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Matti Nikolainen’s drawings and paintings combine different techniques and themes, from a classical Michelangelo to an abstract representation of thoughts and emotions.

A self-taught, naturally talented artist with no formal art training, Matti Nikolainen has been drawing for more than 10 years, combining his work as an Art Director in an advertising agency with his art work.

Most of the galleries don’t accept artists without formal art education. After several attempts, he gave up. “You have to go to millions of art schools to be accepted by an art gallery. Trying different drawings, techniques and styles has been my art school.”

From an early age he liked masters like Goya, Velazquez, DaVinci, Hockney, Basquiat and Yves Klein. Although nowadays he is more interested in abstract impressionism, he takes art seriously and likes learning from the classics before attempting more abstract works.

Natural talent that needs to be discovered

Nikolainen admires the way Klein studied the pigments for many years to create a certain blue known as Klein Blue. In abstract art the artist and the viewer’s thoughts merge. It’s a personal interpretation which is different for everybody and raises some thoughts. On abstract art, Nikolainen says:

“It’s difficult to say why people like abstract work, is it the combination of colour, or is it the composition? Maybe I’m a bit conservative on that matter but I think that before you do abstract works you have to do more traditional kinds of art work, at least know how to draw. Go to an art school and if you don’t go at least do something in your house, learn to draw and draw a lot, learn new stuff. An artist has to give from himself.”

Some of Nikolainen’s works have been described as beautiful. He defines beauty as something that makes him feel warm. “I like simple things, simplicity is beauty.”

Nikolainen has a natural talent that needs to be expressed and discovered. It’s a pity that not many art galleries give an opportunity to self-taught artists. Does going to an art school make a better artist? Do they teach you how to draw when you go to an art school or is drawing a natural talent? Petri Käki , who runs the Ant Gallery, trusted the artist for his work without asking if he went to an art school.

Why not discover the art of a self-taught artist for yourself? The exhibition Kind of Gospel: Debut/Retrospective is at the Ant Gallery on Topeliuksenkatu 3, Helsinki, until 26 September.

Susan Fourtane – Helsinki Times
Matti Nikolainen – Image

For artist Ilkka Halso, a beautiful landscape turns into a meditative theatre show. Arctic Hysteria Exhibition, P.S.1 MoMA New York.

Marita Muukkonen, the curator of the FRAME Finnish Fund of Art Exchange, took us on a pleasant journey through the unknown and fascinating world of Art Exchange.

Since 1992, funded primarily by the Finnish Ministry of Culture, FRAME Finnish Fund of Art Exchange has worked within the Finnish Fine Arts Academy Foundation inviting foreign curators, critics and art historians to Finland through its Visitor’s Programme as an efficient way of expanding the international art exchange, gathering and disseminating information about Finnish contemporary art.

FRAME’s curator Marita Muukkonen explains that FRAME works on collaborative projects with Finnish or international partners and also independently produces contemporary visual art projects, exhibitions and publications.

Through the Curatorial Programme, international curators who are interested in doing research in Finland can apply to come here and FRAME also invites curators to Finland.

“We choose the curators based on the ideas and the concepts they have, and their interests. We look at the CV and see if he or she is an interesting person to invite. The system is flexible, so there are no deadlines,” says Muukkonen

International Frame of collaboration

In collaboration with the HIAP (Helsinki International Artists-in-residence Programme) and the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, FRAME promotes links between Finland and the international contemporary art scene providing residencies for both curators and artists.

“If the visual art curators come for one month they can stay and live at the HIAP residence where curators and researchers can work, meet more artists and have exhibitions,” adds Muukkonen.

The aim of the programme is to provide curators with professional experience in organising visual art projects with an opportunity to carry out research on Finnish fine art, to contact Finnish art practitioners and to develop international curatorial projects involving Finnish artists.

“We have an Open Call for Finnish artists or artists who live in Finland for certain residencies we have in collaboration with HIAP. Every year there is a residence place in New York. If a Finnish artist applies for a residency abroad, FRAME grants it and sends him abroad. HIAP hosts foreign artists as we don’t have our own residencies,” explains Muukkonen.

FRAME participates in collaborative projects with international art institutions. There is an extensive exhibition in New York until 15 September, Arctic Hysteria: New Art from Finland, which is an intergenerational and interdisciplinary exhibition featuring 16 Finnish artists who will introduce New York audiences to outlandish visions of aliens, utopias, animals, and psychedelia.

The exhibition is organized by P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in collaboration with the Artist’s Association of Finland and FRAME.

Framework: The Finnish Art Review, is a bi-annual magazine dedicated to contemporary art, culture and cultural criticism.

www.framework.fi

Susan Fourtane – Helsinki Times

This year the Kinopiha open-air cinema screens films from 1968 on The Night of the Arts.

The 20th Night of the Arts promises 12 hours of uninterrupted arts display for all of those with an appreciation for the arts.

 

IN 1989 several art institutions considered the idea of displaying their art during the evening hours in the still-bright late summer, opening their doors to everybody interested in enjoying a night full of art in Helsinki until the wee hours.

The first Night of the Arts, being part of the Helsinki Festival, was created by The Academic Bookshop and the Association of Art Students. Today, Helsinki transforms into an art stage for over 200 events.

Suvi Saloniemi, the Producer of the Helsinki Festival, recommends the following events as a must-see:

The Rock, Rhythm & Love concert

Celebrating 40 years of the Helsinki Festival, the concert will be a time machine travelling back to 1968 when The Beatles, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix, among others, sealed the hearts of generations with messages of love and peace, letting them dream in the sea of their music.

A revival of those golden times will start at 18:00 with a warm up in the Senate Square, followed by the concert at 20:30 with a considerable crowd singing along to the top five songs voted on the Helsingin Sanomat website.

Films and 1968

Lasipalatsinaukio turns into an open-air-cinema screening of films from 1968. Film lovers can’t miss this chance to see Don’t Look Back, Midnight Cowboy, and the new film Across the Universe. The Itäkeskus outdoor cinema will screen Woodstock.

Jazz picnic in Töölönlahti

From 18:00 to 04:00 there will be 24 different events in the Finlandiapuisto. You can bring your own picnic basket or buy picnic food. DJs will play jazz music. At 01:00 the talented saxophonist Timo Lassy is going to play live.

Kaartinkaupunki

High quality art in an urban environment. Video projections from the Kiasma collections. Flea market and antiques.

Experimental City Consultant

From 22:00 to 01:00 it is time to experience the city looking for the unexpected, following instructions that could lead you to an unforgettable moment. There is no time for depression and loneliness when happiness can be around the corner. Ask “the doctor” at Kasarmintori for your happiness kit.

Poetry Moon and the events at the Cable Factory are also recommended. There is too much to see and to do in what will be an ideal night to explore and discover Helsinki. All the events are free of charge unless specified otherwise. For the complete programme see: www.helsinginjuhlaviikot.fi/taiteidenyo

Susan Fourtane – Helsinki Times
Riitta Sourander – Image

Will you encounter something you see here and remember about it in the future, realizing you were there before? Will this become part of your archive of collective knowledge?

Danish conceptual artist Jacob Borges came to Finland for a workshop and research trip in 2007. Back in Denmark, he applied for the HIAP residency programme. Helsinki Times visited Borges in his studio at HIAP to discover more about this witty artist and his work. 

During his two-month stay in Helsinki, Jacob Borges curated Urban Pedestals together with curator Lotte Petersen and prepared his first solo exhibition in Finland.

Throughout his photo, sculpture and text related artwork, Borges reveals himself as a witty artist with the capacity for detailed observation and deep thinking. His profound interest in research has taken him to the path of conceptual art as a means of communication. By expressing himself he wishes to touch the intellect of the viewers and provoke a chain of thought that may translate into a kind of snowball communication.

“Making art and looking at art keeps my brain running. and hopefully also somebody else’s interested in my art,” he says.

What it is to be an artist

Defining himself as an artist who regards what he does as art, he likes the thought of the artwork as a means of communication among people.

“An artist is a person who creates art. Some artists don’t regard themselves as artists. To me, what I do is not special in any way, I am not especially talented or intelligent, what I do anybody can do. It’s not like painting that requires some techniques. I could write down what I do and send the instructions to someone else and he can do just the same, that is the concept of being a conceptual artist,” Borges says and adds:

“Art has to be regarded as art by the artist. It’s a naming game. In that sense as soon as you can regard something as art it is art. Things become art when they start to communicate, when they become a picture of something else, even provoke a discussion about something or a feeling. It can be in a musical sense, a good book, or a film that makes you think, making you wonder about things, making you think new things that others didn’t think before you.”

Borges speaks passionately about what art is for him, about the way he is open to all kinds of ideas that might be the scattered seeds for his art if they develop adjusting his focus to much more than a simple object. He keeps his eyes and mind open without putting boundaries to himself, without putting himself in a box.

“What I work with is just a bunch of ideas but it has to be an idea that keeps me thinking, that keeps me investigating and looking at pages on the Internet until the point I can show it to somebody else and provoke their interest, maybe I make them do their own investigation,” says Borges.

The exhibition If Artists Didn’t Do Art Somebody Else Would is on display at Galleria Kaapeli at the Cable Factory in Ruoholahti, Helsinki until 31 August.

Susan Fourtane – Helsinki Times
Jacob Borges – Image

Original white scenes are also included in Simonov's "black Swanlake."

Can you think of a more enchanting stage for Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake than the world’s most northern still standing medieval stone fortress? Ballet lovers will be delighted with a new choreography of Swan Lake created by Kirill Simonov, the main choreographer of the Musical Theater of the Republic of Karelia.

The traditional tutus will share the stage with elegant black evening gowns and high heel shoes in Simonov’s Swan Lake. Settled in Germany of the late 1940s, the black scenes representing the real world seamlessly change with the white scenes, the world of fantasy. Lev Ivanov’s original white scenes are also included in this new version.

The soloists in Swan Lake are from Mariinsky Theatre, Rimski-Korsakov Academy and from the Musical Theatre of the Republic of Karelia. The Karelian Philharmonic Orchestra with its 60 musicians is conducted by its Chief Conductor and Artistic Director Marius Stravinsky.

More swan and classics

A network of lakes and waterways will also this year welcome the world premiere on the Olavinlinna stage of Cliff of Two Swans, a joint Finno-Russian venture. The libretto, based on a Karelian legend, is a story about the battle of darkness and light, a conflict and its solution. 
Alexander Beloborodov, one of the most famous symphonists in the Republic of Karelia, composed the music of Cliff of Two Swans. Classic ballet, modern dance and even folk dance were combined by choreographer Irina Zotochkina, the head choreographer of the Kantele Ensemble (Petrozavodsk).

The stars of the Russian Ballet group will perform various scenes highlighting different classic ballets and modern choreographies. The dancers in this group are principals and soloists of the Bolshoi Theatre.

In cooperation with the National Board of Antiquities, Savonlinna Ballet Festival will end with a Castle Day’s symphony concert. The young cellist Sergey Antonov (b.1983) will give his first concert in Finland.

During his brilliant career, Antonov has won numerous prizes in competitions around the world, the most prestigious of them being the Gold Medal at the XIII International Tchaikovsky Competition in June 2007.

Antonov is one of the youngest cellists ever to win the prize. Antonov will be accompanied by the Karelian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Stravinsky, performing music by Tchaikovsky and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Susan Fourtane – Helsinki Times
Image – Savonlinna Ballet festival