KAARINA KAIKKONEN
March 28 > May 16, 2015
z2o Sara Zanin Gallery is pleased to present the third solo show by the Finnish artist Kaarina Kaikkonen. Kaikkonen’s alphabet is composed of fragments of everyday stories and existence, which, like minute pieces of a large mosaic, form a universally recognizable language. These fragments are everyday discarded clothes and objects that bear the traces of their previous lives, silent witnesses of a story. Shirts, shoes, jackets and cutlery become monuments to past existences and trustees of traditional social, ethical and political values in communication with the environment in which they return to life.
Apparently fragile as a cloth fluttering in the wind, Kaarina Kaikkonen’s work is starched and stiffened until it attains the solidity of a weighty monument, resisting in time and space. The clothes are a sensitive film that separate and, at the same time, relate the human being to the surrounding environment, propagating the individual’s identity in society. As the artist explains, the garment is a guardian of its owner’s secrets. Using it as raw material is a way for Kaarina Kaikkonen to involve people’s lives in her work and lend them a universal dimension. Each of the works has its origins in Kaikkonen’s artistic sensibility and capacity to listen to the place, its story and social life.
Her creations are born of a process which is a premise for their existence; through the involvement and participation of the local inhabitants, called to donate their old clothes or to collaborate in the installation of the works, the artist activates relational dynamics in order to restore the traditional cohesion between the individuals and their social surroundings. The single sculpture becomes an installation invading the architectonical space or natural landscape and is the outcome of theaesthetic and ethical bond between art, life, geography and human history. The aesthetic form, with its modular structure, in which each element is connected to the other, creates a metaphorical social tissue, in which the individualsare bound together in a community with its particular place, story and culture. The overpowering immediacy of Kaarina Kaikkonen’s works resides in their universal anthropological meaning that can tell a story or be read without captions, as the landscapes created by the artist are nothing less than landscapes of persons,each with their own interior geographies.
Kaarina Kaikkonen was born in 1952 in Iisalmi (Finland). She lives and works in Helsinki. Among the most important solo shows: Kaarina Kaikkonen, Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art, Turku, Finland (2014), Crossing Borders, Prato Contemporanea, Museo Pecci Prato (2014), Whereabouts, Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki (2014), Touching The Sky, Centro Centro, Madrid, Hiding Memories, Humanscape, Spazio Museale di Palazzo Tornielli, Ameno (2011), From Generation to Generation, Roma Z2O Galleria | Sara Zanin e Fondazione Pastificio Cerere (2009), Kaarina Kaikkonen - Oulo Taidemuseo - Oulu City Art Museum, Oulu City (2009), Kaarina Kaikkonen, l´Espal, Le Mans, France (2008), Kaarina Kaikkonen, Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki (2008), Forget-Me-Not, Korjaamo Culture Factory, Helsinki (2008), Oh My God, Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Vestfossen (2007), Like A Bridge Over Troubled Water, Echigo, Tsumari Art Triennial, Niigata (2006), Across the Deep, Bass Museum of Art, Miami (2006).
Among the most important group exhibitions: Le vol en provenence d'Helsinki, Centre Régional d'Art Contemporain, Montbéliard, France (2014), In Other Worlds. Stadtgalerie Kiel, Kiel, Germany (2014), Konst i ån 2014, Norrtälje konsthall, Norrtälje Sweden (2014), Nature and More, Kunsthalle Rostock, Rostock , Germany (2014), Shoeting Stars, KunstHaus Wien, Austria (2014), SKILLS, Nordnorsk kunstnersenter,Svolvaer, Lofoten, Norway (2014), Mänttä Art Festival, Mänttä, Finland (2014), Re: Art, Meken, Smedjebacken, Sweden (2014), Resonance(s), Maison Particuliere, Brussels, Belgium (2014), Auf Schritt und Tritt, Museum Villa Rot, Ulm, Germany (2013), Out Of Fashion, KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Denmark, 2013, Out Of Fashion, Gl Holtegaard Copenhagen, Denmark (2013), Where Is My Home? USE-United States of Europe, Récollects, Paris France 2013, A Connection, USE–United States of Europe, Pharos Arts Foundation, Nicosia, Cypros (2012), Existence, Memory – International Contemporary Sculpture, PAN-Palazzo delle Arti, Naples, Italy (2012), The Queen of the Night, What A Party! Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art, Turku, Finland (2012), Ekolandia, Lahti Art Museum, Lahti, Finland (2012), As A Tree I Can Feel The Wind, progetto per Art Miami, Miami (2011), A Connection, United States of Europe, FabrySTREFA, Lodz, Poland (2011), IL CAOS - conflicts, Isola di San Servolo, evento collaterale, 54ª Biennale di Venezia (2011), , Memory- new International sculpture, Rosenfeld Porcini, London (2011).
