PHOTOGRAPHIC GALLERY HIPPOLYTE
Kalevankatu 18 B, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
+358 9 612 33 44, www.hippolyte.fi
Open: mon-fi 12:00-17:00, sat-sun closed
2 July – 7 August 2009
Elina Brotherus – Hannele Rantala
CORRESPONDANCES
Discussions about art 1999-2009
The origin of our joint exhibition is our friendship going back for ten years, and the discussions we have had about art during that time. Our two-person workshop has given itself various assignments, such as colour theory, the body, the landscape, art postcards, themes that both of us have interpreted in our own way. The works are hung in the gallery side by side. The viewer's experience blends with the ideas of two artists who see the same theme in different ways.
The first pair of works is from 1999, and it has to do with a paper handkerchief. When Hannele had an exhibition called Departures in Hippolyte Gallery, she sent an unused paper handkerchief with the invitations. Elina used the handkerchief she received in the mail for her work The Fundamental Loneliness. This anecdote has subsequently begun to seem significant to us.
Our new paired works range geographically from the bowels of the quarry where the marble for the Acropolis in Athens came from through the San Marco monastery in Florence to Arles in France, to the road leading to Tarascon, where the friends try to find Vincent van Gogh's landscape. Dazzled by the glare of the sun, especially when searching for the shadows of trees to photograph, they do not realise that Vincent painted no shadows at all under the plane trees lining the road. Only the artist, resolutely walking on his way to work, casts a black shadow on the road...
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Hannele Rantala
Autobiography in which I describe parallels with Elina B
No. 27 of a series of 26 autobiographies (2009)Elina and Hannele are both artists. They were born in the twentieth century. They each have a camera. Both are closer to two than one metre tall. Both like sausages. Neither likes carrots. Both think the periodic table is a fine system. Both say yes to everything and do ten things at once. Both love life a lot. They like apple trees and know what bauxite is. Both were quite embarrassed when they didn’t notice that the trees in Vincent’s painting have no shadows. They each have a bicycle.
Elina Brotherus & Hannele Rantala on a photography expedition in Arles 2009- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Photographic Gallery Hippolyte Celebrates Its 30th Anniversary
Thirty years passed in December 2008 since the opening of Photographic Gallery Hippolyte. The gallery celebrates its anniversary year from 4 December 2008 to 29 November 2009 with a programme that includes exhibitions, a photographic festival, a cross-disciplinary art event and a residency. The anniversary events of Photographic Gallery Hippolyte are part of the Year of Photography 2009 programme. www.katse.orgPhotographic Gallery Hippolyte’s anniversary year has been supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
Alfred Kordelin Foundation has supported the Year of Photography 2009.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Information and press images:
Petronella Grönroos, exhibitions co-ordinator
Photographic Gallery Hippolyte, +358 9 612 33 44, firstname.lastname@hippolyte.fi
www.katse.org
