First shown in Anne Koskinen’s solo exhibition in Galleria Orton, Helsinki, Finland, 8 January – 2 February 2013
Findlinge – Foundlings
The German word Findling means both a foundling child and a boulder transported glacially during the last Ice Age. The main narrative theme of these sculptures of natural stone depicting children is the experience of being abandoned. The works can be seen as monuments to children unaware of their roots, while on the they are reminder of a practice that continues even at present – of abandoning unwanted children, often girls, leaving them to be found, or to die.
The new Findling sculptures differ from the earlier works in that the concept of migration is more strongly present. The materiality, shapes and colours of the blocks, the tactility and visuality of the stone sculptures invite us to reflect on migration and (inter)racial issues.
Gallery press release
In her most recent works Anne Koskinen has turned her attention to stones found from her own backyard. The artist is fascinated by the opportunities of this material for creating images.
Koskinen is particularly interested in a question that is both mundane and the source of endless wonderment for artists who make images with their hands, i.e. when does material become an image? The artist proceeds from a fundamental process of image making that is of utmost simplicity. She seeks natural stones with the emerging beginnings of images. She looks for difference between the image and the not-yet-image.
Anne Koskinen makes her works completely by herself from start to finish, for she wants to bear witness, with her own hands, to the ways in which an image begins to appear in natural material. Pristine natural stone provides a starting point for a work that Koskinen creates via negation, removing the stone material that, on the other hand, is the basic condition for the existence of the piece. The parts remaining untouched point beyond the making of images. Just as a drawing will not contain areas lacking meaning even though they are ”empty”, neither does Koskinen’s sculpture contain parts that would lack meaning. Instead, natural stone brings forth the idea that the images are based on double display, simultaneously presenting something while appearing in their own materiality. This is also indicated by the German title of the piece, Findling, meaning not only a found infant but also an erratic boulder.
Galerie Anhava
See also the solo exhibition titled Solo at Galerie Anhava.
