Időjárástól függetlenül / Regardless of the weather

curated by: Eszter Lázár

The exhibiting artists invite us to visit special places, which cannot be defined based on easily describable geographical characteristics. Our thoughts, the spaces bound by our imagination, exist independently of geographical coordinates and weather conditions. While the special locations can be constructed from the space fragments coded by our experiences, the personal “map reading” methods and the dramaturgy of the story are determined by differences in emphasis.

Veli Granö is one of the best known Scandinavian photo and video artists. His works deal with studying people who live in realities, which deviate from social conventions. Granö follows the perhaps unusual, almost unbelievable, scenarios his peculiar main characters find themselves in with enviable respect and empathy. The film titled Meet You in Finland Angel (2003) is about a strange couple who, aside from their everyday lives, find the only fathomable world in a milieu that is independent of the dimensions of time and space. In the work, real, documentalist and fictional scenes alternate. The kArton Gallery also presents paintings by Jarmo Ylänen, one of the main characters of the film. www.veligrano.info

Katja Tukiainen, also known as a graphic artists of gender-themed comics has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions with her works (Kiasma, Amos Anderson – Helsinki, Big Torino, Finnish Institute in Paris). Katja is also a member of the Finnish organization “Word Comics,” which addresses human rights issues in Africa and India.

Her oil paintings – of a rather poetic ambiance – follow the unique graphic world of comic books and feature characters pondering the questions of existence in everyday, sometimes even banal, situations. This time around she has chosen a more neutral thematic as the point of departure for her paintings: the mental maps of existing locations (ex: Aizawl, Rejkjavik). www.katjat.net

Mária Chilf’s colourful, metaphoric aquarelles, depicting unique psychic states and “inner landscapes,” may be familiar to us from various exhibitions in the past few years (Műcsarnok/Kunsthalle, kArton Gallery). Her present pieces also deal with possibilities for the mental crossing of physical limitations, but this time she has also prepared some ironically toned photo work (“On Vacation At My Own Place”) in relation to the theme of the paintings. Chilf’s work presents alternative methods for relating to the world and to ourselves.

In his artwork, Szabolcs KissPál demonstrates “the fragility of perception and visual memory and the vulnerability of these faculties as constructed by technical images.” His latest video work (“Director’s Version”) also experiments with revealing and exposing our fixed automatisms. It entertains the question: to what extent are we influenced by the locations of media coverage – shown repeatedly to the point of boredom – and the stereotypical codes of news structure, when, with the help of our geographical knowledge, we “translate” the acquired information.

Katja Tukiainen will be holding a talk on contemporary Finnish comic art scene at 5 PM on 6 April 2006 at the kArton Gallery.

Supported by: NKA, Finnagora, STOA