PRESS RELEASE
SUBURBAN PEDESTAL HELSINKI
11.07 to the 18.07 2008
URBAN PEDESTALS Jens Axel Beck, Tove Storch, Lisa Torell, Halldor Ulfarsson, Nanna Debois Buhl, Luca Frei, Pilvi Takala, Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta Kalleinen and Hans Rosenström, SUBURBAN PEDESTAL: Søren Assenholt, Cecilia De Jong, Uffe Holm and Kaspar Oppen Samuelsen.
Opening the 11.07 at 20-21pm,
At the bridge of Helsinginkatu and Wallinikatu
Urban Pedestals was realized as well last year in Copenhagen in one of the most trafficked central street in Copenhagen called Nørre Voldgade. Urban Pedestals has a mobile potential, which artist Jacob Borges and curator Lotte Juul Petersen wanted to explore further. Helsinki was chosen as the city to move the second exhibition to after a workshop in September in 2007 in HIAP (Helsinki International Artitst Program).
From the 11.07 to the 18.07 2008 it is possible to meet up and see the projects developed for the curatorial projects ‘Urban Pedestals’ and ‘Suburban Pedestal’ in the street of Kallio, Helsinginkatu. We chose to realize the projects because of the area’s layered history in Finland. Kallio is a district in Helsinki, located on the eastern side of the Helsinki peninsula. It is the most densely populated area in Finland. Kallio (literally "the rock") is separated from the city center by a bridge called Pitkäsilta ("long bridge"). Traditionally, the bridge marks the symbolic divide between the bourgeois center and the more working class areas around Kallio. However, working-class families as the most typical Kallio residents have long ago been replaced by young adults and elderly people living alone, in a process which could be seen as some sort of gentrification.
The artists have been invited by Jacob Borges and Lotte Juul Petersen to investigate conceptually how an electricity box could be used differently in the public space. The box-shaped objects in the urban space have more or less the same proportions of a pedestal, which heightens or enhances the classical and modernistic sculpture. Urban Pedestals investigates though with a great sense of humour how it is possible to integrate on this minimal setting a reflection on the art system and interventions in the public space.
Following artists have contributed with projects for ‘Urban Pedestals’, curated by Lotte Juul Petersen: Jens Axel Beck, Tove Storch, Lisa Torell, Halldor Ulfarsson, Nanna Debois Buhl, Luca Frei, Pilvi Takala, Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta Kalleinen and Hans Rosenström, ‘Suburban Pedestal’, curated by artist Jacob Borges: Søren Assenholt, Cecilia De Jong, Uffe Holm and Kaspar Oppen Samuelsen. With this open conceptual setting for art production in the public space, the artists have chosen to work on a performative, conceptual, contextual or social political level related subtly to the concept and the chosen context in Helsinki.
For more information please contact Lotte Juul Petersen (lottejuulpetersen@gmail.com).
The project is kindly supported by the Danish International Art Council, Nordic Culture Foundation, Nordic Culture Point & FRAME (Finnish Fund for Art Exchange)