Jaakko Pallasvuo
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Work from New Sincerity.
Also see catalogue essays by Nicholas O’Brien and Jennifer Chan.
Artist’s Statement:
1.
The last time I had a show I got a tattoo to go along with it: a short, hesitant line on my left arm. Volcanic ash had travelled high into the atmosphere, leading to cancelled flights. I could not return. I was to stay with the work and change it. See it come down. That unplanned, destined non-time was worth commemorating. This show is marked by a cigarette burn. It’s healing fast. You won’t notice. You’ll see me at the opening, nervous and deflated. I’ll be checking my phone, carrying something. Moving quickly from one room to the other. This time home is within walking distance.
2.
I read into things: haircuts as language, gestures and objects as language. Language as language, too. I’m interested in social dynamics. Subtle changes in room-size atmospheres.
3.
4.
What can I say? I want my life to have purpose and I’m subjecting you to the search of said purpose.
5.
Possible artist’s statements:
a) I’m ashamed of these attempts at looking presentable.
b) Nothing unknown is knowable.
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“New Sincerity takes the form of videos, objects and texts. Internet artifacts and breakup lyrics float by as Pallasvuo dances for his webcam. A narrator intent on remaining undetected makes brief contact with another human being. There are also paintings, some of which are jokes.
Romantic conceptualism is called forth. There are seemingly confessional bursts of text that wouldn’t be out of place in a thoughtful Livejournal. There is awkward distance. Maybe this is honesty at last; a hot knife through post-ironic butter. Perhaps just another borrowed pose, quickly returned.” – The Future Gallery