The gallery’s autumn season will begin with a solo exhibition of work by Antti Laitinen (born 1975). Laitinen, who is representing Finland at this year’s Venice Biennial, will display works from various stages of his career. This retrospective is the first major solo exhibition in Finland by this internationally acclaimed artist. On display among other works at Galerie Anhava will be the Bare Necessities series documenting the artist’s four-day stay in the forest without food, water or clothes. This work crystallizes Laitinen’s manner of working, in which the essential aspects are an uncompromising attitude, the testing of physical and psychological boundaries, the absurdity of situations – and even humour. Laitinen’s works are often based on performance, the presence of the artist, which is documented with the means of photography or video.

The exhibition at Galerie Anhava will include video pieces, photographs and sculpture from the years 2002 – 2013. Visitors to the exhibition can also see the works displayed at the Venice Biennial; the most recent works of the exhibition are part of Forest Square, a work prepared for the Biennial. In Forest Square, Laitinen cleared a 100 square-metre (10 x 10 m) area of forest, assembled all the material that he removed from it and classified it systematically. The work consists of three photographs and material from nature collected from the forest area.

In addition to participating in the Venice Biennial, Antti Laitinen’s most recent exhibitions include the group exhibitions Nordic Outbreak and After the Arc – an Island: Findings of Team B at Botkyrka konsthall in Sweden and a solo exhibition at the Nettie Horn Gallery in London.

 

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