Riikka Anttonen — Acorn Hunt
The exhibition consists of pieces carved from wood and stone, painted surfaces and marble mosaics, which together form a spatial whole. The painted relief surfaces familiar from Anttonen’s previous works create, together with other elements, a world whose shapes rise from beneath the surface and are conceptually linked to the ideas of covering, hiding and metamorphosis. The gray floor of the gallery space is the scene of the exhibition, where most of the works are placed. In addition to abstracted shapes, one can see acorns, snakes and a bird’s nest in the whole. The works are strongly related to each other, and thus the mirroring between different elements links the works to one another, like an idea that leads to another or a story whose next chapter reveals something about the previous one.
The exhibition has been supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, VISEK and the Paulo Foundation.
Exhibition text PDF (written by Eeva Turunen, translated by Matias Loikala)
Riikka Anttonen (b. 1982) is a visual artist living and working in Helsinki. They work in the expanded field of sculpture and painting. Exploring and dispelling external categories of space, artwork and art object is central to Anttonen’s work. The works of art are in close dialogue with their surroundings, sometimes merging with or attaching to it. For Anttonen, it is important to look at different things and phenomena that change in nature, or to fantasize about things that escape unequivocal definitions. The driving force is the desire to explore and cross different boundaries, make alternative identities and relativities and pose new material questions. Anttonen works with various materials such as wood and stone, combining elements of sculpture with the expanded field of painting. In their previous works, they have explored phenomena such as change and metamorphosis for example by experimenting with the agency of the painting and through spatial interventions.
Anttonen graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts with a master’s degree in 2023, and from the Aalto University School of Arts and Design with a master’s degree in 2012. Their works have been displayed in Finland, Germany and Estonia.
The exhibition has been supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, VISEK and the Paulo Foundation.
Petri Kaverma — Aiheita (Subjects)
I wanted to break away from the thought of the subject – actually from all other thoughts – and work as intuitively as possible. My hand grabbed the pencil and started drawing. That’s how the subjects of my exhibition were born: not as a starting point, but as a result of artistic work, by itself.
Stalling
A walk through works and spaces that demand attention at the Moscow Biennale. And suddenly: stagnant, empty images without words, let alone explanations. Neon lights rotate in the dark space. There is a cloth on the floor, a beautifully lit curtain. The old man steps from the right corner of the screen to the left.
Drawing
Old and simple technology combines creative work with a long tradition. When the plotter touches the paper, a connection to the abstract world is created. Working with a pencil is bringing handicraft into the realm of thoughts.
Transformation
The mark made by the machine wouldn’t exist without the mark of my pencil, that makes sense. While the cooperation between the hand and the pencil is unpredictable, the machine does exactly what I ask for. In this way, the machine is also an extension of my hand. Body and iron meet.
Kasper Muttonen — Light has no time
The exhibition is structured as a series of stories about different spaces or models of spaces, united by the idea of light. Light itself is an element that defines a particular moment in a landscape or space and I find it a fascinating force to make art.
Light has no time is related to the physical theory that time slows down as the speed of light is transmitted and stops completely when that speed is reached. Therefore, light itself cannot have time and its motion is outside our tangible reality, even though everything we perceive with our eyes is related to its existence.
In my art and in the spaces that I build as an artist, the idea of an in-between or out-of-between space has often been present. Now, in this exhibition, light is the element that stops these constructions or spaces in moments and makes the buildings into images of moments. If light has no time this moment can be eternal, or act as a blink of an eye between moments. The buildings or spaces in the exhibition are built around these different moments of light.
In his books, Scottish science fiction writer Iain M. Banks often describes multi-layered stories, often involving interesting spaces in a fictional future setting. These and similar literary spaces contribute as subconscious memories to the spatial narrative of my works.
In the 1930s, two Italian architects designed a monument at Rome’s historic Via Dei Fori Imperial, which remained an unrealised plan and at the same time a strong example of conceptual architecture.The Danteum, designed by Giuseppe Terragni and Pietro Linger, was a building that depicted the journey through hell and heaven in Dante‘s Divine Comedy through the medium of architecture. Although it was an Italian Fascist-era design, it was sophisticated and timeless despite its architectural archaism. The exhibition also includes a model of a kind of monument inspired by elements of Danteum’s building. The Europaeum illustrates the fragility of the structure called Europe today, which is also living in a kind of limbo between war, the rise of the far right, the threat of climate change and its history.
Thank you The Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike).
Mediabox