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6/2/2014

Ars Fennica

Kiasma, Helsinki

The exhibition by the 2014 Ars Fennica candidates - IC -98 (Patrik Söderlund and Visa Suonpää), Riitta Ikonen, Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Leena Nio, Pauliina Turakka Purhonen - gives its viewers a chance to vote for who they think should be the recipient of the most prestigious art prize in Finland.

The Ars Fennica prize is awarded by the Henna and Pertti Niemistö Foundation in recognition of distinctive artistic output of high merit.

IC-98

The Turku-based artist duo IC-98 was founded in 1998. Its members are Visa Suonpää (b. 1968) and Patrik Söderlund (b. 1974). IC-98 has worked with publications, drawings and installations, and in recent years particularly with animations.

The animations of the IC-98 duo combine handicraft with digital manipulation. They are based on pencil drawings that are joined together and animated on a computer. Although the events are fictional, the details derive from reality. The artists obtain their visual material from photographs and by searching for pictures online, in archives and other sources.

The work Abendland consists of two animations and a soundscape created using a double bass and electronics. The spectator is transported into a landscape where a tree undergoes slow transformations. The work has no beginning or ending. According to the artists, the work is about a future in which humanity has ceased to exist. The rest remains for the spectator to imagine.

Riitta Ikonen

The people in the photographic series Eyes as Big as Plates are depicted as embodiments of nature and natural phenomena.Created as a joint venture by Riitta Ikonen (b. 1981) and the Norwegian photographer Karoline Hjorth,the pictures were inspired by folk tales that in ancient times were used to explain natural phenomena.The title was inspired by the monster in a Norwegian story.The series comprises several dozen pictures, and it is still growing.

Ikonen and Hjorth took the pictures in Norway, Finland, New York, Paris, Iceland and the Faroe Islands.They searched for their subjects among locals.The locations were often picked together with the subject, and the costumes were designed to fit the environment and the person.

Costumes and accessories have always been important for Ikonen, who also has three earlier works in this exhibition.Ikonen made the dresses herself and poses in the pictures as a snowflake, a leaf and a bird.The cone suit on display was made for future shoots.

Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen

Tellervo Kalleinen (b. 1975) and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen (b. 1971) have been working together since 2003. They often adopt a communal approach to art, working with volunteers and communities and finding inspiration in their experiences. One of their most famous works is Complaint Choir, which has been realised in many countries. In that work, people sing out the things that annoy them.

The video People in White explores a psychiatric doctor-patient relationship from the patient’s perspective. The artist couple placed a classified ad in a paper to recruit people who had been hospitalised for mental health reasons and who wanted to share their experiences. The work was created in the Netherlands. Mental health problems and their treatment are usually only spoken of by doctors and experts. The artists wanted to reverse this.

Another piece in the exhibition, Archipelago Science Fiction, depicts four possible future visions of the Turku Archipelago in Finland. Tellervo Kalleinen, Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen and the Swedish filmmaker Henrik Andersson worked for a couple of years with the inhabitants of the islands, charting their hopes and fears for the future. After a round of questionnaires and interviews, workshops were held on the islands of Utö, Houtskär and Korpo.

Leena Nio

Leena Nio’s (b. 1982) oil paintings are created through a process of adding and removing. She often constructs the works by layers, wiping or scraping off some of the paint when it is still wet. The knitted pullovers and hair in the pictures were made by drawing in the wet paint with a rubber tool. In the two larger works, one picture is painted over another and the thick paint is removed in places by scraping and washing.

Nio says that while painting she was thinking about reality and play. Some of the ideas were provided by her five-year-old son, such as the aeroplanes and other things made from paper, the trap rope and the “bullet holes” in the pullover. The latest works are the Paperfaces. Besides painting independently, Nio also belongs to the NioRautiainenToikka group.


Pauliina Turakka Purhonen

Pauliina Turakka Purhonen’s (b. 1971) textile sculptures blend the mundane with the sacred. Some of the characters resemble real people – often the artist or her nearest and dearest – but the works are based on conventional historical and religious images.

Lucia refers to the legend of Saint Lucy. Guard was inspired by a fresco in the Sistine Chapel where the Fall (a woman-snake) and the Expulsion (angel and sword) are brought together in one image. The relief Ex paradiso refers to the Expulsion, while the sculpture series Danse Macabre is based on the medieval idea of dancing with death. Virgin and Child with Spook refers to the iconographic tradition of picturing Mary and Jesus with Mary’s mother, Anna. The series of ceramic sculptures entitled Song for My Sister is based on the artist’s childhood memories and is dedicated to one of her siblings.

Pauliina Turakka Purhonen is also known for realistic paintings and drawings in which she depicts herself, her near and dear ones and details of her studio and home.

Communications Manager Piia Laita, +358 (0)40 590 8805,
piia.laita@kiasma.fi
Photos for the press www.kiasma.fi/press

Kiasma
Museum of Contemporary Art
Mannerheiminaukio 2
00100 Helsinki, Finland
Mon closed, Tue 10–17, Wed–Fri 10–20.30, Sat 10–18, Sun 10–17
Adults 10 €
Concessions 8 € (students, pensioners, conscripts, non-military servicemen)
Group ticket 8 € per person (min. 10 people)
Under 18 year-olds free.
Free admission on the first Friday of the month 5 pm–8.30 pm.

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