Kaarina Kaikkonen | From generation to generation : curated by Laura Barreca

KAARINA KAIKKONEN
From generation to generation
curated by Laura Barreca

September 17 > October 30, 2009

Pastificio Cerere Foundation and Z2O Sara Zanin Gallery are glad to welcome for the first time the Finnish artist Kaarina Kaikkonen (Lisalmi, Finland,1952), in a double solo within their two locations in Rome.

Famous internationally for her environmental projects and her huge installations of simple materials such as clothes and paper, Kaikkonen proposes a large installation in the striking space of Pastificio Cerere for her first solo exhibition in Rome. For the piece, she primarily incorporates shirts and second-hand jackets of various colours and shapes found at the Capital markets. Using her skillful hands, these clothes reshape and interpret the external architecture of the yard and the internal spaces of Pastificio Cerere, in a suggestive site-specific project. The outside installation regards the upper part of the yard and actually “wraps” stairs and balconies creating a simple and unique scene able to evoke the old work places. Shirts, tied to each other by the sleeves, recall the ancient collective production and the folk spirit of San Lorenzo’s quarter.
Kaarina Kaikkonen’s installation takes place in the z2o Gallery Sara Zanin, where  a large sculpture and works on panels,  employing her ubiquitous shirts and second-hand clothes, are exhibited. Boundaries among sculpture, installation and architecture are definitely broken here allowing shapes and images to redefine the environment and surrounding things according to new visual patterns. Space and materials are fundamental features for the artist’s works: the landscape becomes part of the work itself, creating an unusual environmental dimension - a typical element in the Northern European culture.