phase four

We just worked. We worked. It was a hard day. We did not speak much. We agreed on the plan in the bus and worked. We had a break, but except that, we worked.
It was changing. all the time. Every minute. It was coming and we did not need any words to speak. Balance. Equilibrium.
We enjoyed it.

entrance room has been repaired

 

Storage room

 

white in white

white in white

white in white

white in white

white in white

white in white

white in white

white in white

 

cakes are moving

white and sand

sand and white

 

sand room

sand room

 

already one white cleaned room, no art today

from empty room into a full one (full of meanings)

 

trash room changed into a storage room (and cakes have been moved here)

room full of meanings (and materials)

week later

Week later

Destruction of the destruction

We let go. Of everything. We did other things, worked, ate, slept. Not thinking about it, just keeping it in the head and digesting it. One week later it was finally the right time and we decided to come back and continue in the artistic research and destruction.

It became actually destruction of the destruction. I focused on repairing the walls in five rooms, I destructed the details we made at the beginning. Entrance room started to be clean and white with no holes in the walls. Simulacrum, the room, where all materials were, changed. Some of the materials became trash and they were moved to the other room. White room underwent the biggest change. Plastic disappeared.  White cubes change positions. It became more of the labyrinth, tracing the marks of the movement. Of their own movement. Black tape was the marker. We also cleaned it and repaired the walls. In the kitchen, some of the sand cakes were destroyed. They distorted into a pile of material. And dirty black walls started to whiten. The modeling table changed its position, and drop off the extra material of itself. We also started the second round of pictures in photo/documentation room. More destruction happened in the treasure room. Also some materials, which we do not use anymore, were moved into this space. It started to fill in.

We spent there all day and left. Rooms continue to live lives on their own. Without us. People left us some notes. One of them stayed in my head: “it is scary”. I can understand it. It might be scary what people have in minds, what they can show and what other people actually see and find there, in the visual/material picture of their ideas. Weird.  And scary.

material room

Labyrinth

Labyrinth

Labyrinth

 

sand cake room

 

sand cakes and walls

 

photo room

photo room

 

modelling table

trash room

vernissage day

The opening day

Niina spent in Nitra another three days without me, working. She enjoyed the space and her time alone there.

I arrived on Thursday morning, the Opening day. We talked. She was looking forward to see me enter the changed space. It was a surprise for me. Things really changed. The feeling in the gallery changed. The white cube room became more white with plastic “cube” in the middle of it with reinstalled white plaster cubes. In the hole was another text, labyrinth text and light, so you could have seen it.

And there where the sand cakes. Made out of six bags of sand. They were nice and ready, also with the directions how to build them. Creative. And really fitting the space.

I continued on my modeling table, finish every piece, used every bit of clay. The trash room became colorful and destroyed a bit more.

The little room became documentation centre. We installed the printed photos of previous phase.

And it was almost the time. We started to feel “naked”. This is what people will see in few minutes. Our insides? Our inner thought? What will they actually see? What will they perceive?

Will they see the same as we do? Or will they see at least something?

We explained in the opening and invited them to come again and see the process of the creation.

white cubes

plastic cube

no more labyrinths

white cubes/labyrinth

 

sand cakes

sand cakes and Bunker machines

sand cakes

 

modelling table

trash room - playground - documentation centre

 

destruction room

destruction room

simulacrum

first steps

STROJ-DESTROY-HYÖTY

Niina-anneli Kaarnamo (FI) and Mira Podmanická (SK)
Exhibition at Nitra Gallery - Bunker, Slovakia

It was a project we started to work on a year ago. There was a open call for Nitra Gallery, its special part called Bunker, which I really like. It is a perfect place for site-specific installations. It has its own atmosphere, its own, I would say, life.

So I asked my friend, finnish Niina, to do a project with me. We talked; we talked a lot about what it would be, how we can cooperate, because it is not easy. We talked about the place, about the space. She went to see it and liked it almost as I did. She had also better idea about what I was talking, when I said, it is specific.

We wanted to ask the question about art, not the cliché ones. But the ones we need to answer every day for ourselves and for close friends. What do we do it? Where does it come from? How is it possible?

It was a project about making something – stroj – do – create, which is the base. That is also the visible part of it. There is something (usually) in the exhibition rooms. You can look at it. It is considered art, since it is in the gallery or museum. And then we wanted to destroy it – the gallery – the white rooms – the white cube – art – the ugly walls in Bunker and many other things. The plan was that at the end of the exhibition there would be only white clean walls. No art. No art pieces left to look at. And what would be the benefit – hyöty?

After almost a year since these talks we met. She came to Slovakia and we finally had time to realize the project. We had the space ready week before the announced opening. Good. We have enough time. Anyway, the exhibition will change, so even if we started the day of opening, it would be ok for us. But we have time. We collected the materials and things and moved them to Nitra.

We arrived to Bunker on Saturday morning. Here it is. The beginning was hard. But we worked and talked. Continued talking. Seven rooms were changing. There were left remains of previous exhibitions. Even part of mine from 2012. We cleaned everything up. Destroyed it.

Rooms got names. There were many associations and we left it open, so it was changing and evolving: first room became just entrance room. The second one was storage room, The World, or also the Simulacrum. Materials were stored there. Here everything started. Then on the right are three rooms, so one became trash or documentation room, the other two did not get the name yet. On the left there was definitely kitchen/room with cakes/sand cake room and one white room (white walls, white cube, gallery…).

We worked and then we sat outside in the gallery garden and continued to talk about our ideas. It was not so clear yet, but we did not want it to be clear. We wanted the ideas to come and go, to change, to grow, to evolve, to develop. And it was happening. We agreed on one thing: this is not a usual exhibition for Slovak viewer. We knew it. No artistic pieces were brought in, just materials and they were changing. The whole space was changing. But what is the result. Or the benefit?

For us even the time we spent together was the benefit. Selfish. We shared the ideas, we shared our secret, inner thoughts and opinions about art, various artistic projects. And we were creating something. We agreed that sometimes the benefit is invisible. And this might be the case. You can just feel it (for a moment).

We had the food pause, coffee pause and then the work pause in perfect equilibrium. We spent in Nitra two days. But it was not finished.

trash room

trash room

 

trash room

 

modelling room - modelling table

 

labyrinth

Simulacrum