Blu
Bujahuli
C.Finley
Dolk
Egs
Eyesaw
Frank
Icy & Sot
Invader
Jussi TwoSeven
Magda Sayeg -Knitta
Please
Lapro & Xeugux (Multicoloured Dreams)
LA-Tino & P.A.Roni
M-city, Mentalgassi
Otto Maja
Toasters
Slinkachu
Anton Wiraeus
Olle Baertling
Jorma Hautala
Pekka Jylha
Ville Kirjanen
Jarmo Makila
Eino Ruutsalo
Kimmo Sarje
Marianna Uutinen
Sam Vanni
Victor Vasarely
Pia Hovi-Assad
Mirja Ramstedt-Salonen
Anni Venalainen
The New Generation exhibition and urban art project showcases street artists whose work has spread around the world. With top names of European talents, as well as artists from USA and Iran. They will create works in the galleries as well as public outdoor spaces. Maire Gullichsen and Modernism series: the exhibition showcases transitional periods in modernism as they appear in op, pop and postmodern art.
Street Art - The New Generation
Hall, Lobby, Sculpture Garden, public places in Pori
Artists:
Blu, Bujahuli, C.Finley, Dolk, Egs, Eyesaw, Frank, Icy & Sot, Invader, Jussi TwoSeven, Magda Sayeg -Knitta, Please, Lapro & Xeugux (Multicoloured Dreams), LA-Tino & P.A.Roni, M-city, Mentalgassi, Otto Maja, Toasters, Slinkachu, Anton Wiraeus.
Street art has been part of the history of art for centuries. From the very beginning, it has always been unofficial,
anonymous, independent and public. The Street Art – The New Generation exhibition and urban art project showcases
street artists whose work has spread around the world. Among the featured talents are top names of European street art
working in Berlin, London and Paris, as well as artists from Italy, Norway, USA, Iran, Poland, Sweden and Finland.
They will create works in the galleries of the Pori Art Museum as well as public outdoor spaces in Pori.
The Italian street artist Blu is known for large-scale wall paintings he has made across Europe, South America and the
United States. Blu will paint a public piece in the centre of Pori in May 2012. In February 2012, the famous Norwegian
street artist Dolk will create an outdoor piece at the city's Youth Workshop as well as a painting in the Hall at the Pori
Art Museum. The exhibition also features the film Living Decay, in which Dolk and another street artist, Pøbel, create
paintings on the walls of abandoned houses earmarked for demolition in the Lofoten Islands in Norway. The film was
shot by the Italian director Davide Fasolo. The exhibition poster was designed by Eyesaw, a London-based artist
known for his bus shelter advertising posters that criticise consumerism.
Invader began his conquest of the world from Paris with Space Invaders figures; his contribution to the show in Pori
consists of mosaics and portraits made of Rubik's cubes. The invader figures are from a 1970s pre-pixel and pre-digital
video game called Space Invaders. Bringing the aliens from the game alive on the walls of cities as mosaics, Invader
has conquered already more than 40 cities all over the world. Also featured in the show is Magda Sayeg, who founded
the Knitta, Please knit graffiti group in the USA in 2005. The group began wrapping public architecture and street
furniture such as lamps or parking meters with knitted and crocheted material. Taiteilija toimii eräänlaisena ekologisena
aktivistina tapetoimalla julkisessa tilassa olevia roskalaatikoita C. Finley is known for her Wallpapered Dumpsters
project, which she has realized in the United States and Europe. She transforms dustbins into unexpected beauty and
with this activism criticizes consumer culture and promote recycling of waste.
The Polish street artist M-City has created both indoor and outdoor works across the world. He will paint a public
work in Pori in May 2012. The German group Mentalgassi cooperated with Amnesty International in London in
autumn 2011, and in Pori they will create both an indoor and an outdoor piece in cooperation with Amnesty Finland.
The London-based Toasters group, known for their flying toasters, will create a piece on the windows of the museum.
Their film Everywhere will be premiered at the opening of the exhibition. The artist Slinkachu whose works feature
miniature figurines involved in all kinds of situations in the streets, will present photographs and light box pieces. The
Iranian brothers Icy & Sot will present a video work, Pavement, shot on streets in Iran.
Finnish street artists featured in the show are Bujahuli, Egs, Frank, Jussi TwoSeven, LA-Tino, P.A.Roni, Otto
Maja, the Finland-Swedish artist Anton Wiraeus, and Lapro and Xeugux from the group Multicoloured Dreams.
Multicoloured Dreams is a street art collective formed by eight artists and art educators. The purpose of their street art
happenings is to enliven the urban environment with legal street art and to provide opportunities for people to change
their own living environment. The Finnish artists will create works both indoors and outdoors. The façade of the
museum will be painted in March 2012.
In co-operation with:
Amnesty International Finnish section, Andipa Gallery (London), Asunto oy Porin Antinkatu 12, Make Your Mark Garage / Gallery (Helsinki), Myymälä2 (Helsinki), Finnish–Norwegian Culture Institute (Helsinki), Royal Norwegian Embassy (Helsinki), Youth Workshop of the City of Pori, City of Pori – Town Planning Division, City of Pori - Technical Services Centre, Porin Puuvilla/Renor, Veikko Lehti Oy, VR.
More information:
Pia Hovi-Assad, Exhibition Curator, tel. +358 (0)44 701 1089 pia.hovi-assad@pori.fi
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Op – Pop – Post. Maire Gullichsen and Modernism series
Project Room
Featured artists: Olle Baertling, Jorma Hautala, Pekka Jylhä, Ville Kirjanen, Jarmo Mäkilä, Eino
Ruutsalo, Kimmo Sarje, Marianna Uutinen, Sam Vanni and Victor Vasarely
The exhibition showcases transitional periods in modernism as they appear in op, pop and
postmodern art. The works exhibited either have a temporal link to these art movements in
Finland, or they contain recognisable stylistic features from them. Building upon pop art,
conceptual art and feminist art, postmodernism makes use of concretism and op art through
borrowing, playfulness and irony. In addition to works from the collection of the Maire Gullichsen
Art Foundation, the exhibition also includes pieces from the Pori Art Museum's collection and
deposit collection.
Victor Vasarely (1908–1997) and Olle Baertling (1911–1981) are among the leading figures of
concretist art. Their work played an important role in the formation of op art, which had its roots in
the colour theories of Josef Albers and optical experiments of the Bauhaus school. Op art drew
inspiration from the tradition of concretist art, wherein a work of art is made of colours and simple
forms, flat surfaces. Op art aimed to create an illusion of movement on the painted canvas.
Throbbing optical illusions were constructed using tensions between lines, surfaces, repeating
geometric shapes and the juxtaposition of colours. Victor Vasarely was an important artistic
influence for Sam Vanni (1908–1992) in the 1950s and 60s. In the painting Suuri Fragmentti I
(Great Fragment I), the modernist Jorma Hautala (b. 1941) uses intersecting colour planes to create
an illusion of movement in space.
The popularity of op art had a great influence on the imagery and effects in popular culture, such
as garment patterns and record covers. Pop art of that period adopted familiar imageries from
popular culture, such as comics and advertisements, and also made use of everyday visual
elements and objects more generally. The period of pop art in Finland remained relatively short,
yet it signalled a new kind of appropriation of everyday things in art. Pop art paved the way for the
cultural concept of postmodernism and for many aspects of contemporary art. Jarmo Mäkilä (b.
1952) uses pop imagery in his painting Bdam (1979). The treatment of subject matter is
characteristic to pop art: the affinity to comics and the depersonalisation of brushwork through the
use of uniform, bright surfaces of colour.
Postmodernism is not a genre or style in art. It denotes a new kind of attitude towards the
preceding period of modernism. Postmodern art is pluralistic and allows multiple interpretations.
The artists took the freedom to use the history of art as their material, which in Finland in
particular appeared in the form of visual borrowing. Kimmo Sarje (b. 1951) is known for works
which investigate the myths of modernism and politics. The works Triptych (1993) and Diptych
(1996) in the exhibition comment on the history of art by borrowing and combining the classical
Greek Corinthian capital and the vertical stripes typical of the work of the American expressionist
Barnett Newman. Marianna Uutinen (b. 1961) creates a parody of the masculinity of modernism
through theatrical and exaggerated gestures. The work by the young contemporary artist Ville
Kirjanen (b. 1984) uses bold transformations to comment upon the sculpture of antiquity, restoring
to the present imageries and palettes reminiscent of pop art. The work is owned by the artist.
More information about the exhibition:
Mirja Ramstedt-Salonen, mirja.ramstedt-salonen@pori.fi / +358 (0)44 701 1119.
Anni Venäläinen, anni.venalainen@pori.fi / +358 (0)44 701 7601.
Media conference 9 February 2012 from 11.00-13.00
Opening 10 February 2012 at 18.00
Opening club 10 February 2012 at 20.00
Pori Art Museum
Eteläranta, 28100 Pori
Hours:
Tuesday to Sunday 11am to 6pm
Wednesdays 11am to 8pm
Free general tours of the exhibitions on Wednesdays at 6pm.
Closed on Mondays
Entrance fees:
3,5 / 1,5 / 1 Eur Family ticket 7 Eur