Galerie Forsblom is delighted to present Nature Morte?, a group exhibition curated by artist Hannu Väisänen. The exhibition includes a group of artists whom audiences might not automatically associate with the still life genre. Each artist was given a free hand to interpret the still life challenge in their own particular way. Together they have produced a body of paintings, videos, assemblages, photographs and sculptures that posit answers to the question framed in the title of the exhibition: What exactly is a still life? And, saliently, what does it signify in a contemporary context?
“One might assume that contemporary art in all its diversity might no longer have a place for the still life, a genre believed capable of survival only as long as there was such a thing as pure painting, pure sculpture and pure graphic art. One might imagine that the quiet, unhurried Nature Morte and Memento Mori are homeless amid the furious, iridescent maelstrom of contemporary art. And one might assume that a genre that carries the word death in its very name might indeed be dying. This, however, is not the case: the Nature Morte is not dying. Although its name is seldom used – smacking as it does of antiquated Salon art – many contemporary artists, whether consciously or unconsciously, address its eternal themes. We can predict a long life for this genre that is as complex, many-layered, surprising and endless as the cabinets of a lost & found office. May the Nature Morte? exhibition offer proof of this. – Hannu Väisänen
The featured artists take fresh approaches to the still life genre, endowing age-old motifs with unexpected new meanings in a contemporary context. The contributing artists are Carolus Enckell, Kaarina Kaikkonen, Heikki Marila, Reima Nevalainen, Nina Roos, Charles Sandison, Kim Simonsson, Toni R. Toivonen, Hannu Väisänen and Adam Winner.