Jukka Korkeila
Sans Souci

02. - 25.09.2016

On September 2–25, Helsinki Contemporary will be showing Jukka Korkeila’s much-anticipated solo exhibition Sans Souci. The French title means ‘without care or sorrow’. The exhibition’s underlying theme is love and wholeness, with art serving as a part of life’s great process of giving things up. Korkeila’s works now radiate a new energy and joy. The sharp-eyed will also find in them an echo of the past and hope for the future.

Sans Souci consists of excerpts from the string of pearls that is everyday life. Some of the new paintings are like film stills, rough snapshots or reflections of a bounded reality. They constitute a story that is completed in the viewer’s imagination. The exhibition contemplates the appropriateness of seemingly random events in life. Everything is, in the artist’s own words, a “complex body of causes and connections that we don’t always recognize or understand.” The most important thing in this process, and in life, is to try to achieve openness and sensitivity so as to see the connections between things.

“Painting is not a throw of the dice. Painting is working with various materials and studying their properties. […] Sometimes, the painting process can lead you into an unfamiliar area. In other words, you can get lost while painting, but this, too, is a result of conscious choices, of steps taken. Behind each artwork are decisions that lead in action from an empty canvas towards a completed work…” Korkeila says.

The title of the exhibition is taken from the Sanssouci summer palace that Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, had built in Potsdam near Berlin in the mid-18th century. The title’s meaning became clear to Korkeila when he visited the palace, and he was surprised how well the words described his own situation.

“Nothing is ever 100 percent, of course, neither sorrow nor joy. It’s a matter of combinations where one property, the stronger side of the coin, determines the whole in which life goes on.”

Korkeila frequently investigates his subjects via pairs of works. Repetition of everyday situations creates the exhibition’s tension, which accentuates the distinctive nature of moments and the uniqueness of life.

Jukka Korkeila (b. 1968) is one of Finland’s foremost artists, and is known for boldly smashing the boundaries of both image content and painting traditions. He works in Berlin and Stockheim, Oberhessen, Germany, and in Helsinki. He represented Finland at the São Paulo Art Biennial in 2004 and participated in the Prague Biennale in 2003 and 2007. In 2014, he participated in the Bienal del Fin del Mundo at Mar del Plata, Argentina. Korkeila has had solo exhibitions at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and the Nordic Watercolour Museum in Skärhamn, Sweden. He has participated widely in exhibitions around Europe and his works are in all the main Nordic collections. In 2017, Korkeila will take part in a wide-ranging retrospective exhibition at HAM Helsinki Art Museum and at the Serlachius Museums in Mänttä, together with Elina Merenmies and Anna Retulainen.