Camouflage.
Visual Art and Design in Disguise
15 June–7 October 2012
Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma
Mannerheiminaukio 2
00100 Helsinki, Finland
Artists: Silvia B. (Rotterdam), Hans-Christian Berg (Inkoo), Florencia Colombo (Buenos Aires-Helsinki), Company: Aamu Song & Johan Olin (Helsinki), Sebastian Errazuriz (New York), Jiri Geller (Helsinki), Tommi Grönlund & Petteri Nisunen (Helsinki), Handkerchief Production: Amy Cheung & Erkka Nissinen (Hongkong–New York), Idiots: Afke Golsteijn & Floris Bakker (Amsterdam), Riitta Ikonen & Karoline Hjorth (New York–Oslo), Kariel: Muriel Lässer & Karri Kuoppala (Glarus–Helsinki), Kaisu Koivisto (Helsinki), Tuomas Laitinen (Helsinki), Kaija Papu (Tampere), Kim Simonsson (Helsinki), Unbuilt Helsinki, Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich (Berwick-upon-Tweed), Maaria Wirkkala (Helsinki), Antti Yli-Tepsa (Helsinki)
Visual art loves design
Opening in Kiasma, Museum of contemporary art in Helsinki on 15 June 2012, the exhibition Camouflage. Visual Art and Design in Disguise has contemporary art and design in the leading role.
“The focus of the Camouflage exhibition is on the interplay between contemporary art and design, and also their fluid boundaries. Camouflage serves as a metaphor for the intertwining of these two areas,” says curator of the exhibition, Leevi Haapala, reassuringly.
Both camps feel attracted to the ideas and practices of the other, yet they frequently try to preserve the dividing lines. With their actions, works, active discussion, and concept definition, designers and artists alike have opened the intersecting area in interesting new directions.
The Camouflage exhibition focuses on how designers and artists work when they filter impulses, process ideas, seek a direction for their work. The ideas presented here are suggestions, discoveries, and carefully aimed provocations that hint at the authors’ future work in relation to the ongoing discussion on the topic.
The 19 artists, designers, duos, and collectives live in different parts of the world. In addition to Finland, they come from Argentina, Great Britain, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States. Many of them work between two or more cities and cultures. They come from a range of cross-disciplinary backgrounds, and their changing projects provide them with changing professions and identities.
The exhibition is part of the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 programme.
Upcoming in Autumn
Osmo Rauhala
28 September 2012–13 January 2013
Kiasma presents a solo exhibition of new work by Osmo Rauhala, an artist dividing his time between Siuro, Finland, and New York. In his paintings, Rauhala complements animal and plant symbolism with a pure world of abstract signs.
Toby Ziegler
28 September 2012–13 January 2013
The sculptures of the British artist Toby Ziegler build up into a spatial installation which makes use of the architecture of the Studio K gallery and the view from its window. The functional shapes of aircraft containers are juxtaposed with seemingly abstract figures based on images of classic sculptures sourced from the Internet.
Collection exhibition
2 November 2012–17 March 2013
Occupying three entire floors of the museum, the collection exhibition explores the use of documentarism in contemporary art: how art combines fact and fiction, how things can be documented, archived and classified, and if documents can restore something already disappeared. The exhibition also examines the changes of documentarism in different media and their impact on the content of art. The international group exhibition consists mostly of new acquisitions to the Kiasma collection.
*Image above:
Sebastian Errazuriz, Occupy Chair, 2011. Photo: Leevi Haapala.
