GALERIE ANHAVA - Helsinki

Grönlund-Nisunen's exhibition consists of works that, in the artists' characteristically precise and minimalist idiom, touch on the dimensions of time, space and continuity. The duo Tommi Grönlund and Petteri Nisunen have invited Swedish artist Carl Michael von Hausswolff to join them in this exhibition. Their previous collaborations have included the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2001, and the opening exhibition of Kiasma in 1998. In the exhibition, time appears as an inexorably progressing yet relative dimension, communicating and morphing with the space of the gallery. Beyond the limits set by time and space, the deliberately poetic works are crystallisations of changes and shapes triggered by physical phenomena such as tension, gravity and pressure.

The centrepiece of Antti Laitinen and Hanna Saarikoski's video piece Remains is a small stone. It is positioned in the centre of a table, flanked by two blocks of ice, each measuring 10 x 20 cm. Laitinen and Saarikoski are seated on opposite sides of the table. Their active role in the piece is emphasised by a featureless grey background. Throughout the 16-minute duration of the work, the artists make almost no contact with each other. With great concentration, they both feel the shape and dimensions of the stone with their hands, and transfer these measurements onto the block of ice before them. There is something primordial in the act of using the hand as a measure. It sets both the actor and the viewer adrift in a different layer of time that hovers invisibly all around us. The soft touch and small back-and-forth movement of the hand melt the ice, which slowly begins to take on the shape of the stone. The sense of quiet and concentrated being is palpable in the work. Laitinen and Saarikoski share a common goal, but their hands – their individual size and shape – impart a different form to the ice block. The durable stone remains in the centre like bedrock, while the ice starts to turn into water under the warmth of contact.