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."