Branislava Andjelkovic (RS):
Meeting and having conversations with five Finnish artists pre-selected for Ars Fennica Award was an extraordinary experience. We all knew our rules and conditions, discussions were stimulating and the decision process was long and tough.
The issue was what I was looking for. One is not striving for consensus in contemporary art even in the circumstances where decisions have to be made and where promotion of a singular/particular art practice necessarily follows. I was not striving to analyze and define but to feel free to think conflicting thoughts. Visiting artists in their studios I thought to be an advantage in comparison to a situation when one only sees an exhibition of works. Studio visits not only provide context for meaningful conversations about finished works but allowed me to see works in progress.
What I was not looking for is to summarize what is the art of today. I was not interested to choose an artist in order to illustrate certain artistic tendencies in contemporary art practice. Although one has to have in mind peculiarities of a community within which the award is established and promoted; one is also led to make an inquiry into the capacity of artistic practices to engage others, other communities or individuals. It is not an issue of never ending process of interpretation of art but rather a process within which there is an opening for a viewer to think about things that could not have been thought without that particular artwork or artist. It seems that I was looking for someone who can claim that: «It bugs me when people say that contemporary art is so hard to understand. In my case there isn’t much to “understand”. It’s like trying to understand a beautiful sunset or a roadkill carcass. My artistic goal is to create a powerful viewing experience that is yet understandable but somehow too vast to comprehend completely.»
Anssi Kasitonni is an artist whose work makes allowances for free thinking, lots of differences and misunderstandings, and provides space for distractions. It speaks of conflicts without anger and threats, it laughs at tradition with kindness and some music. His creations are immediately open for a viewer and he does not shy of the personal enjoyment that the very process of producing creates for an artist. Living in seclusion, on a farm some 200 kilometers from Helsinki, he uses few old, cold and drafty barns as his studios, or rather unique sets for his films. (e.g. The Investigators, 2007.) Life size cardboard American Plymouth sits in a barn next to a vintage tractor that he uses for maintaining the gravel road that connects his home to the side road. Next barn is set for a life size skate slade over which a disco ball shines, shooting flashy beams onto some kind of a Damien-Hirst-like bigger-than-life shiny cardboard skull sitting on a pedestal. One can actually see how his films are created and one can envisage a band rehearsal and take a glimpse into creative processes of composing music and trying out verses and choruses.
Every little thing that comprises his films is made there, on the farm, and is staged and shot with a little help from his friends and Maria. I saw a tree from which freaky squirrel with makeshift furry wings is trying to learn how to fly. And falling and hurting in each futile attempt to turn itself into a flying squirrel as this is a family tradition. His father’s expectations are simple: learn how to fake flying and, super important, how to be spotted. Such a performance should save their tree-house from bulldozers. But fathers and sons seldom share the same dream. Our hero wants to rehearse with his band, wants to skate and make art. (The Gliders, 2003)
There is an unsuspecting honesty in Anssi’s dedication and joyfulness about his work. As if he is thinking about happiness and unlikely ways to approach it – but aware of accidents just waiting to happen. And maybe most importantly, there is always love, not sentimental and worn-out but real and living, that he makes urgent and actual in its fragility and charm.
Branislava Andjelkovic (RS), Director for the Museum for Contemporary Art in Belgrad (2011)