Author: leenal

Assassination



Jani Leinonen
2013

Assassination – Bullet Works by Jani Leinonen
Zetterberg Gallery
May 25 – August 10, 2013

Sometimes violence is arbitrary, sometimes structured. And ever more often, it’s entertainment. In his Bullet Works Leinonen has replaced his brush with a gun. He has shot through framed laminated glass with tens of different guns and different calibers from 22 to 500: handguns, assault rifles, automatic weapons, shotguns; Desert Eagle, Walther PPK, Streetsweeper (buckshot), 45 Colt, M4, .500 S&W Magnum; using each gun model only once. There is a contradiction between the snowflake-like beauty of the bullet hole and the lethal force of the AK-47 that made it.

Assassination is an exhibition that shows one line of the three series of Bullet Works: the other lines are Monochromes and Painted Bullet Holes.

The origin of the word “assassins” (Arabic: Hashshashin) traces back to before the first Crusade around 1080. Assassins is a misnomer for the Nizari Ismailis brotherhood, who found themselves not only fighting for power against other Muslims, but also against Christian invaders. Since the Crusades the term assassin has been used to describe a hired professional killer or a cutthroat. Assassination (French: assassin) denotes any action involving murder of the target for political reasons.

Jani Leinonen’s starting point for the Assassination / Bullet Works leads us to Andy Warhol, who was shot at his studio. After Warhol got out of hospital, he found that one of his prints had also been pierced by a bullet that had first gone through his body. Bullet, Body, Brutality, Art!

Leinonen’s Bullet Works are some of the most violent works in the history of modern and contemporary art. The series is both conceptually and physically comparable to Picasso’s Guernica, the Spatial Concept / Slash Series “cutthroat” works of Lucio Fontana, the Fire Paintings by Yves Klein, the building cuts house installations by Gordon Matta-Clark, the Ambulance Disaster by Andy Warhol, or Robert Longo’s Men in the Cities – a monumental series of drawings of a man shot in his back and sharply dressed men writhing in contorted emotion.

In the Assassinations series Leinonen has shot at commercial cereal characters like Tony the Tiger, Cornelius, Cap’n Crunch and Snap, Crackle and Pops. When looking at the assassinated figures, which represent the Big Business of industrial food, GMO, health and obesity problems etc., we begin to feel sympathetic and protective about the fictitious characters – we might even feel morally offended by the violent act. Only because the marketing of these friendly characters has been managed in order that it touch our feelings. They have a place in our hearts. We are the ones who have been shot!

Leinonen shows in a very simple way how entertainment and advertising techniques – insane capitalism – distance us from the real.

– Eeropekka Rislakki

Teaser



Jani Leinonen, Aurora Reinhard,
Jiri Geller & Mari keto
Salon Dahlman, Berlin
2013

TEASER
Salon Dahlmann Berlin
January 20 – February 17, 2013

Zetterberg Gallery presents TEASER – a selection of works by the most influential young Finnish contemporary artists. Founded in 2008, the gallery Zetterberg Gallery is showing the highlights of its programme at Salon Dahlmann Berlin. Combining a critical perspective and meticulous craftsmanship with a humorous and aesthetic treatment, the works of Jiri Geller, Mari Keto, Jani Leinonen and Aurora Reinhard explore the boundaries between constructed, commercial culture and individual, materialistic addiction. TEASER presents these prominent Finnish artists by composing a strong body of works from international private and institutional collections. By including elaborate sculptures, accusatory installations and tenacious imagery, the exhibition provokes observant attention to the prevailing phenomena of society.

Jani Leinonen throws light on the tactics of commercial operations by turning them into objects of ridicule, parodying the unstated assumptions of our marketing society and economic daily life. Jiri Geller’s accomplished, detailed sculptures serve up cold irony and raw critique by questioning the dominant, neoliberal iconophilia. Aurora Reinhard creates controversial artworks that explore tensions and structures in contemporary society – in particular our obsessive representation of gender and female sexuality. Mari Keto focuses on the tensions and structures of our contemporary culture by using predominantly diamonds, crystals, pearls and other materials used in making jewelry to depict icons and symbols in her delicate installations and portraits.

Time Is A Luxury We Don’t Have



Mari Keto & Jani Leinonen
2012

Mari Keto & Jani Leinonen
Time Is A Luxury We Don’t Have
Zetterberg Gallery December 1 – 22, 2012
Opening Hours Wed-Fri 4-7pm, Sat-Sun 12-4pm

Overwhelming details, offensive décor, punchlines we do not want to acknowledge. The works of Mari Keto and Jani Leinonen put us all into cold sweat.
In Mari Keto’s works the conceptual underpinning and high degree of craftsmanship merge into an artwork. Keto explores the tensions and structures of our contemporary culture by portraying icons and symbols predominantly surrounding us. The fierce stare of a lost Joker Face arrests the attention with an unpleasant recognition of the decomposing moment.

Jani Leinonen attacks symbols and marketing strategies, turning them into objects of ridicule, clichéing our agreed marketing society and economical everyday. With these strikes Leinonen unfolds the chain reaction we all are voluntarily involved and plays up the iconographies of the global brand land.

Memorial Service



Jani Leinonen
2012

Jani Leinonen
Memorial Service

The world-famous Death of Capitalism gravestones are now shown at the Zetterberg Gallery. The exhibition will be open from 5th of October until 11th of November 2012.

Opening hours:
Wednesday – Friday 6pm – 8 pm
Saturday – Sunday 12pm – 4pm

Sugared



Jiri Geller
2012

Zetterberg Gallery proudly presents Jiri Geller’s new works
Welcome to the opening on Friday May 4 at 4-8pm!

Jiri Geller presents his new, long wrought works at the SUGARED solo exhibition opening at the Zetterberg Gallery, on May 5. Geller continues his detailed craftsmanship by presenting a new perspective to his conceptual nihilism. His accomplished works serve cold irony and raw critique by questioning the dominant, neoliberal iconophilia. SUGARED aggravates the global ideal of individual freedom and property rights by blowing up the high right before the crash hits you.

Jiri Geller (b. 1970 lives and works in Helsinki) is known for his detailed sculptures exploring the contemporary pop culture phenomena. Geller has exhibited his works in various solo exhibitions around Nordic countries as well as in innumerous international exhibitions globally.

The exhibition is open May 5 – June 10 Wed-Fri 13-19 and Sat-Sun 11-16.

Perfect



Aurora Reinhard
2012

AURORA REINHARD
PERFECT
Zetterberg Gallery March 4 – April 8, 2012

Aurora Reinhard is known for her controversial work exploring the tensions and structures of contemporary society – in particular our obsessive representations of gender and female sexuality. In her new solo exhibition Perfect Reinhard plays with the addictive, accelerating mannerisms that she sees predominating in commercial definitions of gender.

With Perfect, Reinhard presents new work, including photography and craft-intensive sculpture, which is not a departure from – but rather a continuum of – her established oeuvre. She significantly expands on the fetish-based and surrealist approaches she has worked with in recent years. By including both detailed sculptures and quite haunting photographs she develops a richly multi-layered statement, giving painstaking attention to the prevailing, escapist maneuvers. Instead of settling for Freudian slips or righteous ideologies, Reinhard advances a bold statement questioning the widespread acceptance and condescendence to a female role determined by commercialized society and conducted by its members.

Aurora Reinhard (b. 1975, lives and works in Helsinki) works with video, photography and hyper-realistic objects fetishizing the everyday. Reinhard holds an MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki. Her works are internationally renowned, with exhibitions at the Shedhalle, Zürich; Fridericianum, Kassel; Ludwig Museum, Cologne and Platform Garanti, Istanbul. Her experimental documentary Boygirl (2002) won the International media art award from ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany.

Exhibition is open
March 4 – April 8, 2012 Tuesdays and Thursdays 3-7pm, Sundays 12-4pm.
Meet Aurora Reinhard at the exhibition on Sunday March 25, 1-3pm.