Scholartist CV as PDF

It is tempting to use the word art, as the concept is loaded with cultural status, but I conceive my “artistic projects” to be ‘scholart’. I am definitely not the first scholar who leans towards artistic practices, and neither the first one to do that partly for scholarly, or in my case philosophical reasons. The literary work of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir (or Julia Kristeva and Carolyn Korsmeyer), Jean Baudrillard’s photos, Camille Paglia’s performance acts, many films made by visual anthropologists and some new wave films (directed by critics) could be viewed as scholartistic – without forgetting for example Nelson Goodman’s Hockey Seen.

The scholartist manifesto was published February 12, 2014, and it is a respectful appropriation of Sol Lewitt’s Sentences on Conceptual Art (1969). Together with my colleague Taina Rajanti, and Farbod Farkharzadeh, Eva Pavlic Seifert, Melinda Abercrombie and Andrea Coyotzi Borja we held the historical first exhibition on/of Scholart November 14, 2014, in the ARTS House of Aalto University at Otaniemi Espoo (Finland).

My work in performance, curating, literature, essay writing and manuscript writing can of course be viewed otherwise too – for example as art. Here I have, anyway, aspired to make sense of this side of my lifework by listing projects, events and results of these experimental practices.

LITERATURE

My novel Näkymätön lapsi was published August 2021 by Kovasana (Turku). It is a story, which looks like the typical one – a normal family, in Finland even living in the forest, but close to a city. But if the reader reads carefully, nothing is really what it looks like. Philosophically speaking the book is sneakily an intersectional manifesto for today’s Finland.

I am currently working on my second novel. My first publisher, Kovasana, which was really great – like my essay publisher Savukeidas – starts publishing only children’s literature, so I have to look for a new partner in crime for the next one. It will be picaresque – I can say – and about cultural administration to some extent.

I have published two essay books in a genre that could maybe be called Umberto Eco meets Susan Sontag. Elokuva, rakkaani! (Film – mon amour) was published by Savukeidas (Turku, 2013). I mix reality with fiction (partly just because my own life is too dull for literature), sometimes visibly, sometimes so that it appears realistic – but at the same time I tried to pave a way for fresh thinking about film. Roskamaali – jääkiekon estetiikkaa ja kulttuurifilosofiaa (Garbage goal – aesthetics and cultural philosophy of ice hockey) was also published by Savukeidas (2013). I wrote about hockey philosophy for a broader public.

WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE FUCKER

Although a draft performance was held September 12 (2017) in Winchester (UK) at the Society for European Philosophy conference, february 2018 we had our first full performance of We Know Who You Are Fucker! with Davide Giovanzana at the Swedish Theatre Academy of the University of Arts Helsinki. It is a lecture performance, a reading accompanied by disturbing images, and it touches upon imagination and violence. We just did a performance of it in the absolutely lovely Riga Performance Festival (See link) in June 16. The performance takes 50 minutes and consists only of reading and images.

WRITING DANCING

I have worked on stage with dancer Tanja Illukka in Ismo-Pekka Heikinheimo’s choreography Writing Dancing, already 10 times. We performed in Helsinki Nov 11/13/14/16/20/21, 2015, in LéSPACE, we visited Turku Barker Theatre Dec 9 2015, and Sept 20 2016 we performed at the Leipzig dance festival and Sept 22 at the Dresden Dance Festival (Germany). Fall 2017 we performed at Jyväskylä’s Tanssin Aika festival. In this experimental act, I am writing (fast) on stage and Tanja is dancing, and we are communicating with each other. The history of the piece and my part of it is that I used to do writing performances where my text came on the wall, and Ismo-Pekka Heikinheimo happened to see one. He thought that this could become a part of a wider performance, and contacted me later to work with him and Illukka. As an experienced choreographer he was able to work out a fun whole from our interaction.

KALLIO KUNSTHALLE

I was the founding member of gallery Kallio Kunsthalle in Helsinki (Toinen linja 31) together with Petri Saarikko and Sasha Huber. It was a cooperation project with Elokolo, an organization for substance use prevention and the homeless. I wrote our texts and I was the chief curator for 2 exhibitions (I was involved, though, in nearly all exhibitions). Kallio Kunsthalle visited Stockholm Independent Art Fair Supermarket 2012 and earned a critique in Kunstkritikk. The gallery did some outsiderish social work and served us as a fun way of finding new friends. The highlight of the scholartist work presented was Yann Toma’s and Richard Shusterman’s somaesthetics photos. But the curatorial work reflected on the topic as well, although I never accentuated the connection.

ROR GALLERY

I was the founding member of ROR gallery, Helsinki / Kallio, which I was running together with Jiri Geller, Eva Neklyaeva, Ilse Rossander, Panu Puolakka, Karoliina Taipale, Klaus Nyqvist, and Sari Hiltunen. We put up the gallery as we did not find the art we wanted in the at the time dry (modernist/postmodernist) and conservative Helsinki art scene. The gallery was active from 2003-2004 (and we never planned to make it permanent). I focused on exhibition texts, production, press releases and some marginal curatorial activity. I worked on making adverts and exhibition texts as experimental as possible, by often having an other genre in mind when I wrote them (e.g. the instructions for how to activate a fridge). We showed many fun artists from Jeppe Hein to Henry Lim.

GALLERY KLEIN

Gallery KLEIN was my gallery experiment, which started at mine and Pia Euro’s gallery course in the Visual Culture MA program at Aalto University. This suitcase gallery which traveled with me wherever I gave speeches and lectures, was as real as possible with openings, artist statements and webpages. Most exhibitions are seen by approximately 100 viewers but the interesting thing with KLEIN was that people spent more time watching the art works. I remember from my old days as a ‘real gallerist’ that most visitors to ‘real’ galleries just walk in, turn their head and write their name in the guestbook, and then they go out, heading for the next one. Among many others, KLEIN exhibited Jean-Francois Paquay (Belgium), Elham Rahmati (Iran/Italy), Anna Korotkova (Russia/Finland), Sinem Kayacan (Turkey/Finland) and Melinda Abercrombie (US). With Taina Rajanti we finished the gallery with a performance act: we left it in Berlin, in the park close to the angel, together with a message (please adopt this gallery if you feel like it). I was lucky to be able to announce the existence of the gallery in Art Pulse, and the exhitions traveled to e.g. Riga, Saldus, Bratislava and Warsaw. KLEIN was also one of the official exhibition spaces showing the winners of the Nordic dance film competition 60secondsdance in 2015.

MISCELLANOUS

Spring 2015 I was a ‘mentor’, or a ‘reflective satellite’ (as the program said it) in Andrius Katinas‘, Vera Nevanlinna‘s and Salla Salin‘s Paper Piece at Zodiak (Dance Theatre). The performance was great and the experiment – a scholar feeding ideas during the project – was fun, but I am not sure how much I found a place for dialogue in the end. Anyway, it was interesting to follow the process and to test what could happen. To promote dialogue I wrote letters to the working group.

“What is Black Aesthetics? What is the intellectuality of civil rights movements? Do spiritual leaders have an impact on arts and artists?” Performance (and screening) with Khaled Ramadan. April 11, 2014. Studio Linnunlaulu / Kallio Kunsthalle. We boxed with Khaled, watched Muhammad Ali film clips and talked about our experiences of being with the skins etc. we are born with.

“A Critique of Max Ryynänen’s Performance at Experimental Event 2014“. EXPERIMENTAL EVENT 3. October. Pori, Finland. I wrote about my writing act (text on the wall) at the same time as it happened. 10 minute performance.

“Written lecture” at EXPERIMENTAL EVENT 2. October 4-5 2012. Pori, Finland. In this 10 minute performance I wrote about and reflected (in Sei Shonagon spirit) on Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book, which is full of fast impressions.

Dancer. Drive or Die, Kaapelitehdas Helsinki 1994 Autumn, Coreographer Ari Numminen, Director Kari Heiskanen. 14 performances. Production: Theatre Academy and Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE (TV1).

OTHER (CURATION, MANUSCRIPTS)

Scholart (link here). An exhibition of artistic working methods used in scholarly work. With Andrea Coyotzi Borja, Eva Pavlic Seifert, Farbord Fakharzadeh and Taina Rajanti. 2014. ARTS House, Aalto / ARTS, Otaniemi (Espoo, Finland).

“Borges on Bezoar.” Fake research. In Finbar Rosato & Petri Saarikko, Planet Bezoar or Planet Hairball according to the Lost Book of Time, p. 57. (As Usva Vinttilä.) Labyrinth Press, 2011.

Exhibition on kitsch, kitschy art, and art commenting kitsch at Pori University Consortium together with working group Anni Venäläinen, Kati Heljakka, Sampo Laaksonen, and Jukka Juhala. November. 2008. 

Perjantai. Short movie. Manuscript with Panu Heikkilä. Director: Panu Heikkilä. Actors: Ville Haapasalo, Johannes Brotherus. Production: Hanna Haaslahti. Fantomatico, Helsinki. AVEK / The Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE. 2003. http://www.fantomatico.org/perjantai/FRIDAY.pdf

March 28 – April 24 2003. In gallery manifesto against the Iraqi war at the exhibition The Right to Strike First Club. Pio Diaz~Exhibition Space. Gothersgade 105, Copenhagen. http://www.kopenhagen.dk/fileadmin/oldsite/presse/presse2003/1_3/strike.htm

“Rentoutumiskasetin teksti / Text till avslappningskassett”. Published in Kontur 2003: 5. 3. Svensk översättning Trygve Söderling. With music (by Jani Sund) on Youtube.