Timo Viialainen — Lossy
6.-29.1.2022
Open
Wed-Sun 13-18
Due to the corona situation, no separate opening event will be held, but the gallery will be open on the opening day Thusday 6th of January 18-21 and Friday 7th of January 13-18. A warm welcome!
In 2018 I noticed that something had changed. I experienced a deep disappointment during a music concert that was very important for me. I could describe the feeling dramatically as the death of music. I was too aware and people around me were too aware. What had previously evoked deep meaningful emotional feelings didn’t do it anymore. It only reminded me that there had been a time when experiencing deep emotional feelings was possible.
When things get lost it often happens unnoticeably. Things might still look the same though something is lost. Lossy as a concept intrigues me:
a) as a poetical analogy for the disintegration of deeper meanings in experience
b) as a poetical analogy for the ongoing sixth mass extinction
c) in the concrete meaning of the word on how it is used: lossy compression method in digital data handling
alternative d) Lossy is a prehistoric monster. It looks a bit like the clay bird whistle I made. Or like the thing that looks like a dinosaur head that appears in the limestone sculpture depicted in the poster of this exhibition (by the way as a child I mostly draw monsters and different felines)
Then again. Do I need these concepts to bring meaning to my art? I’m trying to extract meanings from the history of the limestone and from the fossils that are visible on its surface. At the same time I’m thinking to whom I’m trying to communicate? Am I copying unconsciously today’s popular themes to my art as part of a pragmatic survival strategy? Then again. Does bringing that up here in the exhibition text lead things a bit off the map? Then again why to stay on the map if the interest is in the unknown? Maybe because through being coherent it is easier to achieve things and being too chaotic is destructive, one might say. What have I lost in making this exhibition?
Perhaps I’m actually afraid that I am a fossil myself. Some reasons:
a) the works in this show might not look enough like contemporary art
b) the music that evokes strong emotions in me has been done quite a while ago
c) the rebellion I represent is out of fashion/the presence of danger - if needed at all - should be in a less masculine form
I’m trying to think of the future. For this exhibition I made works from stone and ceramics so that the works would last time. I masoned something very personal inside stone boxes. I did this partly as a spontaneous reaction. I thought that if one sees so much trouble to make works like these then they must live on after the exhibition. I’ve done enough vanishing things.
Besides the aforementioned works there is also: a giant clay bird whistle that works with compressed air, a heart of quartz, a work that is composed of movement, a computer and a mouse.
This exhibition is supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, HIAP and University of the Arts Helsinki Foundation. The electronics for the works are done by Gregoire Rousseau & Alan Ruckelynck. Thanks: Maarit Mäkelä, Man Yau, Tatu Laurila, Salla Valle.
Timo Viialainen works in the fields of visual art, performance art and sound art. Though most part of his work has been live performances, his contemporary work usually takes its shape in conceptual sculptures that often feature an activating element which engages the viewer. His interest lies in intuitive prelinguistic experience and contradictory concepts that can be found in the various capitalized environments in which we exist. As a performance artist he has performed actively since 2011 in various events in 19 different countries. Timo is a graduate from the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of the Arts Helsinki (2021). Lossy is the second solo exhibition from him.