WALL TEXT – EIJA-LIISA AHTILA: OLENTOJA (CREATURES)
MAIN WALL TEXT
EIJA-LIISA AHTILA: OLENTOJA (CREATURES)
The Davis proudly presents the first major U.S. exhibition by internationally
acclaimed Finnish artist, Eija-Liisa Ahtila.
Ahtila is known for her lushly beautiful and psychologically intense films, and
for the precise calibration of her installations through image, sound, and
environment. In ways both vivid and mesmerizing, her work combines
cinematic realism and fantasy, and often finds the sacred and miraculous in
everyday experience. The work’s distinctive narrative complexity, mysterious
and open-ended, is further enhanced by multi-screen projection. In ways that
expand the traditions of experimental cinema, Ahtila’s installations play with
continuity and disruption across space and time; they are designed to question
both the nature of the “moving image” and the possibility of seeing from many
perspectives at once.
Ahtila takes inspiration from German biologist Jacob von Uexküll’s notion of
umwelt, which posits the multiplicity and simultaneity of world-views among
creatures. The projects selected for this exhibition are filled with beings—
human, animal, magical, and botanical—poised in uncertain relationships. For
the exhibition title, Ahtila chose the word “Olentoja” (Creatures) which
captures this scope and adds something ineffable— “a bit more soul.”
Born in 1959, Ahtila studied filmmaking at the London College of Printing,
UCLA, and at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. In 1990 she
received the Young Artist of the Year Award, Tampere, Finland. Since then,
she has received numerous grants and awards, including an AVEK-award for
important achievements in the field of audio-visual culture (1997), the Edstrand
Art Price (1998), a DAAD fellowship (1999), honorary mention at the 48th
Venice Biennale (1999), the Vincent Van Gogh Bi-annual Award for
Contemporary Art in Europe (2000), and a five-year grant from the Central
Committee for the Arts (2001), as well as the Artes Mundi Prize (2006). She
also exhibited in Documenta XI (2002) and the 50th Venice Biennale (2005).
Parallel Worlds, a major mid-career survey of her work, traveled recently
between the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and the Museum of Contemporary
Art Kiasma in Helsinki.
Curated by Lisa Fischman, Ruth Gordon Shapiro ‘37 Director of the Davis, the
exhibition and related programs are presented with major support from the
Kathryn Wasserman Davis ’28 Fund for World Cultures and Leadership,
special funding provided by Wellesley College Friends of Art at the Davis, and
with additional support from FRAME, Visual Art Finland.
WALL TEXT 2
We are easily deluded into assuming that the
relationship between a foreign subject and the objects
in his world exists on the same spatial and temporal
plane as our own relations with the objects in our
human world. This fallacy is fed by a belief in the
existence of a single world, into which all living
creatures are pigeonholed. This gives rise to the
widespread conviction that there is only one space and
one time for all living things. Only recently have
physicists begun to doubt the existence of a universe
with a space that is valid for all beings.
— "A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men: A Picture Book of
Invisible Worlds," Jacob von Uexküll (1957)
EXTENDED LABELS
EIJA-LIISA AHTILA
VAAKASUORA — HORIZONTAL, 2011
6 min
6-channel projected installation; 16:9/1:1,78; Dolby Digital 5.1.
No dialogue
Courtesy of the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and
Paris
© 2011 Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy, Helsinki
Horizontal is a six-channel portrait of a living spruce designed to re-create the
reality of the tree in its entirety, to encompass and represent its actual size and
shape as faithfully as possible. Because the spruce would otherwise not fit into
human spaces, Ahtila presents it horizontally through successive projections.
Ahtila writes that the work is “a record of the tree’s existence as a living
organism, or perhaps more accurately a presentation of the difficulty of
perceiving and documenting a spruce tree using man-made tools for visual
recording.”
Moreover, she says: “Any attempt to use the moving image to show a fullygrown spruce or some other tree is bound to run into problems. The horizontal
film frame is unable to show the entire tree in one picture. If one uses a wideangle lens instead, the tree appears distorted and is still too large to fit in one
picture. Stepping back to allow the entire tree to appear inside the frame makes
the picture no longer a portrait of a tree, but a landscape in which the tree is
but one element.
Therefore, when the subject of the portrait is a spruce tree, the situation is
inevitably different from a normal shooting situation. This applies equally to
the mechanisms developed for recording moving images and their purpose, and
to the role of the subject and its relationship to the depicted environment. The
attempt to portray a spruce tree brings the filmmaker face to face with the
technical equipment built as an extension of the human eye and perception. It
also invites us to consider the preconditions of anthropomorphic dramaturgy
and the resultant valuations in images and the order of presentation.”
EIJA-LIISA AHTILA
ANTHROPOMORPHIC EXERCISES ON FILM, 2011
8 works on Parisian paper, in pastel and mixed media
Courtesy of the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and
Paris
© 2011 Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy, Helsinki
Ahtila writes: Anthropomorphic Exercises on Film is a series of eight drawings of a
spruce tree. The drawings illustrate the principles of the moving image from an
unusual perspective, by replacing the human being as the protagonist with a
different living organism. In a very simple way, the drawings illustrate the
limitations of anthropomorphic representation, or perhaps more accurately,
they give an opportunity to approach the limits of the anthropomorphic
mechanism of observation and presentation in the moving image.
EIJA-LIISA AHTILA
ANTHROPOMORPHIC EXERCISES ON FILM: SPECIAL EFFECT,
2011
Pastel on Parisian paper
Courtesy of the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and
Paris
© 2011 Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy, Helsinki
EIJA-LIISA AHTILA
ANTHROPOMORPHIC EXERCISES ON FILM: CREATING
CHARACTER / WITH RAIN, 2011
Pastel on Parisian paper
Courtesy of the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and
Paris
© 2011 Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy, Helsinki
EIJA-LIISA AHTILA
ANTHROPOMORPHIC EXERCISES ON FILM: CREATING
CHARACTER / WITH SNOW, 2011
Pastel on Parisian paper
Courtesy of the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and
Paris
© 2011 Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy, Helsinki
EIJA-LIISA AHTILA
ANTHROPOMORPHIC EXERCISES ON FILM: ASPECT RATIO /
KNEELING SPRUCE, 2011
Pastel on Parisian paper
Courtesy of the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and
Paris
© 2011 Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy, Helsinki
EIJA-LIISA AHTILA
ANTHROPOMORPHIC EXERCISES ON FILM, POINT OF VIEW /
WITH A HUMAN, 2011
Pastel on Parisian paper, mirror
Courtesy of the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and
Paris
© 2011 Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy, Helsinki
EIJA-LIISA AHTILA
ANTHROPOMORPHIC EXERCISES ON FILM: CONVERSATION
EDIT 1 (TWO-SHOT, MEDIUM-SHOT, OVER-THE-SHOULDER,
CLOSE-UP), 2011
Pastel on Parisian paper, collage
Courtesy of the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and
Paris
© 2011 Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy, Helsinki
EIJA-LIISA AHTILA
ANTHROPOMORPHIC EXERCISES ON FILM: CONVERSATION
EDIT 2 (MEDIUM-SHOT, TWO-SHOT, CLOSE-UP, OVER-THESHOULDER), 2011
Pastel on Parisian paper, mirrors
Courtesy of the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and
Paris
© 2011 Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy, Helsinki
EIJA-LIISA AHTILA
ANTHROPOMORPHIC EXERCISES ON FILM: ACTION /
STUMBLE, 2011
Pastel on Parisian paper
Courtesy of the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and
Paris
© 2011 Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy, Helsinki
EIJA-LIISA AHTILA
MARIAN ILMESTYS — THE ANNUNCIATION, 2010
28:30 min
3-channel projected installation; 16:9/1:1,78, Dolby Digital 5.1
original language Finnish, English subtitles
Courtesy of the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and
Paris
© 2010 Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy, Helsinki
Using an eclectic cast of trained and amateur actors—both human and nonhuman—Ahtila re-presents a subject of great iconographic resonance: the
Annunciation. In this telling, a group of actors prepares a performance on the
Annunciation. Animal actors, including two donkeys, a trained raven, and
carrier pigeons, also have important roles. The action derives from and
transforms the Biblical story, in which the angel Gabriel announces to Mary
that she will conceive by the Holy Spirit and give birth to the Son of God.
Through multiple points-of-view, Ahtila uses Jacob von Uexküll’s idea of
umwelt—that the different worlds of living beings all exist simultaneously—to
explore of the nature of miracles and the possibilities of perception and
knowledge.
EIJA-LIISA AHTILA
KAVERUKSET — COMPANIONS, 2011
4 min 10 sec loop
3-image monitor work for children
3 x Full HD file; 16:9/1:1,78; Stereo surround
Courtesy of the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and
Paris
© 2011 Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy, Helsinki
The short film, Companions, depicts the easy friendship of two boys as they
romp through Finnish settings, from a snow ramp in the nature park to the
waters of a lake in summer. Their world is full of the delights of childhood. The
project was commissioned for MuMo, a mobile museum housed in a container
that is “intended to reach out to children on the roads of France, Africa, and
around the world.” Organized in 2010, MuMo continues to travel widely.
Ahtila’s project has toured in West Africa and France via MuMo, along with
works by a group of equally renowned international artists, including Ghada
Amer, John Baldessari, Daniel Buren, Maurizio Cattelan, James Turrell, Nari
Ward, and Lawrence Weiner.
EIJA-LIISA AHTILA
TALO — THE HOUSE, 2002
14 min
3-channel projected installation; 16:9/1:1.78, Dolby Digital 5.1,
original language Finnish, English subtitles
Courtesy of the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and
Paris
© 2002 Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy, Helsinki
Beautiful, eerie, and surreal, The House tells the story of a young woman who
begins to hear voices. Through image and sound, and the complex three-screen
projection of the installation, the piece explores the breakdown of a coherent
world, the collapse of the logic of perception, and the loss of the sense of
passing time. Ahtila based the work on interviews with women who have
experienced psychosis, and developed the project to represent the loss of
chronological time and the vanishing of the experience of a complete space.