TEEMU MÄKI – PAINTING
AND DRAWING
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Sometimes one piece of canvas is not enough. This became a real problem for me when my single-image allegories got more and more complicated. The solution was the multipartite.
In a multipartite it is also easier for me to use several different styles in a single (multipartite) work. And it gives me the oppoturnity to keep works in progress and update them by adding (or removing) parts, whenever I feel the need to – multipartite is an endlessly expandable and mutable playground.
A multipartite is not a series. It's a work that consists of several pictures or other physically separate elements, but these elements belong together as tightly as pages of a novel, and may not thus be sold or exhibited separately. However, structurally a multipartite differs from a novel and from a TV-series because the elements of a multipartite are not in a chronological or hierarchical order. The parts of a multipartite are not chapters of a story, instead they are meant to be different aspects of, a common subject matter – a group of simultaneous perspectives to a knot of common themes.
The most important reason why I make multipartites is that their form as such already embodies perspectivism, an important aspect of my philosophical conviction. Multipartite consists of several, distinct perspectives, bound together in so complicated ways but also so irrecoverably separated by their differences that they could not be reduced into any single, hierarchical system of values. In christian art the altarpiece-triptych was for a long time the most appropriate format. In it the big central panel houses the credo of a monotheistic worldview and is surrounded by smaller supporting panels. My multipartites are fundamentally different, not only because their parts are not in any kind of hierarchical order, but also because they embody perspectives that are in philosophical/political/aesthetical conflict with each other.
DARKNESS VISIBLE
POCKET ATLAS
NAUTINTO / PLEASURE
THE NEW FAMILY VALUES OF A COUPLE OF MURDERERS
WHY SOCIALISM IS NECESSARY
VAMPIRE VARIATIONS
THE BURDEN
A multipartite containing 7 paintings, 2 CDs of music, a video and a text leaflet.
A Death Follows Another Death (a piece of music by Teemu Mäki & Max Savikangas)
The Battle of Unborn (music by Raoul Björkenheim & Max Savikangas)
BROKEN #4 / RIKKI #4 (a constellation of texts)
200 drawings and a chair.
Mixed media on paper, usually 35 x 27 cm or 27 x 20,5 cm each (46 x 35,5 cm including frame).
A work in progress since 21.9.1993, an undivided whole, must be exhibited complete, no extracts shown or sold.
Preferably hung in one horizontal row of pictures over all four walls af a single hall.
The chair (≈ 160 x 50 x 50 cm), painted wood with an iron attachment and painted text, should be placed in the middle of the hall.
Pocket Atlas, Laznia Contemporary Art Center, Gdansk, Poland, March 2003, 250 x 1150 cm
Earlier versions shown in the Estonian Art Museum / Rotterman Salt Storage, Tallinn, 2002, and in MUU Gallery, Helsinki, Finland, 2000.
Samples, in sets of eight, click to see bigger images:
A new (2008–) multipartite, still in its infancy, not yet even exhibited. Will be a younger sister to Why Socialism Is Necessary.
Click to take a closer look:
4. version, drawings, paintings and texts, mixed media on paper, 57 pictures, 74 x 58 cm each, frame included.1997-2001, in memory of Kathy Acker and Blalla W. Hallmann. A work in
progress, an undivided whole. The overview below shows an earlier version of this work, at that time it consisted of 43 pictures.
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| PORTRAITS and landscapes... |
SINGLE-IMAGE ALLEGORIES | MULTIPARTITES |
COLLECTIVE
PAINTINGS |
Sometimes one piece of canvas is not enough. This became a real problem for me when my single-image allegories got more and more complicated. The solution was the multipartite.
In a multipartite it is also easier for me to use several different styles in a single (multipartite) work. And it gives me the oppoturnity to keep works in progress and update them by adding (or removing) parts, whenever I feel the need to – multipartite is an endlessly expandable and mutable playground.
A multipartite is not a series. It's a work that consists of several pictures or other physically separate elements, but these elements belong together as tightly as pages of a novel, and may not thus be sold or exhibited separately. However, structurally a multipartite differs from a novel and from a TV-series because the elements of a multipartite are not in a chronological or hierarchical order. The parts of a multipartite are not chapters of a story, instead they are meant to be different aspects of, a common subject matter – a group of simultaneous perspectives to a knot of common themes.
The most important reason why I make multipartites is that their form as such already embodies perspectivism, an important aspect of my philosophical conviction. Multipartite consists of several, distinct perspectives, bound together in so complicated ways but also so irrecoverably separated by their differences that they could not be reduced into any single, hierarchical system of values. In christian art the altarpiece-triptych was for a long time the most appropriate format. In it the big central panel houses the credo of a monotheistic worldview and is surrounded by smaller supporting panels. My multipartites are fundamentally different, not only because their parts are not in any kind of hierarchical order, but also because they embody perspectives that are in philosophical/political/aesthetical conflict with each other.
DARKNESS VISIBLE
POCKET ATLAS
NAUTINTO / PLEASURE
THE NEW FAMILY VALUES OF A COUPLE OF MURDERERS
WHY SOCIALISM IS NECESSARY
VAMPIRE VARIATIONS
THE BURDEN
| Darkness Visible |
A multipartite containing 7 paintings, 2 CDs of music, a video and a text leaflet.
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| An undivided whole, but as the work is so large that it very seldom fits anywhere, I have allowed some of it's chapters to be shown (but not sold) separately, as kind of "ambassadors" of the complete work. However, if an extract is exhibited, it has to be accompanied by 30 x 20 cm reproductions of the work's all other paintings and an info leaflet about the whole of it. |
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In addition to the paintings above the work includes:
Milk (a video)A Death Follows Another Death (a piece of music by Teemu Mäki & Max Savikangas)
The Battle of Unborn (music by Raoul Björkenheim & Max Savikangas)
BROKEN #4 / RIKKI #4 (a constellation of texts)
| Pocket Atlas |
200 drawings and a chair.
Mixed media on paper, usually 35 x 27 cm or 27 x 20,5 cm each (46 x 35,5 cm including frame).
A work in progress since 21.9.1993, an undivided whole, must be exhibited complete, no extracts shown or sold.
Preferably hung in one horizontal row of pictures over all four walls af a single hall.
The chair (≈ 160 x 50 x 50 cm), painted wood with an iron attachment and painted text, should be placed in the middle of the hall.
Pocket Atlas, Laznia Contemporary Art Center, Gdansk, Poland, March 2003, 250 x 1150 cm
Earlier versions shown in the Estonian Art Museum / Rotterman Salt Storage, Tallinn, 2002, and in MUU Gallery, Helsinki, Finland, 2000.
Samples, in sets of eight, click to see bigger images:
        |
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| Nautinto / Pleasure |
A new (2008–) multipartite, still in its infancy, not yet even exhibited. Will be a younger sister to Why Socialism Is Necessary.
Click to take a closer look:
 |
 |
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| The New Family Values Of A Couple Of Murderers |
4. version, drawings, paintings and texts, mixed media on paper, 57 pictures, 74 x 58 cm each, frame included.1997-2001, in memory of Kathy Acker and Blalla W. Hallmann. A work in
progress, an undivided whole. The overview below shows an earlier version of this work, at that time it consisted of 43 pictures.
The
New Family Values Of A Couple Of Murderers,
Borås Art Museum, Borås, Sweden, February 2000, 235 x 900 cm
(Marquis de Sade Knows Why)
A few extracts from Why Socialism Is Necessary (Marquis de Sade Knows Why). Click on the images to take a closer look:
Dedicated to Blalla W. Hallmann and Cecil Taylor.
Mixed media on paper,1992–1998, 8 pictures, 260x120 cm each. (with frame: 311x?cm each)
Sold to KIASMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, The Finnish National Gallery.
Vampire Variations, mixed media on paper, 311 x 1200 cm, 1992–1998
Click on the images to take a closer look:
(working title for an upcoming multipartite:)
Click on the image to take a closer look:
| Why Socialism Is Necessary |
(Marquis de Sade Knows Why)
A few extracts from Why Socialism Is Necessary (Marquis de Sade Knows Why). Click on the images to take a closer look:
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| Vampire Variations |
Dedicated to Blalla W. Hallmann and Cecil Taylor.
Mixed media on paper,1992–1998, 8 pictures, 260x120 cm each. (with frame: 311x?cm each)
Sold to KIASMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, The Finnish National Gallery.
Vampire Variations, mixed media on paper, 311 x 1200 cm, 1992–1998
Click on the images to take a closer look:
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(working title for an upcoming multipartite:)
| The Burden |
| I’m working
on a new, very large multipartite on paper, formally
resembling perhaps the VAMPIRE VARIATIONS that are in
the collections of Kiasma. This time the formal idea is to make a multipartite that consists of triptychs, half of which are black and white ink drawings and the other half watercolors. Here below you can see one ink drawing triptych, THE BURDEN. The ink drawings in this multipartite will be pure black and white pictures, no grayscale, and they will be mostly in this two-dimensional, ornamental stick-men-and-writing-style. The watercolors will have the opposite style, with a strong illusion of three-dimensional space and no writing, in other words, the visual style I usually have used for portraits. I’ve almost finished three ink drawing triptychs now, THE BURDEN is the one that is completely finished and already exhibited, the other two still lack a few touches. The size of each triptych is 330 x 470 cm, and as I've now made three b/w triptychs, the final results will consist of at least six triptychs. |
Click on the image to take a closer look:
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