PHOTOGRAPHIC GALLERY HIPPOLYTE
Kalevankatu 18 B, 00100 Helsinki
+358 9 612 33 44, www.hippolyte.fi
Open: Tue-Fri 12-17, Sat-Sun 12-16
Closed on 6 Dec 2008, 23–26 Dec 2008, and 30 Dec 2008 – 1 Jan 2009
Ismo Kajander & Nina Rantala
5 Dec 2008 – 4 Jan 2009
December 2008 will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of Photographic Gallery Hippolyte, and also the start of the gallery's jubilee year. To celebrate the occasion, Hippolyte has invited photographic artists from four different generations to hold exhibitions in dialogue with other artists of their choice. The first show, Ismo Kajander's dialogue with Nina Rantala, open from 5 December 2008 to 4 January 2009, will launch the anniversary year's programme.
Simultaneously with the dialogue exhibition, a documentary show about the gallery's history will be mounted in Hippolyte Studio.
The series of dialogue exhibitions will continued in March 2009 with Ulla Jokisalo and Leena Saraste, in July with Elina Brotherus and Hannele Rantala, and will conclude in November with a show by Elina Relander and Aurora Reinhard.
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Ismo Kajander:
REMIXThirty years ago my wife called me at work. I was then senior lecturer in photography at the University of Industrial Art. My wife knew, of course, that I had been thinking about and looking for a place where to hold photographic exhibitions. She had noticed that the small business premises adjacent to our flat was being emptied, and she had hurried over to ask about its fate. It was up for grabs! It was from that phone call that Photographic Gallery Hippolyte got its start. However, I shall leap over the countless stories in the intervening years and come right to this day.
This time it was not the phone, but an e-mail: an invitation to participate in Hippolyte's 30th anniversary exhibition series! After my wife's call I had not hesitated, but now I was beset by doubts. I had not been using photography as my medium for years. In the past, my passion for photography used to practically fill my life, but what about now? On the other hand, I felt almost obligated to accept the invitation. I guess I was a bit flattered, so I said yes. Although I was given the chance to do other things, I wanted my participation to be in the form of photography, that much was clear to me. I had suddenly recalled a certain idea I wanted to explore...
Whatever the degree of my passion for photography, it was never for photographic equipment. Yet there is one area of photography so closely associated with a certain camera that even I own two of them. When I was writing columns for the Valokuva (Photography) magazine, I chose that particular camera as the signature of my column – the legendary 35mm Leica. So when a digital Leica came on the market a few years ago, I was on to the situation. My interest was not to try out the camera as a tool, but to explore the link between photographer and camera, a thing I knew something about from before. Would that still be possible with this new generation camera?
Now I saw my chance to test my idea, and above all else, to test myself. How about some kind of a remix? When Foka Oy, the Finnish importer of Leica cameras, agreed to lend me a Leica M8, I wasted no time hopping to Paris. Once again. Paris is the place where I took my most consistent photographic series in the time of analog cameras. I was out to do a remix!
It was not easy. Disregarding the difficulties of using an entirely new instrument, I was left with the much larger problems: Do I actually have anything to say? Is anyone interested? I realised I had accepted the invitation from somewhat selfish motives. On the cover of the catalogue of my previous exhibition in Hippolyte, I had written: Lord, if only you'd given me selfishness. Now I seemed to have got it!
Leica M8 is so much like the old Leicas that even after an interval of several years there still seemed to be some connection between the camera and my head. I realised this when I looked at my shots. But I also had to admit that photography would never be redefined by my photos. They were just like my old shots; well, except that they were in colour. But they would have to do for a remix!
Although I wanted to make a photographic exhibition, I also wanted to include some objects in it too. Some setting that would connect it to Paris, to the 'apparent' location of the pictures. I decided to make a copy of the box of a bouquiniste in the boulevards along the Seine, where they today sell just postcards, pictures, souvenirs and knick-knacks. So I gathered some things that allude to the connection between my previous and my new photos in the box, and also some things from my personal history where it has touched upon photography. Yet another chapter in my autobiography. Or a coffin where my photography will finally come to rest. Ultimately the box began dominating the situation to the extent that viewers must now crouch in front of the coffin – or altar – if they wish to see the pictures more closely. The solution is not meant as a taunt, the pictures simply ended there. They lost the battle to objecthood.
Although many of the photos might be taken anywhere, they would not exist without Paris. The connection between places and photographs, and memories too, also became the link between me and Nina Rantala, whom I invited as my partner in the show as stipulated in the invitation from Hippolyte. I could go on at length about my choice, suffice it to say that Nina's grandmother was my cousin! I remember my cousin with affection, I am proud of to be Nina's partner in this show.
Nina Rantala
The theme of my works is photography. I have created silent monuments to the moment of photography, to photography as a tool in building a life.
About a year ago I met a woman who told me that, ever since the 1970s, she had been using the last frames in her film camera, the leftovers of reels, to photograph views from the balcony in her block of flats. I wanted to see the photos. The amount of material was huge. There were views of a sports field, playground, trees, rows of houses, factory chimneys, houses from the district of Pasila in the distance, new ferris wheels in the Linnanmäki amusement park, ivy growing on the house next door, sunsets, Mayday marches, crossings, courtyards.
My works Forest Pond (2008) and Ivy (2008) are created using these photos. Forest Pond is the name the woman used for the concrete pool in the playground when talking with her next door neighbour. At street level you hardly notice the pool, but from the ninth floor you can see the sun glittering on the water in the pool and the trees that surround it.
There is something fascinating and extremely moving about the woman taking photos year in year out. Apart from revealing an interest in her environment and its changes, there must be something else in taking photos that attracts her. Seemingly like snapshots, the photos change when the woman speaks.
Father's Grave (2008) is another work made using the photos. When the woman was three days old, her father died in the Continuation War in 1941. Although she never met her father, he did receive word that a baby girl had been born to him. The work consists of pictures the woman has been taking of her father's grave since the 1950s. The photos are for her proof of the fact that she has visited her father's grave. They are also tangible pictures of their relationship. She has also photographed the lines soldiers' graves and official wreath ceremonies. I remember the letter of condolence from Field Marshal Mannerheim on her bedroom wall, about the greatest sacrifice one can make.
A few words about the dialogue between Ismo and me. The invitation card says a lot about the mood. I believe that Ismo was titillated by the idea of choosing as his partner an artist whose background is in sculpture and conceptual art. The woman who took the photos in my works is of the same generation as he. I compare them in my mind. One is a professional photographer, the other an amateur. Both have established a contact with a place through photography, both have a link to war.
I am currently working as community artist in the Saari Residence. My work is supported by the Kone Foundation.www.kajander.net
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Additional information and press images:
Petronella Grönroos, exhibition coordinator / Photographic Gallery Hippolyte, +358 9 612 33 44, firstname.lastname@hippolyte.fi