13/2/2011
Saara Ekstrom
Kiasma, Helsinki
Limbus. Opposites such as beautiful and ugly, alive and dead, conscious and unconscious are simultaneously present in Ekstrom's art. The works are often graphic, such as the video installation Dust made in collaboration with the Dutch artist Thom Vink, in which iron filings move, creating changing whirlpools reminiscent of Rorschach inkblots.
curated by Leevi Haapala
Saara Ekström’s art challenges our notions of beauty
Saara Ekström’s exhibition presents a broad selection of her most
recent photographic and video works. “The title of the show, Limbus,
refers to an intermediate state, such as the nebulous boundary after
death and before birth. For me, it is a kind of non-place or a
non-time,” says Saara Ekström.
Opposites such as beautiful and ugly, alive and dead, conscious and
unconscious are simultaneously present in Ekström’s art. The works are
often graphic, such as the video installation Dust made in collaboration
with the Dutch artist Thom Vink, in which iron filings move, creating
changing whirlpools reminiscent of Rorschach inkblots. Ekström is
interested in the interfaces between nature and culture, in how
attention is focused in perception, and in situations that create
instability. In her works, she instigates a process and allows nature to
contribute to the formation of the piece through putrefaction,
evaporation or wilting.
The piece on the fifth floor in Kiasma will be No Body, a three-part
video piece based on a text by Ekström. The artist will also make a new
version of her installation The Last Branch in which caged birds bring
living nature into the museum. In the new photographic series, Limbus,
floral and fruit arrangements created in natural settings continue the
tradition of nature morte still lifes. Ekström’s pictures blend
crime-scene photography with the aesthetics of memorial altars erected
at accident sites. Using organic as well as artificial materials,
Ekström creates worlds where the visible and the invisible, growth
and decay, visual attractiveness and formlessness all challenge one
another.
The exhibition is curated by Leevi Haapala, Senior Curator of
Collections. The Limbus catalogue will be produced in Finnish, Swedish
and English. In addition to lavish illustrations, the book will feature
an artist interview by Timo Valjakka as well as essays by Leevi Haapala,
the Belgian Curator and Researcher of Contemporary Art Sofie van Loon,
and the Finnish art critic Leena Kuumola.
Saara Ekström (b. 1965) has been a designated artist of the Helsinki
Festival, and she has also featured in the Ars Fennica and Carnegie Art
Award exhibitions. Her work has attracted attention in Europe as well as
in the United States, Japan and South Korea. The exhibition to be
mounted in Kiasma is part of a series of retrospectives of Finnish
artists in their mid-careers.
Further information Senior Curator of Collections Leevi Haapala, +358
(0)9 1733 6538, leevi.haapala@kiasma.fi
Kiasma’s communication dep kiaviesti@kiasma.fi
Communications Manager Piia Laita, +358 (0)40 590 8805,
piia.laita@kiasma.fi or
Opening 14 February 2011
Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma
Mannerheiminaukio 2, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
Hours
Tue: 10-17
Wed-Fri: 10-20.30
Sat-Sun: 10-18
Closed on Mondays
Admission:
Tickets 8e/6e
Under 18 year-olds free
Free admission on the first Wednesday of the month at 5-8 pm.