The works of Otto Karvonen practically sneak up from behind our backs and encourage us to new intellectual insights. It catches us by surprise in the middle of the street, behind the market-hall counter, on signboards on the walls of buildings, on electronic notice boards. His art comprises daily politics as well as poetry, often spiced up with a touch of humour.
Otto Karvonen's work has a contemplative lightness to it – what Italo Calvino in his Harvard lectures (Six Memos for the Next Millennium) refers to as the opposite of superficiality. Karvonen uses small acts to counterbalance the “society of the spectacular” that is marked by noise, aggression, publicity and self-aggrandizement. To counterbalance what many mistake for vitality.
Karvonen himself describes his art as situation-specific. His works are mainly based on a study of the context they are realized in. The artist’s installations and performances often make use of prejudices and introduce surprising viewpoints into everyday life. Karvonen queries and questions, he doesn't insist or persuade. He trusts that people’s participation in the creation of art and active reception of art can be more efficient to instigate ethical contemplation than plain knowledge can be. Karvonen manages to combine aesthetics and ethics; to handle aesthetic and political issues together without simplifying either.
From December 7, 2008 - March 1, 2009 at De Appel in Amsterdam.
Visit the De Appel website for more information on this exhibition.