X-OP Cultural Policy Group / X-OP Platform Maribor

The group was formed in the early summer 2010 when Bo Karsten, director of Art School Maa, and Johanna Fredriksson, producer working in the Helsinki-leg of X-OP network invited some artists for meetings in Maa-Tila project space. According to the initial plan the purpose of the meetings was to come up with an artistic program for the then forthcoming X-OP Festival, which was organized to coincide with the X-OP meeting in Helsinki. In the meetings more urgent, than to propose individual artworks to the festival, seemed to be discussing the trends in the cultural policy of Finland.

At the time acute issues were the plans to completely restructure the Finnish Arts Council (but partly due to strong opposition by artist unions it did not happen), and the new cultural policy plan of the Ministry of Education and Culture, which was being prepared with a long-term span of the next 35 years (the plan got published last winter). Also strong concerns were directed toward the overall shift in the cultural discourse and atmosphere in Finland toward neo-liberalism. Parts of this are high profile projects by the government, the cities and the private sector, where art is merely a branding tool of neighbourhoods, cities and the country. Also characteristic to neo-liberalism are preferences on an institutional level toward commercially oriented activities such as art fairs, private galleries and consulting agencies rather than supporting of knowledge production in museums and research centres.

Artists participating in the X-OP Cultural Policy Group are Tatu Engeström, Kalle Hamm, Ritva Harle, Minna Henriksson, Mikko Lipiäinen, Antti Majava and Tero Nauha. What is common with all of these artists is that for them art is a tool for participating in debate and discussion in the society, rather than a channel for autonomous and personal self-expression, and therefore in their work they are dealing with actual local social and political issues.

But nevertheless this group of artists is not a homogenous group of friends, or a collective, but a loose group partly defined with the current geographic location of its members. Their subject matter as well as visual language and artistic media vary greatly. Neither do they completely share the opinion of what is to be done within the group. Last autumn the group decided to write a manifesto, which was to be sent to different newspapers in Finland. But the manifesto was never sent to papers as the group failed to define and articulate the common issues. For one there was not a consensus within the group on what is the main issue to fight against and resist in the recent developments in cultural policy in Finland, and what should be fought for. For some the main issue was about limiting artistic freedom, and there were concerns of diminishing freedom of speech. For others it was a question of artistic responsibility, and instead of crying after liberties, each artist should engage more in addressing social issues, which need urgent attention. But in both cases, what was a common concern was the resistance toward instrumentalization of art and artists for the economic benefits.

In KiBela gallery, in Multimedia Center Kibla, Maribor, each artist is exhibiting an earlier work, which relates to the discussions held in Maa-Tila space during the last one year.

X-OP – eXchange of art operators and producers is a gradually growing network of artists, researchers, operators, producers and centres with the aim to establish European platform for creation of art and exchange.

(www.x-op.eu)

TATU ENGESTRÖM

With every new work I aim to create a strategy for producing and presenting an artwork. The context where the final piece is presented determines the form and the medium. With a good enough strategy anything is possible.

KALLE HAMM & DZAMIL KAMANGER

Pizzeria Babylon is an artistic collaboration, which we started in 1998 in Helsinki. At that time we were both working under-the-counter in a pizzeria in a Helsinki suburb. At first Pizzeria Babylon was a title for an exhibition, but soon it grew to a platform for different art projects that deal with ‘otherness’. In our works we have dealt with issues such as encounters of cultures, global networks and rights and position of marginal groups in relation to majority culture. Of the material, which we have produced, we have constructed different work entities depending on the site of presentation and its specific characters. In our artistic work pizza represents the society, which anyone can bake to his/her liking.

RITVA HARLE

It is hard to define where the work starts and where it ends; the so-called visible work is just one small part of the whole entity. In the background of each piece as a ground work there are countless amounts of permits, meetings for fund raising and for collaborations, and piles of all kind of documents.

My piece contains pictures from along the years, of the projects that I have done. Laminated prints are from A4 to A7 size and they are attached to each other with metal rings. The result reminds of a 70’s door curtain.

MINNA HENRIKSSON

One series of works, which I have been working on in recent years are maps of art scenes. They are in the form of diagrams and consist of informal information that I have been told.

The maps are not based on empirical facts, and by no means do not claim to be, but are result of my subjective artistic research. Through presenting gossips and opinions, and concentrating on the mixing of personal and professional, revealing power positions and obvious corruption, they aim at bringing visible forces at play in the art scenes, which are invisible to the general public but have an impact on, or sometimes even determine, the artworks and exhibitions produced.

I have made map of the art scene of Istanbul (2005), Zagreb (2006), Ljubljana (2008), Belgrade (2009) and Helsinki (2009). /…/ Alongside the five maps I am also presenting other material, which has come about as a side product of the researches, and were sometimes included in the installation of the work.

MIKKO LIPIÄINEN

After expanding my artistic practice to area that can be defined as traditional politics - labor struggle and land use - I find that there is no escape from the nationalistic discourse and way of thinking that is currently dominating the political sphere in Finland (which is not absent from the online world either) and which is preventing us from envisioning sensible solutions for the problems of globalization. This means that once again we, the artists need to confront the monster we have created. Needless to say, with conceptual instruments or weapons.

ANTTI MAJAVA

Mustarinda NGO is an art/research center organizing an artist-in-residence program on the remote hilltop of Paljakka in the Kainuu region in Finland. The surrounding old-growth forests offer a rare opportunity to observe nature’s own form of language, structure, and operation. There is a particular physical and mental space for new ecological perspectives to arise.

Mustarinda aims to bring together artists, scientists, and people from various public and private organizations to work on the inconceivably wide challenges humanity is now facing.

TERO NAUHA

Two central concepts or constructions in my practicebased research are subjectivity and performance. I will try to track down the different devices and formations that these concepts have taken in the two epochal periods: of modernist-industrial context, and the context of immaterial labour, i.e. cognitive capitalism. There is a shift of contexts or transitions from an epoch to another, and both of them have different set of apparatuses in singular composition, and in relation to each other.

Curator: Yasmin Martin Vodopivec

Pdf Catalogue

X-OP Cultural Policy Group.pdf

23 May 2011 – 30 May 2011
Opening: 23 May 2011 at 8 pm
KiBela / KIBLA Maribor
Kindly welcome. Admission free.
KiBela, Space for Art is open every day 9.00 am to 10.00 pm, Saturdays 4.00 pm to 10.00 pm, the gallery is closed Sundays.

MMC KIBLA wishes to thank the following for their support: EU-EACEA, Culture Programme, Brussels, Slovenian Ministry of Culture, Municipality of Maribor and Office of Youth.
KiBela programme is part of the European X-OP project.