Review: The Generation 2020 exhibition, Amos Rex
by Alex Koller
Since the early February of 2020, the art museum Amos Rex has been featuring the second edition of the triennale exhibition titled Generation. Significantly bigger than its predecessor, Generation 2020 hosts works of 80 artists aged 15 to 23 that were carefully selected out of more than 1600 proposals. This multidisciplinary group exhibition claims to be a meeting ground for young creatives that allows them to showcase their talents and reflect on the shattered realities of today’s society. Regardless of the fact that the open call did not navigate the young artists to narrow their proposals down to any specific theme, a few topics such as sexual and cultural diversity, climate change or technological progress prevail in the show.
There is no doubt that in terms of their maturity and unconventional execution, each one of the selected artworks featuring in the exhibition deserves special attention. In this review, however, I am only going to critically analyse a chosen few that according to my professional opinion stand out in this year’s edition of Generation. The nominated artworks that will be discussed in this review are Kaisa Syrjänen’s and Maija Viipuri’s multimedia installation Lovely?, a sculpture installation Plastic Home by Catherin Edlund and Annika Karhonen’s video art Have You Ever Tasted a Foot Fungus Burger?
Well, isn’t it just lovely?
There is just under one hundred calories in a banana.
Lovely? is a two part multimedia installation produced by a couple of twenty-two-year-old photography and dance students from Helsinki, Kaisa Syrjänen and Maija Viipuri. The installation consists of a series of 47 photographs that depict a female stomach in various physio-morphological stages of saturation, audio recording and a moving image displaying Maija munching on a piece of cucumber. How odd, I thought to myself as approaching the piece but as soon as I started reading through the exhibit’s brochure, I began to gain more and more understanding of how disturbing and troublesome this seemingly “common” display of photographs depicting a human body really is.
“I skipped breakfast ‘cause I had to eat at least something at school. Or friends would’ve noticed something weird,” reads the opening. The text continues, “I didn’t eat anything before six yesterday. I drank five cups of coffee and three bottles of water, so I wouldn’t feel the hunger. I can’t stop eating”, or, “hunger makes me itch.” More than anything else, the brochure reminded me of a journal reporting someone’s alarming eating habits.
Mesmerised and distrurbed by this work, I contacted the artists inquiring a little bit more information about the piece. In order for me to fully grasp their work’s objectives and understand their intentions, I needed a little bit more insight into what exactly was going on in their minds while producing Lovely?. I was curious to find out whether this artwork has in fact an autobiographical nature or it is a fictionary reflection of the societal appearance-related pressure to look a certain way.
“Lovely? is a kind of an auto-fictional work which combines our own experience with life experiences of others. The kickstart of the project was the need to work with our own physicality under the society’s gaze,” Kaisa and Maija explained.
“The purpose of Lovely? was to draw attention to this phenomena which is huge but still so muted. We wanted to bring diversity to the stories about eating disorders and how they touch so many of us without anybody knowing.”
But are people actually ignorant about the phenomenon of eating disorders? The object of the idealised human body has in fact become a recurring theme among the walls of contemporary art galleries. Questions such as, to what degree does society affect the way we see and feel about ourselves, why do we all compare to one another or how far does one need to go in order to realise that their obsession to look perfect has long become an issue damaging their mental health, are being repeatedly asked.
In order to observe this, one does not have to travel too far. Even in the Generation 2020, there are several artworks that fearlessly explore what is the physical experience of being under society’s gaze and what is the significance of internal awareness in a world that idealises the body as an object and privileges the gaze. Examples of these works are for instance Jenny Hytönen’s video Nectar in which the artist crushes beautifully arranged fruit on the table under her stiletto-heeled boots or Lumi Tuomi’s series of self-portraits titled Portrait of Alopecia that depict her boldness, the condition caused by an autoimmune disease.
However, what drew my attention to Lovely? was not so much its subject matter. It was the boldness, honesty and the striking representation of reality many of us can relate to that made the hair at the back of my neck stand up while reading the diary-like brochure. Yes, many of us do strive to look perfect for others neglecting the fact that they are unhealthy and unhappy but only a few of us would be willing to admit it, let alone announce it publicly in one of the most visited art museums in Finland. I applaud these two young artists not only for their well conceptualised ideas but most importantly for their ability to manifest their own vulnerability in a way that is authentic and speaks out to the audience.
Kaisa and Maija met each other years back while studying dance during their highschool years. The amount of time and energy the artists invested into learning about human morphology, its role in the mechanics of movement and its influence on a dynamic motion system explains their fascination with the relationship between a movement and image. Therefore, it is not surprising that Lovely? is also accompanied by a dance performance. In their own words, “the two parts of the piece differ but at the same time comment on each other. Three words that would define Lovely? would be: honesty, humaneness and declarative.” The artists have previously collaborated on some smaller projects but they both consider Lovely? to be their first real work as a collective. From this project onwards, the girls will be working together under the group name Tyyppinen.
Somewhere over the…glowing pavilion of plastic straws
Plastic Home also known as the “glowing pavilion of plastic straws” by Catherin Edlund has been made by meticulously stacking up 40 000 plastic straws into a two metres tall structure that with its uncanny shape resembles stormy sea waves. On a first glance, it appears that Catrin’s work is a response to an overconsumption of plastic products that have been damaging our precious ecosystems. Sadly, every year, 8 million metric tons of plastics enter our ocean on top of the estimated 150 million metric tons that currently circulate our marine environments.
However, is Catrin with her three-dimensional sculpture trying to deceive the audience by simplifying the materiality of her work or is her piece on the other hand only a referential statement that is challenging spatial readings through art? The genre of installation art in general incorporates a broad range of material from new media to readymade and everyday found objects. Naturally, the particular media is often chosen for its evocative qualities and in many cases it can be a window into an artist’s momentary psyche. However, this fairly recent form of art also takes into account a broader sensory experience and therefore, the traditional aesthetics and it’s material concerns do not necessarily play an important role in its existence.
In this particular case, I will examine two theories that in a way correspond with Catrin’s creative processes as she states: “I hope my art reaches beyond the domain of language, in a way that does not require emotions or thoughts to assume an external appearance.” In the first part of her statement, Catrin expresses her hope that Plastic Home will lead to a dialogue between art and the audience but she wishes her dialogue to stretch beyond the familiar domain of language and extend to the incorporation of bodily and sensual experiences too. At the same time, the artist continues that no thoughts or emotions will be required to realise the external qualities of this work and therefore, her choice to recycle and use readymade objects such as plastic straws could potentially be a direct indicator of her concept behind Plastic Home.
The artist claims that in her work, she is interested to investigate: “what effects installation art has on the audiences and its surroundings- awakening a presence through a dialogue between art and the body.” Plastic Home is therefore no exception. The installation piece has been constructed specifically for people to interact with it. Not necessarily by touch but rather by its spatial potential which is experimental and allows the audience to communicate with its surroundings. “My installations stem from my own reflections on the concept of pragmaticism prevalent in our society and how it comes into play: from the grassroots to power structures and politics, Catrin explained.”
By definition, pragmaticism considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving and action whilst rejecting the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. In terms of aesthetics, pragmatists believe that art and life are, in some sense, a unity and therefore, art should be a part of everyone’s creative life. Pragmatists elevate the audience from a passive recipient to an active participant and claim that works of art are too complex and difficult to fathom, and since they are all internally experienced by a huge amount of individuals who decipher them in their own idiosyncratic way, no determinate interpretation can be given.
I consider Plastic Home to be one of those pieces of art that were designed to challenge the limits within which spectators can experience art. Thanks to the installation’s material properties, the artist achieved to accentuate her work’s unique characters and the nature of aesthetic appreciation. The combination of harmony and rhythms turned this otherwise static structure into an exuberant and sensory stimulating piece of art. It is difficult for me to argue whether this piece does or does not reflect on the current environmental issues in reality, but the anthropological romantic inside me would like to believe that this work, although richly suggestive, has been created for a deeper metaphysical purpose.
WHY Have you NOT ever tasted a foot fungus burger?
I am a pink peony that tumbles under its heavy flower looks at the grass, thinking “napkins carry such a lovely tune.” I am a tiny plum that prances along the beach rolls into the water, bruises catch the eye “Look, I’m all lilac,” the tiny plum says, “yet, the water keeps me afloat.”
Perhaps you remember, it was not so long ago that Amos Rex first opened its doors to the public with the collection of immersive digital installations by teamLab after being relocated from its place of origin in Yrjönkatu to occupy larger and fresher looking spaces of Lasipalatsi. The exhibition turned out to be a huge success bringing in tens of thousands of visitors in a matter of just weeks.
On that account, I have made a decision that the artwork that will conclude this critical review will also be one of the new media artworks. The video that I chose to briefly analyse titled Have You Ever Tasted a Foot Fungus Burger? deserves my special attention thanks to its experimental and eccentric nature and the perplexing complexity of its narrative that is informing but bamboozling at the same time.
Have You Ever Tasted a Foot Fungus Burger? has been made by a twenty-three-year-old student of Media and Arts at TAMK University of Applied Sciences in Tampere, Annika Karhonen who is also a member of an artist group that goes by the name of Superimposed. The aim of this artist collective is to use experimental artistic research to see whether there are any common grounds among people, when it comes to the act of dreaming. Intriguing? Very! Knowing that Korhonen is actively participating in the group activities, I wondered to what degree her digital art that is currently being shown in Generation 2020 has been influenced by the concept of dreaming and a waking fantasy.
In her video, Annika becomes a first hand mediator, a storyteller who with a seemingly strong sense of self-awareness recites a story that subverts any logical reasoning.
Do you know the feeling when you’re eating a burger and it tastes like shit and you see a foot fungus growing between the buns and you realize that the only thing that differentiates you from that fungus is that it’s between two buns and you start wondering why there is a foot fungus growing on your burger and you remember that you ordered it vegan.
Then I get home and there’s the dog and the horse video. My job is to stare at that dog that’s staring at that horse video. I’m cool with this job. I don’t have to leave home.
It’s much easier to stay here. Though sometimes a hundred dogs appear at once and I have to stare at all of them. I must make sure they can all see the horse video.
When the horse video ends and it gets dark, I ask myself, “What the hell are you doing with your life?” Then my mom calls and tells me, “Hey, don’t fall into the pit of despair!” And I tell her, “I am not falling into the pit of despair, I’m at the bottom already, I live here, I’m from here.” E is for elephant in the room, P is for pit of despair.
I consider Annika’s work to be self-referential. Not in a way that it would be considered an autobiographical piece but in a way that it leads us to finding her inside an epoch-making transformation determined by alienation. Immersed in the video with every clip that you take in, you think that you are getting closer to understanding her psyche. The longer you watch the more emotional the entire experience becomes. You starting to think, yeah, I totally get it but that is the moment when the screen suddenly shuts and the one thing that resonates with you is only the closing statement:
I’m too exhausted to explain why someone complained that my apartment smells like a dead dog so I just start jabbering bullshit about some foot fungus burgers.
That is when the video reloads and begins to play the entire story from the beginning. Devices of language and the literary elements as well as the images that the artist utilized in her video seem to negate any logical meaning. The sensory overload this work provides does compare to a dreamlike trance after all. But is it necessary for me to pinch myself? The state of confusion that I find myself in baffles me. My consciousness is hazy but soon the reality kicks in and takes over my senses. I dare to define Have You Ever Tasted a Foot Fungus Burger? as a fantastically logical digital nonsense.