SuomiBy land
I avoid flying in Europe. I travel mostly by train. During the last year I’ve travelled once to Italy and twice to Germany, realising once again how long way it is from Finland to Central Europe. During the next six months I’m going to Sweden, Austria, Italy, and twice to Germany. Some trips I can… Read more
Business as usual?
Yesterday I saw Sun & Sea, the Lithuanian opera that was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2019. It was warm in the big hall of the Cable Factory but it was only natural because we were watching a sandy beach. Natural? It was warm because of some sixty 2kW lamps in… Read more
On irreplaceability
Jussi got ill in the weekend, ten days before the premiere of the Water Concert. Right away, he said two names of possible substitutes. We don’t want to cancel the shows, do we? No! Jussi wrote: ”Everyone can be replaced. We, the original threesome, make always different versions, or what?” We found a good substitute.… Read more
On artivism
As an artist, I feel sometimes that my doings don’t have any significance. Can I go on making art when it would be more important to participate in the activities of the Extinction Rebellion and Greenpeace for focusing attention to climate change. Can I go on making art when it would be more important to… Read more
Two performances
Two performances, the first I make as a spectator, the second as an artist. A popular actor parks his big, shining black Porsche on the street, gets out, dressed like people dress when they take their dog out on bad weather, and enters café. He buys a cardboard cup of coffee and exits. Picks a… Read more
On uncertainty. Indeed.
Yesterday I sketched a newsletter because I was about to travel to a festival in Gothenburg in early January, with the Firehead. I left the sketch to rest for a night. In the evening I got an email that the festival was cancelled and the next one will take place in January, 2023. I wrote:… Read more
Doing nothing
The late autumn and the whole winter I had a lot to do. In April, in the countryside, I realised that I was sitting on my rocking chair, watching the birch tree quivering in the wind. Doing nothing else. Being. I startled: could I get used to it? What about if I won’t feel like… Read more
On experimental art
In Finnish we have two different but a bit similar words to talk about experimental art, kokeellinen and kokeileva. In my ears, the first suggests tradition and genre, the second something that is living and trying out, even fooling around, that is to say, playing. I think the second suits better when we talk about… Read more
Self-portrait as a subsidized artist, vol. 3
I wrote the first Self-portrait as a subsidized artist for Valkeapää–Hoffrén’s performance 10 journeys to a place where nothing happens, in autumn 2010. Writing that I was living the last year of a three-year grant by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. I told how it was like to be a subsidized artist – I could do… Read more
About the mission of art etc, once again
Teemu Mäki and many others have written, thoughtfully, about art’s mission and significance. The matter pops up in my mind quite often. And it bothers me. Now and then I find that I’m an art police, who declares that something, that has been named as art and is sold as such, is not art. Like… Read more
