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poster by Kari Piippo
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the virtual catalogue
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April 4 to June 1 20033
Lapinkävijäntiee44
96100 ROVANIEMI, Finland
The sculptor Kari Huhtamo celebrates his 60th birthday with two
exhibitions. January 7–26, 2003, Galleria Sculptor displays about
a dozen of his works under the title ABSOLUTE Huhtamo, and the other
show, RETROSPECTIVE Huhtamo, will be seen at the Rovaniemi Art Museum,
April 4–June 1, 2003. Galleria Sculptor exhibits Huhtamo’s latest
works, constructions of stainless steel. There’s also one sculpture
from the late Sixties, building a bridge towards the more organic
productions of his youth. In connection to this work, an extensive
photo collage features different experiments based on designs and
fantasies of those times.
Born in Rovaniemi November 1st, 1943, Kari Huhtamo studied first
at the Central School for Industrial Design in the years 1961–3,
then at the Finnish Art Academy School in 1963–4. He soon proceeded
from obsolescent figurative sculpting towards experiments – characterised
by surrealistic and pop art tendencies – with various materials,
and the former figurative forms gave place to free constructions.
In the year 1967, Huhtamo created his first polished and shiny steel
construction, but you may still perceive a crowing rooster in the
silhouette of that work. With the use of steel, Huhtamo’s art concentrated
on geometrical constructions and ready-made industrial materials.
In the spirit of constructivism, he begun to compose his works from
plates, bars, square-formed pipes and wires. The sculptor’s and
artisan’s atelier gave way to machine shop halls, and the sculptor
himself evolved to a designer, comparable to an architect employing
many skilled workers.
Since early Seventies, Kari Huhtamo has been especially known for
his big public works, in which the elegance of polished stainless
steel is at its best. He has constructed dozens of sculptures, reliefs,
installations, and free-hanging mobiles for fronts and entrance
halls of public buildings. As energetic and interested on new technical
possibilities as always, Huhtamo continues to be efficaciously productive
in this area. He has begun the construction of a big public sculpture
that has formerly been on display as a computer designed virtual
model.
The perception of a three-dimensional sculpture is always an event
connected to time and space: the work takes its form according to
the movements of the observer – or the mobile’s own movements. Huhtamo’s
steel constructions are heavy works of art, but because of their
shiny or painted textures and apertures cut in the planes they give
the delusion of an almost immaterial weightlessness. Curves and
movements are typical for the works; their shapes often turn to
illusions – transforming and fluctuating reflections and mirror
images, lights and shadows. Huhtamo’s steel constructions are surveyable
objects; there’s no need actual need to touch them. With their accurate
and impeccably finished forms, they often create an air of an aristocratic
distance and untouchability, but sometimes even steel seems to emit
humane and intimate sensations.
The ABSOLUTE Huhtamo exhibition guides its spectators into Kari
Huhtamo’s art which – in spite of seemingly simple solutions – is
multidimensional and multiform. Such topics as the nature, the coming
of spring and the glittering sunshine, melting snows and purling
brooks, budding leaves or fluttering birds can be discussed within
a commonly understood frame of reference – but even for such phenomena
Huhtamo seems to give his own absolute forms.
In due course, even this exhibition will be displayed on the artist’s
homepages: http://www.Huhtamo.com.
Juha Ilvas
Art historian, Järvenpää
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