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1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
Born in Helsinki to a middle-class family.
Ulrike Meinhof commits suicide in her prison cell.
Spends the summers at his grandparents’ cottage by the Lake Päijänne.
Spain has its first democratic elections after Francisco Franco's dictatorship.
His parents buy a color TV.
Deng Xiaoping begins the economic reforms called Socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Doesn’t show any special artistic talent during the childhood.
Ayatollah Khomeini becomes the leader of Iran.
His parents divorce.
The war between Iran and Iraq begins.
Travels with his mother to Morocco.
AIDS is reported first time.
Participates in anti-American demonstrations with his mother.
Argentina and the United Kingdom go to war for the control of the Falkland Islands.
Goes to elementary school.
Ronald Reagan proposes the Strategic Defense Initiative, Star Wars.
Is interested in Kiss, Knight Rider and Star Wars but for the strict communist ideology of his family must consume American pop culture in secrecy.
Indira Gandhi is murdered.
Refuses to become a pioneer, an infantile member of the Communist Party.
Nelson Mandela rejects an offer of freedom from the South African government.
Travels to Leningrad and is told not to ask any questions. Reads The Phantom comics and eats Mars bars.
Olof Palme is assassinated.
Is told by the teacher that he can’t draw.
Mihail Gorbachev announces Glasnost and Perestroika.
Draws castles and warfare. Visits Legoland.
An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed.
Lives in Melbourne, where he attends high school, which is a tremendous intercultural experience after the childhood in the monocultural Finland. Falls in love with a Malaysian girl but is not responded. Learns to speak English. Collects Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stickers.
Tiananmen Square protests are crushed by the Chinese government.
Becomes interested in different left wing ideas from Anarchism to Situationism. Spends several weeks in Tallinn, the capital city of the Soviet Estonia, where he acts like a rich jackass spending his Western currency. He is told by local friends that the Soviet Union will never fall.
Iraq invades Kuwait. Travels to the reunified Berlin on a school field trip. Sees an exhibition of Degenerate Art but is more interested in drinking beer what is not served to minors in Finland. Sees a Yoko Ono exhibition at the Pori Art Museum.
The Soviet Union is disbanded.
The Cold War ends. Bret Easton Ellis publishes American Psycho. Leos Carax premieres Les Amants du Pont-Neuf.
Travels to Italy and visit Florence and Rome. Enrolls in an art high school where many of the most prominent future artists of his generation attend. Goes several times every week to the Finnish Film Archive cinema. Reads a book per day, including the classics from Dostoyevsky to Plato. Is fascinated by Jean Baudrillard’s essays. Writes poems and short stories. Becomes vegetarian for ecological reasons.
The Bosnian War begins.
Writes poems and short stories. Wants to be a terrorist or a poet.
North Korea starts a nuclear weapon program.
Paints his first canvases. His girlfriend makes him to listen Manic Street Preachers’ album Generation Terrorists. Wants to be a rock star, without playing any instrument, and tries to form a band without success. After seeing Ilya Kabakov’s installation Operation Room (Mother and Son) wants to become artist. Travels to Vienna to see Egon Schiele's paintings.
A million people are killed in the Rwandan genocide.
Graduates from the high school. Applies to the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and is rejected. Begins the obligatory military service but after three days is declared inadaptable to authorities and discipline and is sent to therapy. Attracted by Pedro Almódovar’s films travels to Madrid and Barcelona, where he works as a journalist reporting by telephone to a Finnish radio station. Sees Picasso's Guernica in the Reina Sofia Museum. Frequents illegal sadomasochist techno raves. His best friend is condemned to jail for drug trafficking. Rents a studio at the Cable Factory.
World Trade Organization is established to liberalize the global trade.
Shows his art for the first time - the solo exhibition Domestic Porn consists of painted domestic appliances and receives positive critics and a wide media coverage. Applies for the second time to the Academy and is rejected again. Works as vendor in an convenience store but leaves the work after a nervous breakdown. Participates in the national juried exhibition of young artists with three flower paintings. Is elected to the board of the artists' association Muu. Travels to London and sees Jake & Dinos Chapman's exhibition Chapmanworld.
The Talibans establish The Islamic Emirate of Afganistan.
Applies for the third time to the Academy and is finally accepted. Suffers from the classical training and organizes a student rebellion against the professors. His future best friend and collaborator Jani Leinonen is in the same class.
Tony Blair is elected the prime minster of the United Kingdom.
Begins to work as guide in Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, where he is impressed by Bjarne Melgaard's exhibition Everything American Is Evil - The Return to Constantinople. Meets his Spanish future wife in Stockholm when they are visiting the Moderna Museet. In the summer travels to Saint Petersburg and Karelia, from where he family fled during the World War II. Stays in Cuenca the winter as an exchange student. The following years spends more time in Spain than Finland, though he continues studying in Finland. Does the first A4 size drawings but works mainly in the live art. Becomes carnivore again.
Hugo Chávez is elected the president of Venezuela.
Studies in the painting department of the Academy with Henry Wuorila-Stenberg as his professor. Runs with his fellow students an illegal bar in the basement of the Academy. Is more centered in the question how to be an artist and what is the role of artist in the society than in making any artifacts.
NATO launches air strikes against Yugoslavia. A two months residency organized by the Academy in Berlin. Is heavily impacted at Kunst-Werke by Santiago Sierra's exhibition with asylum seekers in cardboard boxes and Jonathan Meese's installaton with Nazi paraphernalia. In Helsinki, attends a workshop by the Danish artist Tal R, and impersonates him in an interwiew for Helsingin Sanomat, the biggest newspaper in Finland. The article is published with a large foto of him and the newspaper blacklists him for few years. Organizes an exhibition in the gallery of the Academy inlcuding works of fellow artists, imaginary friends and his grandmother. During the next years works also under the pseudonym Görsky Grytvic. Participates in Kassel in a workshop conducted by Okwui Enwezor, the director of Documenta 11. George W. Bush is elected the president of the United States.
Lives in Madrid and works first as assistant in a gallery and later in an exhibition installation company. Curates the exhibition First in, First out, First in, First Serve in Cuenca, where he also participates as extra dancer in La Ribot’s piece. Travels by car from Madrid to Venice to the opening of the Biennale. Doesn’t have an invitation and jumps over the wall of Giardini. Is prepared with a pizza base and cream to pie Harald Szeemann, the curator of the Biennale. During the exhibition Ars 01 at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art works as interpreter of Santiago Sierra. The newspaper Helsingin Sanomat writes a mocking three-page article of him as the revenge of the Tal R incident, which makes him moderately famous in Finland.
The September 11 attacks take place in New York and Washington.
Begins to write articles for Taide, a prestigious Finnish art magazine. Graduates from the Academy. One of the pieces of his degree show installation is his mother’s cocker spaniel. Directly after the graduation goes to a residency to London hosted by Camden Arts Centre and Delfina Studios, where he he thinks that it's not that difficult to be rich and famous. Exhibits together with Jani Leinonen at Helsinki Art Museum, which buys his works, and participates in the Fourth Triennale of Finnish Photography at Amos Anderson Art Museum. Visits Alhambra in Granada.
East Timor gains independence from Indonesia.
Travels around the Balkans with Katja Tukiainen and Niko Luoma for a project that consist of glueing racist posters illegally on the walls. Sells 19 drawings to a foundation which later donates them to MoMA’s. Paints during the summer in Brussels and Antwerp and later shows the works in Helsinki receiving lots of media attention and negative critics. During the next years travels frequently to Belgium. In the end of the year, moves permanently to Spain and lives first in Pepino, a small village in Toledo, with his parents-in-law. Particpates as an expert in Sarajevo in an intercultural dialog and conflict prevention conference organized by the Council of Europe. Moves to Spain permanently.
The United States invades Iraq.
Lives in Talavera de la Reina. Travels for the first time to America for his New York solo show Everything I Don’t Understand Must Be Sin which is reviewed in The New York Times. The show features his first figurative mural. In the end of the year spends with Jani Leinonen few weeks in Texas. Begins to work with the independent curator Raúl Zamudio who includes him in numerous exhibition during the next years. Writes columns for Ylioppilaslehti, a prestigious publicaton of the Student Union of the University of Helsinki. Decorates with his art a reception given by the president of Finland Tarja Halonen for the king of Belgium Albert II in Brussels.
Al-Qaeda suicide bombers attack Madrid commuter trains.
Gets married and his daughter is born. Settles in Cervera de los Montes, a small village where he reforms an old house. Helps his father-in-law who is cowboy. Works also as a clown, English teacher for bus drivers, guide in a vineyard and all-terrain vehicle instructor. Does his first solo show in Madrid. Makes the first list drawings.
Kuwaiti women are granted the right to vote.
The Provisional IRA orders an end to the armed campaign. The Somali pirates begin to seize ships regularly. Rajaa al-Sanea publishes Girls of Riyadh. M.I.A releases Arular.
Travels to Hong Kong and Shenzen, where he stays in a clothing factory, and is impressed by the Chinese culture and economy. Participates in the exhibition of the Spanish young artists organized by the government. The Riiko Sakkinen website is launched.
Saddam Hussein is executed.
Stays two months in Tokyo as artist-in-residence investigating Hello Kitty and image clubs. His work Human Rights Damage our Economy is censored in a group show in Beijing. Several works are acquired by Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art.
The global financial crisis begins.
Exhibits at the Finnish Cultural Institute in Sweden and demands in the interviews an official apology of the Swedih government for colonializing Finland in the past. Teaches in several universities in Finland his Survival Kit for Young Artists. Does his first solo shows in Paris and Berlin. Travels to South Korea to execute the installation We Love Samsung and Kim-Il Sung at the Yeosu Internatonal Art Festival. The work causes a huge media attention, an investigation by the police and demonstrations demanding censorship, what finally is done. Travels for an exhibition to Chicago when Barack Obama is elected the 44th President of the United States.
Kosovo declares independence from Serbia.
Stays in Helsinki preparing with Jani Leinonen works for their major museum show Jani and Riiko’s Free World at Amos Anderson Art Museum. Makes also an installation at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art. Becomes an art celebrity in Finland and appears in numerous magazines and TV talk shows. Speaks in the interviews about communism where everybody drives a BMW as his utopia. Curates the exhibition Trickle-down Theory with the works of almost one hundred artists around the world. Exhibits and sells an installation at Art Basel art fair where he has dinner with the model Naomi Campbell. Spends the summer in Beijing, where he executes a series of collaborative paintings with Judas Arrieta. Participates in the 798 Beijing Biennale. Travels to the Maldives for an unsuccessful project that is never completed.
Bolivia declares the right of indigenous people to govern themselves.
Founds Turbo Realism, a new art movement and forms the Deadly Viper Painting Squad. Exhibits his first neon work in Málaga. His entire show of list drawings is acquired by the Helsinki Art Museum. Receives a monthly grant for the Art Council of Finland for two years. His drawing Secrets of Sexy Cooking is exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Riiko Sakkinen Image Club, the first important monograph, is published. His son is born.
An earthquake kills hundreds of thousands of people in Haiti.
Exhibits in Monterrey, Mexico, the focal point of the drug violence. Spends one month in Syria during the uprising. Exhibits Syrian works in Madrid. All his hotel drawings are acquired by the Rich Collection.
Arab Spring uprisings occur in the Arab world.
Travels to Damascus and exhibits there during the civil war. Does active propaganda for the secular and multicultural Syria, both in the country during the visit and later abroad. Exhibits Syrian works in Helsinki.
Israel attacks the Gaza Strip. Joins the Communist Party of Spain. Begins to write monthly columns for Finnish Cult24 magazine. Hides money in a public library in Helsinki. Curates with Jani Leinonen Homelessness Fair. Does a two-month residency in Beirut. Paints 57 Varieties which is exhibited in the Carnegie Art Award in Stockholm. Pulls out a work from an exhibition in France when its government threatens to bomb Syria. Edward Snowden discloses operations engaged by a US government mass surveillance program to news publications.
Completes a series of big hand painted Talavera plates and exhibits them at Arco art fair in Madrid and Helsinki. Solo show MuNA - Museum of No Art at the new Serlachius Museum in Finland.
ISIS declares the Caliphate. Russia annexes Crimea. War in Ukraine.
First exhibition at Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki. Resigns from the Communist Party of Spain. Moves from Cervera de los Montes to Pepino, the neighbouring village, where he builds a house. Exhibits black monochrome paintings in Stockholm in an exhibition celebrating the 100th anniversary of Malevich's Black Square.
First museum solo shows outside of Finland at Bury Art Museum in the UK and Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. Supports the dictatorship of intellectuals, the hegemony of poest and philosophers. Travels with Serlachius Museum's director Pauli Sivonen to Ceuta, Melilla, Lesvos, Calais Jungle and the Balkans following the routes of refugees and migrants.
Two important museum solo shows in Finland - Closing Borders at Serlachius Museums and Presidental Game at Hyvinkää Art Museum.
A five-week residency in Grand-Popo, Benin. Works with a local commercial sign painter and sets up a portrait business Salon de Peinture Grand-Popo. Releases The Best of All Possible Worlds - a luxury edition book of his drawings. Sets up his studio at Galerie Forsblom for two weeks and half for the show Riiko Sakkinen's Drawing Room.
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