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Kaarina Kaikkonen: "My Mother's
Ball Slippers" On 1 November 2007 at the State Hermitage Museum's Youth Centre two works were presented by the famous Finnish artist Kaarina Kaikkonen under the name of Inner Borders. Firstly, completely usual, old, women's slippers are hung on the walls of the small room, the slippers become part of the artist's fantasy in a strange, nasty and attractive insects and freakish, contorted flowers. This work Queen of Night is dedicated to her mother. The stiletto heel is a symbol of feminine sexual aggression, beetles and flies are a symbol of childish fears. What is the artist doing, seducing or scaring? And whom? And in a nearby hall a bright, openwork boat soars in the air. Rolls of toilet paper, are unfurled in the air, forming the appearance of something similar to a church or maybe a waterfall. What is it that the artist wants to convey to the audience? About the flesh, about the filth and comic nature of her product or about the soaring spirit? The following day, on 2 November Kaarina Kaikkonen at a meeting with students showed other artworks and talked about the events which have inspired her to create them. But she preferred not to reveal the meaning of her work, justly assuming that an artist creates a work and the viewer completes it through interpreting it, and so each image created by the master means something different to each of the viewers. It looks like Kaarina Kaikkonen gets into her work, obsessed by the idea of transgressing boundaries, dotting and defining what is masculine, what is feminine, what is clean, unclean, what I fear, what I desire…This is what I hide and show. At which point my heart quietens. But my work lives a separate life and decides things its own way. The works of Kaarina Kaikkonen can be seen at the exhibition hall of the Youth Centre (General Staff Building, entrance from 45 Moika River Embankment) from 12 to 5.30 p.m. until 11 November. |
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Copyright
© 2006 State Hermitage Museum |
