When is now?
- Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art 11.10.2019–19.1.2020
- wam.fi/en
As a hard-to-define concept time has given rise to heated and rambling conversations among philosophers, physicists as well as artists. Instead of any precise definitions, the exhibition offers different perspectives on time with the help of sculptures, photographs, performances and moving image works.
The way days on this earth are divided into hours, minutes and seconds is entirely artificial, yet fundamentally affects our actions. The pendulum in the piece by Erno Pystynen plays around with the possibility of stopping time. The swings of second and minute hands, and the unseizing movement of the numbers on the display of a digital clock have strongly influenced the dominant phenomenon of haste, which is present in sculptures of Ilmari Gryta.
The video pieces by German artist Sebastian Stumpf and those by Santeri Tuori, as well as the installations of Heini Aho, all encompass an element that stretches time: anticipation. The layered character of time is an essential component of the practise of Australian artist Daniel Crooks.
In this day and age time is no longer tied to a place. We can instead be in many times and places simultaneously, something that has played a part in the fragmentation of time. In the piece by Pekko Vasantola, flash-like moments are transmitted to the viewer from different parts of the world in real time through open security cameras.
In its entirety human habitation of this planet has been short. If we think of the time earth has existed as covering a single day, humans would have been around only for the last few seconds of it. The artist collective IC-98 has dealt with the limitations of linear time in their work, as well as considered what might come after anthropocentric conceptions of time.
Artists in the exhibition: Heini Aho, Daniel Crooks, Ilmari Gryta, Jenni Eskola, Kaisaleena Halinen, IC-98, Kaarina Kaikkonen, Leena Kela, Erno Pystynen, Mikko Rikala, Sebastian Stumpf, Santeri Tuori, Pekko Vasantola, Grace Weir.
Photo: Ilmari Gryta, Saapuvat ja lähtevät. Photograph: Rauno Träskelin.