Pekka Jylhä
The Walls Have Ears And the Ears Have Beautiful Earrings
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In its exhibition program for the spring of 2013, Helsinki Contemporary has the honour to present the solo exhibition of the Pro Finlandia awarded sculptor and Artist Professor Pekka Jylhä (born in 1955, Toholampi). From Jylhä’s large production of sculptures, in Bulevardi 10 we show a set that continues the theme that Jylhä was working with last year in his exhibition at the Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo gallery.
The name of the exhibition at Helsinki Contemporary, The Walls have Ears, and the Ears have beautiful Earrings, is a quotation from the Estonian poet Paul-Erik Rummo. In the phrase that gives the exhibition its name, and in Jylhä’s work with the same name, the down side of beauty is also concretized, and culminates: the ears that listen, for better or for worse. Walls carry with them the history of a place, stories they have heard. In this phrase, the idea that when you pronounce words out loud, they are also heard by ears that weren’t meant to hear them, is also crystallized.
Jylhä’s poetic way of observing, and producing art from, the big and small details of life, has been charming and surrounding the Finnish and the international public, and the passers-by, for more than three decades already. In his art, Jylhä leaves room for the viewer’s own discoveries and interpretations, the sculptures don’t proclaim, but they give you a hint of the possibility of contemplating something once more – through an installation that comments on nature, material, form or space.
In April 2013, works by Pekka Jylhä were shown in Paris, at the arts fair Art Paris, presented by the Vanessa Quang gallery, Paris.
“I believe in the butterflies that fly away from fear of the storm, in a herbal garden surrounded with glass stones, and
in a vault of heaven draped in marble.
In a mirror image reflected on the surface of the lake and in dark lips,
which are pressed against a crystal that winter has made cold.
In pink, soulful rainbows, at the end of which there are no treasures for those who seek, but only small tears to be dried.
The storm comes and the butterflies fly away.”
- Martta Jylhä, 15 years old, about her father’s new crystal works.