PRESS RELEASE
Check updated info from the Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1029188280425072/
LANDSCAPE – METROPOLIS Exhibition, 11th July – 8th August, 2015
Finland – Ireland – Berlin
Artists:
Riikka Aresalo I Ciro Beltran I Alma Heikkilä I Heli Hietala I Jane Hughes I Tapani Hyypiä I Sir- pa Jokinen I Saara-Maria Kariranta I Bartlomiej Kiszka I Kaija Kiuru I Kaisu Koivisto I Erja Laak- konen I Sanna Majander I Pia Männikkö I Joe McGill I Anu Miettinen I Moseke & Pelda I Elva Mulchrone I Enda O’Donoghue I Mimosa Pale I Jonne Pitkänen I Eeva-Liisa Puhakka I Anni Rapino– ja I Kevin Ryan I Kaisa Salmi I Michael Snoek I Hendrik Voerkel I Human Era video works
Concept – Curator John Power in collaboration with Anu Miettinen, Eeva-Liisa Puhakka, Jane Hughes and LARU ART Association, Finland
LARU ART Association presents Human Era, a special series of video works shown for the first time in an international setting. The series consists of works by: Carolin Koss I Silja Puranen I Leena Lahti I Kaisu Koivisto I Hannele Romppanen I Mia Mäkelä I Jonne Pitkänen I Minna Alaluusua.
Location:
Former power station Rathenauhallen
Wilhelminenhofstr. 83. building 70
12459 Berlin – Schöneweide
Exhibition opening times:
Saturday 11th & Sunday 12th July: 11am – 6pm
Thursday 16th July – Saturday 8th August: Gallery open Thursday to Sunday 12pm – 6pm
Opening Friday 10th of July at 6pm. The Exhibition will be officially opened by Denise McQuade The Press and Cultural Affairs Officer, Embassy of Ireland.
Opening night event only: Performance Voyage 5: Domestic, a collection of international video screenings selected by Artists´Association MUU, Finland. Artists: Annette Arlander I Yvon Chabrowski I Sasha Huber I Julieta Maria, Sara Pathirane Richter I Meyer I Marx I Rah Saneie I Willem Wilhelmus I Tomasz Szrama I Carlo Zanni.
Landscape – Metropolis
This large-scale exhibition of Finnish Environmental Art in collaboration with Irish curator John Power of G11, and a myriad of Irish/Finnish/Berlin-based artists takes place for the first time in Berlin’s Metropolis, creating a unique platform for the exchange of ideas.
The show encompasses an impressive variety of media and scale including large sculptural installations, pho- tography, painting and video works. Concerns for the ecological and the poetic are knitted together in the apt setting of this former power station in Berlin-Schönweide, literally translated to ‘pretty pasture’. Sadly all rem- nants of these green meadows have long since vanished following Berlin’s industrialization. However, like the remote Finnish forests, or even barren Irish landscapes, Berlin’s industrial wasteland has become the perfect playground for artists, with space and freedom for experimentation, as one can see in this dynamic exhibition.
Environmental Art is a term often used in Finland, broadly encompassing but not limited to: ephemeral, site-specific, outdoor installations, city interventions, works often rejecting the white cube, engaging with natu- ral or recycled materials, with a focus on the ecological, ethical and the socio-political themes.
In this exhibition the viewer will experience the visceral and the tactile, in an eclectic mix of delicate materials and surreal experiences, such as Heli Hietala’s eerie use of carefully collected goose feathers in her hanging sculpture Birdies, or Jonne Pitkänen’s strange kinetic installations hiding in the cellar.
While Kevin Ryan’s House works are a playful response to the ever-growing urban environment of contempo- rary life, Alma Heikkilä’s painting, 10€ ( Money refers to it self) is a palpable comment on our current economic crisis and echoes the themes of Elva Mulchrone’s painting Economic Landscape V11, informed by the cyclical nature of repeat patterns and the consequences of macroeconomic policy through the process of painting.
Freezing moments of our high-speed digital reality of throwaway imagery, Enda O’Donoghue offers a moment’s respite in his slow, fastidious, almost mathematical painting, The Wet Collections. Similarly, dealing with our digital realities, Saara-Maria Kariranta’s approach embraces the possibilities of 3D printing, merging traditional sculptural techniques with contemporary technology.
An unassuming allure characterizes many of the artworks in this show, such as Sirpa Jokinen’s birdcage instal- lation, Chalk Scattered on a Birdcage, Dust Covering a Portrait. Kaisu Koivisto’s work from the series Land- scapes of Longing (Wünsdorf) poetically highlights our climate of uncertainties with natural scenery blemished with signs of exploitation in redundant military sites. While a strong presence is felt in the more contemplative paintings of Tapani Hyypiä, this contrasts again with the more chaotic, unabashedly defiant and vibrant works of artist duo Moseke & Pelda.
This is just a small flavour of some of the artworks to be experienced in this ambitious exhibition. Landscape-Metropolis hints at the motif of nature in its various guises, with a plea to preserve these sacred spaces in the face of economic pressures, yet acknowledges the constant flux in our environment, our ever expanding cities, and the impossibility of a clear didacticism as they inevitably mesh. Despite uncertain times these artists, each in their own way, show their persistence to grapple with our changing environments.
This exhibition celebrates LARU ART Association, Finland’s 10th anniversary. LARU ART Association is a Hel- sinki-based non-profit whose purpose is to promote environmental awareness, art creation and artists collabo- ration.
MUU is an artist run, Finnish interdisciplinary artist association, founded in 1987 to represent and promote new and experimental forms of art. It is the largest one of its’ kind in Finland. PERFORMANCE VOYAGE 5 show- cases video performances by 13 artists and collectives. The PV5 compilation theme is “Domestic”, implying such concepts as national, home and even homelessness, as well as family, native, national, political point of view, and immigration. For more info: visit www.muu.fi
Landscape – Metropolis is part of the Berlin Schöneweide Kunst am Spreeknie Festival (3.-12.July). For more info: www.kunst-am-spreeknie.de
For more information please visit: G11 Galerie: http://berlin.g11-art.de www.facebook.com/pages/G11-Galerie/ LARU ART Association, Finland www.laruart.com
This exhibition is kindly supported by Bezirksamt Treptow-Köpenick Berlin, the Arts Council of Uusimaa, Finland and the Embassy of Ireland, Berlin.
Press inquiries: landscape.metropolis@gmail.com
