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This exhibition at Suomesta continues the ongoing thread in Leo Koivistoinen’s work of subversion, of the apparent disparity between the familiar and the unfamiliar, of the slight of hand and juxtaposition that upsets this. By making subtle interventions into how the subjects of his pieces are received (the horror film transplanted to neutral ground, the towering pile of books) Koivistoinen reflects on the relationships and distinctions between the dramatic and the mundane, the familiar and the unfamiliar. The direct and personal approach to the audience of Koivistoinen’s work in following these ideas sets up a dialogue that relies on subjective experience, stimulating a sense of the uncanny or of humour.
By choosing to focus on horror and placing it within a context that exudes neutrality, Colour Me Blood Red is firmly located in dealing with the former. The language of minimalism acts as the ground here, representing the neutral, the humdrum, the uniform to horror’s provocation, vitality and heterogeneity.
Whilst the nature of the uncanny experience is key to horror’s success, it relies on the play on our fear of encountering the unfamiliar and unknown within seemingly safe and familiar environments. The enquiry here explores a more complex relationship than this simple dichotomy; the language, both visual and verbal, of horror and of stark and sparse minimalism are at odds with each other. What is being questioned here, to an extent, is our relationship to language. Horror tugs and pulls at our emotions, eking out as much visceral reaction from its audience as it possibly can, employing cheap shots and dirty tricks to build up tension and leave you hanging, or lull you into a false sense of security before springing its trap. By drawing on our basest fears and upsetting conventional relationships horror at its essence relies on our instincts, libidinous drives and humanity to effect us as much as possible.
On the other hand, the neutral ground of the white cube, say, seeks to effect an audience as little as possible, preferring to allow the work that inhabits it to do the talking. This exhibition then sets out to question what happens when the building blocks of the neutral ground are imbued with more visceral forms of communication, when the language of horror is allowed to bleed in to its passive facade. Within this, this apparent neutrality is shown to be as much a conditioner of our response as the drama and spectacle of horror fiction.
Other works within the show similarly look towards the uncanny, where the role of upsetting the familiar and subversion of the everyday is played out in parallel. With Stacked Books, Vacuum and Blocked Door it is our relationship to everyday paraphernalia and how we interact with them that is called into question. Koivistoinen encourages an assessment of our relationship to one’s environment and how this effects the encounter with the art work; how we treat everyday objects and what happens when the distinction between the two poles is blurred.
Robert Cliff
www.lkoivistoinen.com