Moving Image sets focus on Finland

he Moving Image art fair taking place on 5–8 March as part of New York Art Fair Week will turn its gaze to Finland and Brazil this year. The Finnish exhibitors will include artist Tuomas A. Laitinen, the artist duo IC-98, who are to represent Finland at the forthcoming Venice Biennale, as well as audiovisual artists and electronic musicians Pink Twins and artist Timo Vaittinen.

The exhibiting artists were selected based on suggestions fromArja Miller, a member of the Curatorial Advisory Committee of the Moving Image art fair and a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki, the Finnish capital.

Moving Image New York 2015 will feature a selection of international commercial galleries and non-profit institutions presenting single-channel videos, single-channel projections, video sculptures and other larger video installations.

The artist duo IC-98, consisting of Patrik Söderlund (b. 1974) and Visa Suonpää (b. 1968), will show their latest work this spring in the Finnish pavilion at the Venice Biennale. In New York, one of their animations will be presented by AV-arkki, The Distribution Centre for Finnish Media Art.

A View from the Other Side depicts Pehr Johan Gylich’s Doric colonnade built in 1836 in the west Finnish town of Turku. The animation depicts its transformations over the centuries, from fish market and bazaar to restaurant, café and petrol station.

Represented by Helsinki Contemporary, Tuomas A. Laitinen (b. 1976) is an artist who works with various media, including light boxes, neon, video, printmaking and sound. Exploring experimental narrative structures, his work with light boxes harks back to pre-cinematic devices. One of Laitinen’s video installations will be seen atResidency Unlimited, Brooklyn this April. In November, his work will feature at SADE LA in Los Angeles.

Helsinki Contemporary will present Frontier Container, a work  filmed in the middle of a desert during China’s construction boom, examining the relationship between constructed space and nature.

Hexual Spellings by Timo Vaittinen (b 1976) is a work presented by another Helsinki-based gallery, SIC, which was last seen at the UNTITLED. Miami Beach art fair in December. Hexual Spellings was a company based in New York in the late 1980s that provided custom-made visual spells in the form of videos. These visual spells could be played on Video Home Systems for a variety of purposes, from protection and life improvement to revenge.

Pink Twins present an over-the-top audiovisual orgy in their latest video offering, Parametronomicon. In the lush CGI animation a biomechanic organism grows, multiplies and finally explodes into a sprawling coral-like colony.

Pink Twins is a duo formed by two Helsinki-based audiovisual artists and electronic musicians, brothers Juha (b. 1978) and Vesa Vehviläinen (b. 1974). At the Moving Image fair they will be represented by Sinne, another Finnish gallery that participated in UNTITLED. Miami Beach last December.

Patrik Söderlund will join the Moving Image Spotlight Panel Discussion on “How Do Artists Secure Funding for Film and Video Artwork?” on Saturday 7 March 12–1 PM with artists Chris Doyle, Guy Richards Smit and Eve Sussman. Director Sean Elwood from Creative Capital Foundation will moderate the discussion.

The participation of the Finnish galleries is supported by AV-arkki, Frame Visual Art Finland and Consulate General of Finland in New York.