For his first solo exhibition in the United Kingdom, Erkka Nissinen presents nine new ink drawings, in which he trains his characteristically absurdist humour on the subject of surveillance and shame. The setting for these works is a series of bare, windowless rooms, all of which seem to belong to the same sprawling, Kafka-esque facility.
Here, men indulge in various kinks (urophagia, autofellatio, disappearing up to
their necks in the rectum of a pig), observed either by anonymous, silhouetted
onlookers, or their own horrified wives and kids. In other images, these men
become subject to seemingly arbitrary arrest, interrogation, and cartoonish
punishments.
Notably, there does not seem to be any kind of clear, central
authority in this nightmarish world – nobody wears a uniform, indeed even
trousers seem to be largely optional. Rather, like some endless, angry, online
discussion, civilians police civilians, and public humiliation (and perhaps the
odd, scorched-earth freedom that entails) feels always a heartbeat away.
Nissinen’s
exhibition also features the latest manifestation of The Aalto Natives (2017-18),
a film and multimedia installation made in collaboration with Nathaniel
Mellors, which was first shown at the Alvar Aalto-designed Finnish Pavilion
during the 2017 Venice Biennale.
An absurdist ‘comic-cosmic’ satire on, among
other things, national creation myths, the ‘Aalto Natives’ introduces us to a
pair of unlikely absentee deities (the talking egg Gebb and the box-headed
Atum), who we’re told were responsible for terraforming Finland many millennia
ago and have now returned to see how its civilization has developed in the
intervening years.
At the Blain|Southern gallery, The Aalto Natives takes the form of an integrated
sculpture / video work, combining Muppet-like figures, hospital drips, and an
HD screen showing a key chapter from Nissinen and Mellors’ film. Through a
dizzying combination of representational registers (including drawn animation,
analogue puppetry, 3D rendering and live action), we see Atum go about his
fact-finding mission, encountering everything from a group of depressed,
permanently cycle helmet-clad townsfolk, to a headless figure who speaks out of
his anus.
Colliding tropes from archaeology, anthropology, and hallucinatory
science-fiction, the result is a sly and often hilarious mediation on nativism
and intolerance, on the fallacy of ‘progress’ and art as a social good.
About
the artist
Erkka Nissinen (b.
1975, Jyväskylä, Finland) lives and works in Helsinki, New York, and Amsterdam.
His recent solo exhibitions include: Kiasma Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki
(2018, with Nathaniel Mellors); Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam (2018,
with Mellors); Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Amstelveen, (2018, with Mellors);
The Finnish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2017, with Mellors); Parallel
Oaxaca, Mexico City (2016); De Hallen, Haarlem (2015); Hordaland Art Centre,
Bergen (2015); Parcours at Art Basel (2015); Jyväskylä Art Museum, Jyväskylä
(2015). Recent group exhibitions include: The 7th Turku
Biennial (2015); La La La Human Steps, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen,
Rotterdam (2015); Superficial Hygiene, De Hallen, Haarlem (2014); This Obscure Object of
Desire, or “No ideas except in things”, ICA, London (2012); The 10th Sharjah Biennial (2011).
Lodger is a series of exhibitions at Blain|Southern, conceived by the
writer, curator, and Contributing Editor for frieze magazine,
Tom Morton. Running concurrent to the exhibitions in the central space, Lodger expands
Blain|Southern’s programme into new territories. Previous artists participating
in the Lodger series include Alex Dordoy, Sophie Jung, Brian
Griffiths and Gabriella Boyd.
Tom Morton’s
exhibitions include Äppärät at the Ballroom Marfa, Texas (2015), British British Polish
Polish at the CSW Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw
(2013) the touring survey British Art Show 7: In
the Days of the Comet (2010/11, with Lisa Le Feuvre), and How to Endure at
the 1st Athens Biennale (2007). He
has worked as a curator at Cubitt Gallery, London and the Hayward Gallery,
London, and his writing has appeared in numerous exhibition catalogues and
anthologies.
