Finland: Myth and Innovation

Lauri Laine - Musician VII (2014)

Already a few years ago, another artist friend remarked that nowadays there is no distinction between the Finnish contemporary art production and – say – that of Portugal. In today’s global art world, trends no longer acknowledge or avow any connection to a specific place. This was once again all the more clear to me when I recently traveled to Berlin to see a group exhibition by young artists from the Dominican Republic. I set out to find any difference between the works on show and Finnish contemporary art: to no avail. Then I tried to identify some eminently Caribbean elements. I came up empty.

Tuomo Saali - Exotic Wandere (2015)

Perhaps, however, we have reached a turning point. Globalization is poised to meet its opposite dialectic force. Luckily, this has nothing to do with rigid nationalism (which is also on the rise), but rather concerns the local and community aspects that are clearly emerging in everyday life. At the same time, the subjective, at times narcissistic stance of the Eighties is losing momentum. Artists no longer investigate their identity and their education, or their own interpretation thereof; what they do now is they try to see themselves and their work in context, anchoring things to a certain place or small social units, instead of their ego. The weight of place, family, and history is gaining ground. From the essential driving force of art, memory has emerged, together with the ability to use it and particularly to enrich it with what is more difficult to recall. But, rather than personal memories, these are things that are remembered together as a group – or withheld together.

Eeva-Liisa Isomaa - Untitled (2015)

Artists have started to rewrite history. Art’s connection to a place no longer means that an artwork is created in a certain space, but indicates that the spatial dimension is recognized and strengthened in the artist’s themes. David Harvey, the guru of the Nineties, was wrong when he argued that “space is annihilated by time”. Speed and the reduction of space have not irrevocably changed our world, after all. The endless meta-levels introduced by post-modernism, as well as the need to represent an ironic conscience, have withered. Nowadays Finnish artists are not afraid to approach their themes in a way that would have been benignly ridiculed a while ago: nostalgia, melancholy and childhood joy can now be addressed upfront just like rage, candor and even aggressiveness.

Panu Ruotsalo - Old, New, Borrowed and Me (2015)

The cold conceptualism that was widely appreciated in the art world of the 2000s, has had to make room for less intellectual and more direct ways to make art. In fact, the two have apparently come to coexist – at times in the production of the same artist. The relationship with art history has also changed. Finland’s young contemporary art was obsessed with a certain intolerance towards modernism for a long time. However, the transition phase has clearly been overcome and what was often a rather inarticulate disgust, has been replaced by a benevolent, at times even playful curiosity towards various modernist trends. Many young painters have gone back to the theme of their predecessors, but Ad Reinhardt’s motto “Art is art-as-art and everything else is everything else” no longer applies. The fact that a certain sacredness of art has disappeared seems a fundamental point. In the end, the black square can be painted in different ways, with a range of patterns to choose from, and in various contexts.

Petri Kaverma - Falling Man Sleeping Man Never existed (2015)

Reflecting on the history of “our” art, expressionism seems to have played a particular – but fickle – role. Born before the Great War, characterized by dark tones and a rural temperament, expressionism was elevated to the status of explicitly national art by critics and art historians alike; then it was challenged by the more modern currents. This tension has given a specific quality to Finnish art. In Finland, expressionism never achieved the level of social criticism that has characterized it, for example, in Germany.

Lasse Ylitalo - Untitled (2015)

The powerful waves of imperious neo-expressionism of the Eighties washed over Finland too, but here, surprisingly, it was spearheaded by a strong group of women, instead of heroic manly figures: a tradition that is still very much alive in Finnish art. There was never any censorship, no dialectic process, because those strong female models were never the object of a generational fight that might have relegated them to the trashcan of history. On the contrary, they soon became well-loved and esteemed artists, and this apparently continues to be the case.

Mari Rantanen - Untitled (2015)

On the other hand, a noticeable fracture was created in terms to expressive means, when photographic and video art conquered the art field. Many painters started to feel marginalized when, for a certain period of time in the Nineties and 2000s, only photographs, videos and installations were regarded as contemporary art. I remember very well something that happened when I was in Paris around the year 2000 to talk about Finnish contemporary art at an art magazines congress. I was showing the works of a graphic designer, which were in fact quite revolutionary, when suddenly a voice rose from the audience: “She doesn’t seem to be very contemporary”.

Carl Wargh - Self-portrait as a Dog (2015)

Whatever the case, the hierarchy of tools and techniques seems to have been subverted. A video artist may start to paint, and painters are free to show photographs as well as paintings in their exhibitions. It is a custom that has become quite common. Realizing one’s ideas apparently requires a greater variety of tools and techniques, while the conventions of each genre no longer seem to be as fundamental as they used to. But then again, such conventions do not require to be deliberately and resolutely questioned any longer.

Aimo Katajamäki - Asino alfabetico (2015)

The medium is no longer at the center. Luckily, in Finland artists have not been contaminated by the cult of the star system, going from one biennial to the next, and they still address the eternal human themes. This is partly due to the lack of international stars in Finnish art, with a few notable exceptions. For example, in the very popular Art Facts rankings, the first thousand names include only two Finns, and they both appear after the sixteenth position.

Liisa Kanerva - Springtime (2015)

With the increase in human stories, it could be said that, in the end, the era of great stories is far from over. But greatness is no longer represented by dogmas, religion, or political ideologies; rather, by those small stories that offer to everyone the chance to identify with the artwork across social classes, in a way that is authentic and democratic. The work of Finnish artists no longer illustrates what it means to be an artist, but what it means to be a human being in general. Artists have become fellow travelers.