen as its form a form of a documentary.
Crew director & cinematographer: Maija Blåfield
sound designer: Pietari Koskinen
55 min, color, English dialogue"
55 min, color, English dialogue"
keskiviikko 8. elokuuta 2007
IIKKA VEKKA: HORSE / "IT" AND MARIE FROM BACCARA
Iikka Vekka:
'"It" and Marie from Baccara'
"Horse"
"Small part of an unfinished sculpture (work in progress)."
'"It" and Marie from Baccara'
"Horse"
"Small part of an unfinished sculpture (work in progress)."
maanantai 6. elokuuta 2007
TOMMI GRÖNLUND - PETTERI NISUNEN: CONSTELLATION (2006)
Tommi Grönlund - Petteri Nisunen: Constellation (2006)
Constellation“Dreamlands Burn” Nordic Art Show Mücsarnok / Kunsthalle, Budapest 2006 Photo: © Tommi Grönlund
Constellation“Dreamlands Burn” Nordic Art Show Mücsarnok / Kunsthalle, Budapest 2006 Photo: © Petteri Nisunen
"The curators of this Nordic group show invited us to do a site-specific installation for the entrance lobby of Budapest Kunsthalle.
We approach site-specificity in two alternative ways. Sometimes the whole idea of the art work comes from the given or chosen exhibition space, from its social, political or historical context or simply from its architectural qualities. Another way is to use some features of the exhibition space to work on themes that interest us in general. This was the case in this particular exhibition.
Randomness as phenomenon and the way we perceive visual impulses have interested us from beginning of our artistic career. These interests originally led us to work with blinking led-lights. For this show we decided to do a new installation working on the same technical principles as several of our earlier led-installations.
The entrance lobby of Budapest Kunsthalle was a challenging exhibition space for minimalist work like ours. The constant traffic trough the space with doors on every wall combined with the ticket office and cloakroom activities made the space kind of restless. The rich and colorful interior did not help much either.
In a way we gave up on solving the challenge and resolved the problems by escaping them. We decided to darken the space except for the ticket office and cloakroom and concentrate to work on the rectangular, semi-transparent glass ceiling, 12.5 m above the floor. This type of glass ceiling, which provides the entire space with even, natural light, is very typical for the museums of this period. The ceiling, about 6 x 8 meters in size, has 88 square glass panels in 11 x 8 grid format.
For our installation we covered the whole ceiling from above so that it let only little bluish light trough. Under this cover we placed a light made of several leds above each opal glass panel. Each of these lights was controlled by its own blinking led. This transformed the ceiling into a randomly changing matrix of 88 lights.
From below you could see only large light dots projected onto the square opal glass panels. The background of the light dots changed from clear blue in mid day to dark grey at night. The light dots moving in the dark void above added a meditative element to the otherwise active entrance lobby. A round black glass table in the center of the room reflected the glass ceiling and the moving light dots. The seating group surrounding this table functioned as a peaceful place for observing the installation."
Constellation“Dreamlands Burn” Nordic Art Show Mücsarnok / Kunsthalle, Budapest 2006 Photo: © Tommi Grönlund
Constellation“Dreamlands Burn” Nordic Art Show Mücsarnok / Kunsthalle, Budapest 2006 Photo: © Petteri Nisunen
"The curators of this Nordic group show invited us to do a site-specific installation for the entrance lobby of Budapest Kunsthalle.
We approach site-specificity in two alternative ways. Sometimes the whole idea of the art work comes from the given or chosen exhibition space, from its social, political or historical context or simply from its architectural qualities. Another way is to use some features of the exhibition space to work on themes that interest us in general. This was the case in this particular exhibition.
Randomness as phenomenon and the way we perceive visual impulses have interested us from beginning of our artistic career. These interests originally led us to work with blinking led-lights. For this show we decided to do a new installation working on the same technical principles as several of our earlier led-installations.
The entrance lobby of Budapest Kunsthalle was a challenging exhibition space for minimalist work like ours. The constant traffic trough the space with doors on every wall combined with the ticket office and cloakroom activities made the space kind of restless. The rich and colorful interior did not help much either.
In a way we gave up on solving the challenge and resolved the problems by escaping them. We decided to darken the space except for the ticket office and cloakroom and concentrate to work on the rectangular, semi-transparent glass ceiling, 12.5 m above the floor. This type of glass ceiling, which provides the entire space with even, natural light, is very typical for the museums of this period. The ceiling, about 6 x 8 meters in size, has 88 square glass panels in 11 x 8 grid format.
For our installation we covered the whole ceiling from above so that it let only little bluish light trough. Under this cover we placed a light made of several leds above each opal glass panel. Each of these lights was controlled by its own blinking led. This transformed the ceiling into a randomly changing matrix of 88 lights.
From below you could see only large light dots projected onto the square opal glass panels. The background of the light dots changed from clear blue in mid day to dark grey at night. The light dots moving in the dark void above added a meditative element to the otherwise active entrance lobby. A round black glass table in the center of the room reflected the glass ceiling and the moving light dots. The seating group surrounding this table functioned as a peaceful place for observing the installation."
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