Tag: Elina Brotherus

The first exhibition Platform showed was called Nordic light. It consisted of work from three Nordic artists – Elina Brotherus, Jörgen Erkius and Oskar Lindström. The common aspects of these works were that they contain the aspect of light, dealt with deliberately or not – in various ways.

Jörgen Erkius showed a video, which looked like a homemade puppet theatre; a cardboard box with a snowy, symmetrical landscape. In the middle there was a hole where the artist stuck his dick through and glued a yellow paper sun on it. In the video the sun is rising and sinking, for three days in ultrarapido.

Oskar Lindström showed a video where he sings Twinkle, twinkle little star. He is not a good singer and every time he does a mistake somebody – you see only the artist’s face and a hand – slaps him on the cheek.

Elina Brotherus showed atmospheric photographs of nightly city landscapes; for instance an illuminated bridge shot on a foggy night.

For the first exhibition the local atmosphere almost required something you easily identify and relate to. The romantic aspect Nordic Light implies, gave the exhibition a connection to themes frequently used by other local and national and Scandinavian art institutions. The exhibition questioned if these artist have, or even if there is a common Nordic background in relation to art history. It felt important to show a variety instead of pointing out similarities, though the common title still remained. As we saw it, due to the chosen thematic local – global, Platform should start close to the local.