Gli
artisti Terike Haapoja e Antti Laitinen sono stati scelti per rappresentare la
Finlandia alla prossima Biennale d’Arte di Venezia. Mika Elo, Marko Karo e
Harri Laakso saranno i curatori dell’evento.
Ecco il comunicato stampa di presentazione
FINNISH
EXHIBITIONS AT THE 2013 VENICE BIENNALE WILL HIGHLIGHT THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN
ART AND NATURE
31 October 2012
Last year, a big
tree fell over a building in Venice. The building was the wooden pavilion
designed for the Venice Biennale by Alvar Aalto in 1956. The event
effectively interrupted the Finnish exhibition in the 2011 biennale. The
pavilion and the works exhibited there were damaged and the show had to be
closed ahead of time. The pavilion was restored, and the incident would
seem to be closed now. However, the random event caused by the forces of
nature will feature in the exhibition put up by Finland in Venice next
year. The 55th Venice Biennale will be held 1 June – 24 November
2013.
From among 40
submissions, the Board of FRAME chose Mika Elo, Marko
Karoand Harri Laakso to curate and build the exhibitions in the Aalto
Pavilion and the Nordic Pavilion. The goal of the curator team is to produce
two distinct solo exhibitions that share the same concrete starting
point. Antti Laitinen will appropriate the renovated Aalto Pavilion
and the surrounding park for his work. The show by Terike
Haapoja will be held in the Nordic Pavilion, as it is Finland's turn this
time to curate the show there.
The working title
of the curator team’s exhibition concept is Falling Trees. As the title
suggests, the concept revisits last year's event and explores its inherent
unpredictability and destructive force. The falling tree is not seen
exclusively as an obstacle that must be cleared away or as the reason for the
renovation, but as a rupture in which the framework of rationality yields for a
second to make way for something unpredictable. The event opens up a stage for
an interplay between art and nature that lies beyond the reach of fixed
directions and the objectifying gaze. It is a gesture that leads viewers to
consider the relationship between art and nature, and the nature of art. Where
does nature end and art begin? What are the forces and incidents that a work of
art binds together? What is the contribution of nature to art when it refuses
to be translated into landscapes or objects?
‘The proposal by
Elo, Karo and Laakso is complex and theoretically challenging, yet also very
down to earth. The works by Antti Laitinen and Terike Haapoja are topical in
the way that they both address our relationship to nature. The artists do not
illustrate their concern over the state of nature, using instead visual and
symbolic means to present an argument,' says Jan Kaila, Chairman of the
Board of FRAME.
‘The tree falling
on the pavilion was what sparked off the exhibition concept. A stimulus like
that is often the trigger that sets the artistic process in motion. Instead of
a fixed theme, we wanted to take as our starting point this unforeseeable
gesture that brings nature and art into collision in a certain place at a
certain moment, and thus challenges us to consider the dynamic between art and
nature in a broader way. How do art and nature interface when nature is not
reduced into mere raw material for art or a subject for representation? Antti
Laitinen and Terike Haapoja both work in their own specific ways in these
unforeseeable areas of confluence. The two exhibitions complement one another,
bringing into play the enigmatic connections between the life of art and the
art of life,’ say the curators of the exhibitions.
Antti Laitinen
(b. 1975) will create a new installation for the Aalto Pavilion, and also
present a sample of his earlier work. He will additionally conduct a
performance on the biennale grounds, and documentation of the performance will
be included in the exhibition. Antti Laitinen’s art is characterised by the
physical testing of limits and the tragicomic character of our relationship to
nature. A man steps onto the arena of nature, ready to do battle, such as
spending days on end in the forest without clothes, food or drink, or sailing
over the Gulf of Finland on a bark boat.
Terike Haapoja
(b. 1974) will bring to the Nordic pavilion a research laboratory in which art,
science and technology will come together in unexpected ways. The art of Terike
Haapoja is characterised by an overall research approach which highlights the
points of contact between contemporary art, natural science and environmental
ethics. Haapoja’s practice is also coloured by ecological activism.
The curator team
– Mika Elo (b. 1966), Marko Karo (b. 1971) and Harri Laakso (b. 1965) – are
artist-curators who all work as researchers in the School of Art and Design at
Aalto University. Their previous international curated works
includeBacklight 2002 and 2005 (Laakso), Helsinki Photography
Festival 2005 (Elo),Pointers 2006–2007 (Laakso), Square
Minutes 2007 (Elo and Laakso), Art Research Event 2009–2011 (Elo
and Laakso), Helsinki Photography Biennial 2012 (Karo). In summer
2011, the team had a joint exhibition entitled Extracts in the
Rantakasarmi Gallery in Suomenlinna, Helsinki.
The artists’
websites:
www.anttilaitinen.com
www.terikehaapoja.net
The
55th Venice Biennale:
http://www.labiennale.org/en/art/
FRAME Foundation
is a visual arts foundation supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and
Culture. The mission of FRAME is to strengthen the position of Finnish visual
arts and to promote international cooperation between artists and art
institutions.
www.frame-fund.fi
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