Art Around the Clock

Lately I have been running in to a lot of classical, practically Greek or Roman, sculpture and paintings. These are not original artefacts from centuries past and they are not artworks by Neoclassicist or Renaissance artists, these artworks are created by contemporary arts practitioners. 

Li Hongbo “Goddess of the Parthenon”, paper, 45 x 22 x 25 cm, 2013 (Courtesy Klein Sun Gallery, New York. © Li Hongbo)

Probably the most well known artist working in this way currently is Li Hongbo. It is almost impossible not to have run into his expanding paper art objects. Magical objects that contain the happy and joyous extravagance of the origins of the technique best known from chinese paper-lantern decorations where Hongbo's original inspiration is said to have come from. Currently you can see Hongbo's work at the KleinSun Gallery in New York in his exhibition: Tools of Study, which runs until March 2^nd 2014. The sculptures themselves seem very pleasing in the way that having a cool new app on your iPhone is pleasing. 

Klein Sun Gallery

525 West 22nd Street New York

NY 10011

U.S.A.

Phone: (212) 255-4388

Monday through Saturday 10AM – 6PM

Li Hongbo / Tools of Study at Klein Sun Gallery from Colossal on Vimeo.

Another artist that caught my eye this week was Viggo Wallensköld who is currently having a  retrospective exhibition Variations (Variaatioita) at the Hämeenlinna Art Museum 22.2.–4.5.2014. Wallensköld paints figures who are often different, deformed, mutilated or part machine. There is a quality of unabashed loneliness and fragility to his work that is reminiscent of the Romantic Poets of the mid 18^th century. 

Hämeenlinna Art Museum

Viipurintie 213200 Hämeenlinna, Finland
p. (03) 621 3017

Tue-Thu 11-18
Fri-Sun 11-17
Mondays closed

Helsingin Sanomat 22.2.2014

I also went to see a couple of exhibitions this week around and about Helsinki. There is some interesting miniature floating worlds for view currently at Gallery Sculptor by Jouna Karsi: 12.2.-2.3.2014. The sculptures are glances from contemporary culture, with scenes that resemble title sequences of movies. 

Vuoristorata, Jouna Karsi

I also saw the Roberto Pugliese exhibition at MUU Gallery The Space Of A Year. This exhibition consisted of a single installation utilising two video screens and an elevated floor, which viewers could use to create their chosen soundtrack. The exhibition was a lot of fun though visually it felt a bit anticlimactic. Still well worth a visit. The exhibition runs until March 2^nd 2014.

The Space of a Year, Roberto Pugliese

I also went to Gallery G on a whim and I must say that I was surprised by the works of Kimi Pakarinen. In the past I have not been a fan of his paintings, but in this exhibition called Exploring My Realites, and despite the trite title of the exhibition, the paintings are riveting. They are made with colours that should not work and scribble like a teenagers first tagging of a wall and still they come together harmoniously. They remind me of a midlifecrises, there is anger, experience and some questionable decisions.

Kimi Pakarinen: L'Énigme d'un après-midi, 2013, öljy kankaalle, 160 x 200 cm

Imagine

Lets pretend, just for one moment, that this is not just a drawing of a square.

Let us pretend that this square is in fact a box and that this box is in fact the world. 

Not just any old world, but the world of thoughts and ideas.

Imagine that this box contains everything you have ever thought of in your lifetime. Everything you have dreamt in passing, on a long train journey from east to west from north to south. Each moment of weakness and enduring pain. The joys and playful undercurrents of conversations you have had.

IMAGINE

That everything in your mind could fit into this box.

Now imagine that this is not a box, but only a drawing of a square.

Exhibition evaluation: curating _ Waiting For The Summer

LONGING FOR THE SUMMER - A Journey into Naivism
2.11.2013 - 2.2.2014
Curated from the Suomen Gallup Foundation collection by Tapani Pennanen
Tampere Art Museum, Puutarhakatu 34, 33101 Tampere

The Longing For The Summer exhibition at Tampere Art Museum is a curated selection, of naivist paintings spanning over two floors of the museum. Foreign artists are presented in the ground floor gallery and Finnish artists on the upper level gallery. Paintings hang low on the walls emphasising a child's perspective, and the exhibition utilizes coloured and textured walls to accentuate exhibits. Highlighted and enlarged titles of selected artworks are placed randomly within the gallery spaces, they create an intriguing environment that inspires closer viewer examination of artworks.
Interestingly, the curator has used varied elements to accessorise, as well as, conceptualise a link to summer: fake grass, colourful rugs, wooden crates and paper lanterns. While ascending to the second level these elements work to an advantage, the viewer feels the softness of grass beneath their feet and sees text playfully framed by paper lanterns, evoking the feel of a summer garden party. Unfortunately these elements become confusing when combined with the exhibited works. It is questionable if these elements enhance the visitor's experience or only focus attention away from the actual exhibition.

Sunday searches

I've been looking at a lot of net art recently and one of the websites I am thoroughly enjoying is http://art.teleportacia.org run by olia lialina, Russian journalist, film critic and one of the pioneering net.art artists. The thing I love about this website is that along with lots of links to artworks and informative written texts, visiting the page is essentially like looking at the night sky. There is a connection between the Web and nature that I can't quite process but find alluring. She also reminds us that there is a distinct difference between the Internet and the Web.
Her artwork  Online Newspapers, édition française are hypnotising and the Le Monde work, makes me think of stories told around campfires.

Online Newspapers, édition française, Le Monde, Olia LIALINA, février 2013