MY LIFE AS AN IMMIGRANT WITHOUT PAPERS
10 November 2014, Cervera de los Montes
I have had lately some problems with my health but as an immigrant who is not working in Spain I have no right for public health care. Last week a doctor received me illegally but she couldn't give me a medical prescription and I can't go to any further analyses. I didn't know that this can happen to a citizen of a European Union country living in another European Union country. My situation is that I I don't have public health care anywhere, neither in Spain (for not working there) nor Finland (for not living there). Anyways, this kind of experiences help me to understand the world better and make me more determined to fight for equality of all the people everywhere.
THE LIMBS ATTACHED TO THE HEAD
05 November 2014, Cervera de los Montes
Observing primitive art may be a cliché but I find my four-year-old son's drawings and paintings powerful. He is now on the pre-schematic level and changed recently from abstract scribbling to expressive landscapes and figures with round heads with limbs attached to it. Everything follows the normal pattern but witnessing the process so close everyday is fascinating and inspiring - I need to find the childlike spontaneous attitude for my own work.
Every now and then the news tell us about children having exhibitions in professional galleries. I think that goes against children's rights - making art is obviously labor - and is totally uninteresting. The last wunderkid was a nine-year-old girl who painted like Jackson Pollock and showed her products in a Chelsea gallery. Pablo Picasso said famously that every child is an artist but the problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. I think kids painting like alpha male hero painters of abstract expressionism is the extreme opposite. In addition, I dislike so much the art world where I'm forced to work that I wouldn't introduce my offspring there even in my worst nightmares.
TRAGIC PAINTER
30 October 2014, Cervera de los Montes
When I was in art school, I understood that art can be anything. I decided that I wanted to do things that are fun and easy. Actually, I did very few physical art works during my five years in the University - I was more occupied by finding out what it is to be an artist than making art. I had neither time nor interest to learn to draw, paint, take photographs, shoot videos or use computer software. When I got the degree of Master of Fine Arts in my hand, I knew the art world but my technical skills were nil.
One year after my graduation Krista, who was my gallerist in Helsinki, demanded me to do a painting show. I told her that I don't paint. She said that I was going to be a great painter. I isolated myself that summer in a studio in Brussels where I had no friends and suffered and painted. Anyways, my identity didn't transform to painter, I never call myself painter though I've done several painting shows.
I'm still extremely clumsy technically. To my surprise, some people still think that I could be - not to say that I am - an acceptable painter. Forsblom, my new gallery in Helsinki, wants a painting show for February. They have encouraged me to do new works and here I am at the studio frustrated trying to remember the basics of the painting once again. The worst thing is that even if had the money, I couldn't employ an assistant, who would be too skilful to imitate my awkward signature painting style.
CROWDFUNDING A LAMBORGHINI HURACAN READYMADE
24 October 2014, Cervera de los Montes
I launched my new conceptual work which is camouflaged as crowdfunding project at Mesenaatti.me, a crowdfunding platform specializing in reward based funding and cultural projects. My work is a little bit Duchamp's urinal, a little bit Manzoni's shit and lots of Turborealism.
Riiko Sakkinen does a readymade art work of Lamborghini Huracán LP 610-4 sports car. The artist needs funding for the purchase of the vehicle.
A hundred years ago the conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp declared urinals and bottle racks as works of art. Those works that shocked the art world and changed the whole concept of art were later raised on pedestals and placed in display cases in art museums.
Duchamp’s readymades were everyday objects in an era when the standard of living of the masses was rising rapidly. Today artist Riiko Sakkinen takes the readymade on the next level and builds his readymade of a top luxury product, during a time when the gap between the poor and the rich is unprecedentedly wide. Lamborghini Huracán sports car will be on artist’s daily use and can therefore be contemplated by the public in the streets and highways.
As a reward for the funders the artist offers his used and signed underwear from a limited and numbered 230 piece edition.
I need €230k.
HAPPINESS AND MONEY
22 October 2014, Cervera de los Montes
Have you heard that the rich also cry? Whenever I hear Pharrell Williams singing his number one hit Happy, I release the safety catch of my Molotov cocktail. Williams is a mega rich rapper, record producer and owner of Billionaire Boys clothing brand and tells us how happy it makes him.
Yesterday, I was listening to a radio program about Bhutan - it's regime, that violates many basic human rights has become famous for adopting officially the parameter of gross national happiness instead of gross domestic product. A representative of the government stated that the money doesn't make people happy and that the Bhutanese living in extreme poverty are happier than the country's millionaires. I guess that this is why peasants and toilers are so happy from Bhutan to Brazil and from Beijing to Berlin. This is the reason why the global capitalism must be the best of all possible worlds.
Here come bad news talking this and that
Yeah, give me all you got, don't hold back
Yeah, well I should probably warn you I'll be just fine
Yeah, no offense to you don't waste your time
Pharrell Williams: Happy