The Baltic Sea Delegation is an intriguing project, which combines ecological thinking with internationally rated contemporary art. This exhibition in Estonia offers a unique opportunity for local art lovers to get better knowledge on what is going on in Finnish art there and now.

Material for the mind

Materiality is the way of existing for art. The materiality of art works makes them comparable to humans because we don’t exist without our bodies. As well as humans, works of art tend to exist in very different bodies. Making art is also a physical process and it can be seen as an activity like baking, eating or walking. This means that art can be seen as a process. The process of making art incorporates the artist, the concept of art, the piece of art, and the audience. The idea of difference between the form and the content is a similar misconception as the division between the soul/mind and the body. As the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty pointed out, the mind doesn’t exist without the body. The Baltic Sea Delegation starts with three artists which all celebrate the art’s material dualism. Panu Ruotsalo’s (1971) paintings are studies of the material qualities of paints. Ruotsalo thus paints meta-paintings and analyzes the very act of painting. He asks the eternal question: what is a painting?

Because of its materiality a piece of art is always on its way towards destruction and disappearance. This makes it similar to a human being whose existence is always melancholic because of the unavoidability of death. The logic of melancholic existence defines our existence. Roy Hopiavuori’s (1971) paintings remind me of the fragility of our life.  They are an interesting mixture of abstract and figurative elements that form combinations appealing both to our senses and our intellect. Thus Hopiavuori’s works can be described to be life-like.

The Baltic Sea Delegation exhibition is an expression of an ecological sense of responsibility. The idea of a sea dying is horrible and almost unbelievable because seas don’t die in our thoughts, they seem eternal to us. Matti Reivi’s (1974) Angel of Death consists of a bird scull and two blades of scythe. The blades and the skull are powerful references to dying and pain. Also the very idea of an angel is appealing because it humanizes death and makes it individual. This gives us a kind of a fool’s hope of immortality. Reivi’s sculptures refer to different things in a conceptual, but also emotional way. His works are material for the mind, which is the blessed quality of art. The whole exhibition encourages to believe that it is art that keeps us going when seas are about to die. It might be a fool’s hope but it’s still hope.

Juha-Heikki Tihinen
art critic (AICA)