New Materialism September 3 — September 11, 2018

Musterzimmer and Fata Morgana kindly invite you to join the opening of the exhibition
New Materialism
Elsa Salonen, Jarkko Räsänen, Eemil Karila
 
Opening is on Thursday 6.9.2018 6pm – 9pm
 
Exhibition 7.9. – 11.9.2018
The gallery is open daily 2pm – 6pm
 
Evening events:
Performance TBA Friday 7.9. 6pm – 9pm
Concert TBA Saturday 8.9. 6pm – 9pm
 
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New Materialism
 
To be able to construct the world, we might start by breaking it into pieces, on a metaphorical level. On this journey, everything matters. And it is the details that together form more complex entities. Some artists say that they are the products of society and they subconsciously reflect the world as it appears to them.
New materialism is a new monism, that brings together these three artists and their practices. Materialism refers to the fact that everything is ultimately physical. Philosophical physicalism is evolved from materialism with discoveries of physical sciences to incorporate more sophisticated notions on physicality. Not only ordinary matters, but also matters such as space time, physical energies and forces, dark matter, and so on. We could say that this philosophical physicalism as a notion in creation could be called new materialism.
 
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Elsa Salonen
 
The symmetric pattern of Salonen new installation ‘For the Queen of the Southern Seas (An Offering to Nourish Her Charming Blush) was created with powdered corals, corals, glass and sea water.
Global warming and the rising sea water temperatures are killing the vital algae living inside coral tissues. This lead entire corals reefs to starvation, turning them deadly white in a process called coral bleaching.
Some of the corals used for the installation were collected on the beaches of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. According to Javanese and Sundanese myths – originating from prehistoric animistic beliefs – the local sea is the kingdom of Nyai Loro Kidul, the Queen of the Southern Seas. The deity is traditionally celebrated with offerings, for both as an act of propitiation and worship; to incur divine favour and avoid divine retribution.
 
Thanks:
Original photo and thematic consultancy / coral bleaching: Helmut Schumacher, emeritus professor of aquatic ecology, Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Thematic consultancy / Indonesian mythology: Patrick Vanhoebrouck, anthropologist, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
 
https://www.elsasalonen.com/
 
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Jarkko Räsänen
 
Jarkko Räsänen’s new photographic works are based on his self-made software, that he uses for manipulating the structure of photographs taken in French countryside of Grez-sur-Loing during his recidency in Hotel Chevillon in the beginning of the year. Original photographs of trees covered in last snow of the winter are transformed into mathematically defined compositions of pixel fields. The images of the series are on the other hand deconstructing photographic files, but also paying respect to tradition painting within the realm of digital handicraft with their neoimpressionistic effects.
 
https://jarkko.persona.co/
 
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Eemil Karila
 
Eemil Karilas paintings are a visual journey to his mind. He paints intuitively and follows the way the painting itself brings. Karila constructs painting as collages taking parts from old paintings and bringing them alive in new scenarios. The dreamlike atmospheres show his demons and angels and due to their iconographic character, we can also relate to them.
The sense of static time in the paintings, brings the viewer to the intermediate state of being awake and falling asleep; where dream is already beginning, but the consciousness is still awake. This so called hypnagogic state differs from the dream as the touch to the reality still remains. French philosopher Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003) has described this state: “The matter in form of an image is telling us about the world, though also bringing us to the undefined quell of enchantment.”
 
https://www.eemilkarila.net/