Animate

  Aeon by Timo Vaittinen is an exhibition consisting of independent works: an installation, sculptural elements and stop-motion animation videos. Stop-motion is a slow and time-consuming technique, but Vaittinen sees it as a meditative practice akin to the making of a Tibetan sand mandala. Creating a work picture by picture is like a spiritual exercise, like repeating a mantra. Timo Vaittinen uses no script when he makes his animations; the piece unfolds itself in the process, revealing its meaning in the course of its creation.

One of the stop-motion videos is entitled Central Park. Vaittinen took shots of the park at night, animating the one element necessary to create a photograph: light. External circumstances, nature and chance, all have contributed to the work. Every frame in the animation is a record of a unique moment and a reminder of the transience of all things. The result is a combination of documentary and escapist filmmaking, revealing mysterious things, which take place in the park after dark.

The visual language of Aeon is reduced to reflect the underlying abstract forms. The abstractions are not devoid of meaning, however. The work contains visual references to minimalism, occultism and to the iconographies of alternative religions and indigenous peoples’ imagery. A pizza box meets Donald Judd, nearby woods are lit by strange lights, and behind a triangle the spirit of a future aeon finds its manifestation in a rainbow of print inks. The works offer a glimpse into an artistic idiom which breathes beyond concepts, a visual eternity seen through the subjective interpretation of Timo Vaittinen.

The original meaning of the Latin word aeon refers to lifetime, period of existence, but also to eternity. In the occult tradition, aeon refers to the promise of a shorter, new and magical age, in Christianity it stands for eternity, life after death. In the title of the exhibition, it also denotes a vanishing picture of the times, Timo Vaittinen’s personal interpretation of this day and age. But it also alludes to the eternity and permanence, which is embodied in the abstract idiom of the works.

Timo Vaittinen’s installation will serve as the venue for the remainder of the Animate exhibition series.

Artist talk 30 September at 12.00, free admission, welcome!

Pori Art Museum, Mediapoint, 30 September–30 October 2011

Tickets: 3,5 / 1,5 / 1 €, familytickets 7 €

Opening hours: Tue-Sun 11am-6pm, Wed 11am-8pm

The Animate project is conducted in collaboration with the Turku Art Museum, the Pori Art Museum and the Turku Art Academy (Turku University of Applied Sciences / Animation Programme).

"Sitting at home on the couch in the dark, I noticed a small triangular hole near the floor. I had been sitting on the same couch for a week, yet I had not noticed the hole. It was odd, because I thought I had examined every inch of the room carefully with my eyes, thinking about the vanity of existence. The hole seemed to be growing, with a dim, flickering bluish light emanating from it. For a moment it looked as if a family of moles living in the hole were watching some reality show on a 42-inch plasma screen in the safety of their nest. The hole kept growing, and the light shining from it already lit up a small area of the laminate flooring in my small flat. I fought against the pull of the hole, but little by little it kept displacing more and more of the complex ideas concerning the meaning of life I had come up during the week. The growth was exponential, and I realised that the hole would expand to such dimensions that it was useless to struggle against it. I gave up, and looked straight into the light and beyond...”

Timo Vaittinen