From 16 through 27 May 2007, an installation by the Swedish artist Henry Gren Hermunen entitled A Water Table in a Renaissance Garden is being shown in the exhibition hall of the State Hermitage's Youth Education Center. The showing is part of the Class. Topical Art program and has received support from the St Petersburg Branch of the State Centre for Modern Art.

Henry Gren Hermunen is a young Scandinavian artist. He graduated from the Academy of Arts in Helsinki and the Royal University College of Fine Arts in Stockholm. He works in the genres of photography, installations and performance. His works have been exhibited in galleries and museums of Finland, Sweden, Great Britain, Germany, Canada and Russia.

The installation on display for young people of St Petersburg consists of two parts. The central part - the "water table" - is an interactive object which invites the viewer to participate. The surface of a large table is divided into a great many square cells filled with water. The cells are semi-transparent and light can freely penetrate through the water. The table has its own name: "Kick Me Gently." The artist invites everyone who wishes to interact with the water table and to push it with his hand, kick it (gently) with a foot or, touching just the surface of the water, disturb its smooth and tranquil layer. By a wave of the hand (or leg), the viewer brings the water to life: waves appear in it, circles radiate within the square cells, and rays of light passing through the whole construction begin to break up and cast sunny speckles of reflected light on the walls of the exhibition hall.

The second part of the exhibition is a series of photographs on a transparent film. The photos capture a "Renaissance garden" - classical sculptures amidst flowers and trees. These are images processed by the artist in such a way as to acquire depth. They are reminiscent of holograms: faded silhouettes of statues melt away in a golden haze.

The theme of transparency, three dimensions, and depth are intertwined in the work of Henry Gren Hermunen with the question of the status of art and the distance separating art from the spectator. What is the subject of art, whether it be a painting, a photo or a computer print? A flat image which one may like very much only at a distance or something with depth, into which you can walk? Should an object of art be self-sufficient or can the viewer enter into contact with it and in doing so, change it with his own hands? And isn't it in such contact that art finds true realization, changing itself and changing the spectator, who turns into a participant in the art? The artist invites the viewer to join him in finding the answers to these questions, and the medium he has built makes it possible for this to be enjoyable, beautiful and satisfying.

Youth Educational Centre of the Hermitage
General Staff building, Moyka River Embankment, 45
Tel. 710-95-91, 710-95-30
The exhibition hall is open daily from 12.00 until 17.30
Sundays from 12.00 until 16.30
Closed Mondays

At the opening of the exhibition

At the exhibition

Water Table in a Renaissance Garden, an installation by Henry Gren Hermunen

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