Katja Tukiainen
and the Art of the Uncanny
Katja
Tukiainen’s art transcends a recent
description of it as
a contemporary version of Pop.[i]
While the
affinity is arguably there, there is a confluence of sources in
Tukiainen’s art
that distinguishes it from a style half a century old. Tukiainen’s
aesthetic is
not the only thing that differentiates her work from the past, however;
for her
narratives set it apart from subject matter often associated with Pop.
It may be
the diversity of media in Tukiainen’s practice that first and foremost
resists categorization;
for her corpus is heterogeneous evinced in the numerous genres she
works in: painting,
work-on-paper, sculpture, video, comics, installation and a mixture of
these.
Tukiainen’s formal plurality is only equaled by her myriad themes; her
subject
matter is wide ranging but this essay proposes that it also resides,
among
other thematic loci, in a liminal space between the strange and the
homey, or
what Sigmund Freud coined the uncanny.[ii]
This
term, which can be described with the
complementary couplings
of the familiarly strange and strangely familiar, Freud explicates in The Uncanny (1919) as deriving from the
German word unheimliche. The
inversion or opposite meaning of this term is heimliche
and translates as “belonging to the home.” What underlies
the translation of “belonging
to the
home” into the uncanny is, of course, not something literal as a
kitchen,
living room, or other amenity of domesticity. Rather, it is the
personal, emotional,
and historical tie to a place one lives in and identifies with, but
that is also
an extension of one’s self. It is this profound connection to home that
Freud
reconfigures, for further in his essay he cites a bevy of sources that
use heimliche and unheimliche
interchangeably. Consequently, Freud interprets their
collapsing
and attendant description of peculiar external phenomena that
originates
inwardly and projected outwardly, as arising from the subconscious. He
succinctly
conveys this by stating that
we can
understand why the usage of speech has extended dasHeimliche
into its
opposite dasUnheimliche for this uncanny is in reality nothing
new or foreign,
but something familiar and old—established in the mind
that has
been estranged only by the process of repression.[iii]
The
dis/similar interplay of the familiarly
strange and strangely
familiar is intrinsic to the work of Katja Tukiainen. As early as 1999,
Tukiainen began her Crochet Hook
paintings where she introduced characters, diversions and assorted
iconography
identifiably connected with childhood: young girls, dolls, toys, games
etc. With
this early work the artist reminds us that the social universe of early
life may
have permeated our psyche more than we are aware of, and its signifiers
thus become
the vehicles by which our emotional and psychological development and
conflicts
are ciphered. This can be exemplified when a psychologist interviews a
child and
uses an anatomically correct doll for the victim to pinpoint subjected
abuse.
Tukiainen conceptually excavates childhood with allusions of their
resurfacing in
adult life as unresolved trauma. But her themes are more than
psychosocial investigations
when they are embodied with the aesthetic and transmuted into
compelling works
of art. Her ubiquitous childhood figures and associative imagery are
not unlike
Henry Darger whose work similarly revolved around the visual narratives
of a
young girl. Though Darger’s art focused on children of both genders, it
was his
eponymous Vivian Girls that was
part
of In the Realms of the Unreal that
brought him the attention he merited. Both artists share affinities in
employing young pristine naïfs as archetypes whose innocence are often
tinged
with a sinister pathos; that is, the dark, emotional nether world of
pre-pubescence. Whereas Darger used his leitmotifs to exorcize his
repression by
presenting it as fantasy, Tukiainen extends similar tropes to address
topical
subject matter endemic to contemporary life. This is saliently
highlighted in a
body of work begun in 2007, particularly with the installation titled Henry Darger’s Wife (he never had one)
(2007-2008).
In an
exhibition at the Kunstalle Helsinki in
2007-2008, Tukiainen’s
installation entailed a room-like environment. Variations of the
artist’s female
personage were drawn all over the makeshift interior. The structure’s
décor
feigned museum storage and this horror
vacui was not unlike wallpaper or even an ersatz,
transmogrified dollhouse
or playroom designed by a child without parental supervision. Images on
walls,
doors, and practically any surface of the room created a visual
engulfment from
the process of their manufacture: meticulous draftsmanship and/or quasi
obsessive/compulsive
mark making. By creating an architectural intervention from what
appeared to be
museum storage space with attendant metaphors to a child’s recreational
structure,
the reified images incessantly repeated evoked a feeling of anxiety as
well as
familiarity; in other words, the uncanny indeed. The title, figures and
installation setting operated in a way that seemed both familiar and
strange,
and rife with allusions to Darger by way of an absent presence. Darger
was
never married, but the title of Tukiainen’s installation implies that
his
preoccupation with children transcended artistic concerns. It may be
that his questionable
attachment to minors as a recurring theme was sign of arrested
development rooted
in lack of adult female figure in his life; or it could hint to an
overbearing
relationship Darger had with his mother or other maternal role model
during his
upbringing. What Tukiainen does with conceptual verve is to
metaphorically use
Darger’s anxieties of the opposite sex to frame the museum as
matriarchal surrogate.
Artists and philosophers alike have construed the museum as
ideologically shaped
and therefore never free from impartiality; nor is the “white cube”
neutral or objective
in displaying art; for all exhibitions are narratives in way or
another. Some
of the readings of museums as subliminally embedded with ideology
include Hans
Haacke’s Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A
Real-Time Social
System, as of May 1, 1971 (1971), in which the artist
revealed money
donated to the Guggenheim Museum by Shapolsky who some considered a
slum lord; Fred
Wilson’s brilliant installation that exposed America’s racist past in Mining the Museum (1992-93); and Theodor
Adorno’s famous remark that “Museum
and mausoleum are connected by more than phonetic association. Museums
are like
the family sepulchers of works of art.”[iv]
With
Tukiainen’s installation, however, the exhibition space became metaphor
of
confinement vis-à-vis the hidden figures within museum enclosure, as if
it paralleled
Darger’ isolation leading to self-alienation and inability for social
consummation. In this sense the installation would tie in well with
Darger’s
anxieties and neuroses that haunted his adult life. Tukiainen’s
installations
are often characterized by such idiosyncratic formal logic that
underscores an
artistic intelligence versed in the poetics of the visual. This is
highlighted in
other installations including the alluringly titled Mlle.
Good Heavens bathes with Karl Marx (2010).
Tukiainen’s
artistic mise-en-scène is uncanny
for numerous
reasons; it depicts the Communist
Manifesto (1848) author within a large red and black wall
drawing and reclining
in bathtub garbed in antiquated bathing suit while blowing bubbles.
Marx is
easily identifiable via his distinctive beard and visage and is placed
within
trompe l’oeil curtains. Another element that propels the work into the
strangely familiar is an exquisitely rendered girl “innocently”
sprawled in the
foreground and cuddling a doe. Combining political and social
commentary via a
stunning installation that culls together comics with a nod to Hello Kitty, children’s visual culture,
advertisement, political art, as well as Nabokov’s Lolita
(1955), Mlle.
Good Heavens bathes with Karl Marx evinces
Tukiainen’s ample ability to execute large-scale work. The
installation’s palette
is a reference to the red of communism and the black of anarchism; and
while
the installation emanates a playful cuteness, it’s also critically
ironic in
alluding to the ephemera and general propaganda aimed at youth in
authoritarian
states including the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China. The
work ‘s
effectiveness entails a benign and humorous juxtaposition of culturally
disparate figures that echo with heady and subversive overtones that
targets ideology,
the cult of personality as well as promiscuity. Apart from the visual
magnetism
of the installation that uses the trope of innocence as artistic ruse,
this format
afforded the artist more literal and metaphorical room to work in
subsequently offering
multivalent themes to be realized. Tukiainen, however, is not only
adept in
maintaining a level of engagement in installation art but also in
smaller and intimate
works evidenced in her painting and sculpture.
From
the onset of her career, Tukiainen’s
painting has
gradated to more elaborate and protean configurations. What unifies
this trajectory
is an assured, confident and masterful métier that graces her easels.
In an
exhibition at the Galleria Krista Mikkola in 2008, for example, we see
the
range of aesthetic complexity that coalesce around Tukiainen’s
prepubescent
girls staged in a variety of performances and narratives. A mainstay of
this
body of work includes young female protagonists in black harlequin
masks. Their
presence is wholly apparent in Milk
(2007), Felt Mountain (2007), Sacre
Coeur (2007),
Pisama (2008), and Bambi was
a Boy (2008). The
use of the mask is
both imperative and haunting, for there was even a painting of bird
wearing
one. Formally, the palette includes colors that are muted, diffused,
washed-out,
and pastel-like and offset by the deeply rich black of the facial
concealment. Creating
an uncanny tension between the overt playfulness of the masked figures
with the
hidden and opaque, a subtle psychological uneasiness is induced. This
is not
unlike the paintings of Kim Dingle, who was also known for exploring
the traumas
and anxieties of childhood. But whereas the young girls that populate
Dingle’s
paintings lean towards homogeneity due to their formal uniformity and
corralled
subject matter, Tukiainen’s canvases are more encompassing both
aesthetically
and thematically. In Bambi was a Boy
(2008), Tukiainen depicts frontally what appears to be a young girl.
All the
hallmarks of her pictorial vocabularies converge here with exquisite
ease: the
limited yet lush range of soft pinks, oranges, and yellows are in
counterpoint
to the deep black that horizontally cuts across the lowest register of
the
painting. So delicate and “girlish” is the composition that even the
black passage
has a warm and inviting quality. The painterly execution runs the gamut
of what
seem to be bleeding, color field effects and rapid brushwork to hard
edges
around the girl’s eyes; for she, too, is wearing a mask. Included are
images of
bucks in the uppermost section of the painting articulated in a
graphic, pencil-like
manner. The textures between the visually diverse elements evince an
artist who’s
versatile in numerous modalities of painting techniques and their
application. However,
it is also the subtext of the work that gives it a conceptual
complexity: though
the feigned portrait hints of femininity, it’s not certain whether
what’s
depicted is either a boy or girl? Apart from the painting’s overall
ambiance of
presumed prepubescent femininity, there is a degree of gendered
ambiguity in
the triangulation of title, figure, and bucks; for the latter’s eyes
are slightly
androgynous which counteract the antlers and attendant masculinity thus
making
the composition’s subtle narrative all the more complicated.
Another
painting with a similar sexual subtext
but conveying
iconoclasm is Marx Rides My Bambi (2009).
Rendered in oil and alkyd on canvas, the materialist philosopher is now
mounting the Disney icon while holding a candy cane as phallic symbol.
This
work was part of an exhibition in 2009 in which six paintings included
a candy
cane that had phallic connotations. The semantic strategy of using the
adjective “my” in Marx Rides My Bambi,
opens up the work’s narrative to include the animal in the painting as
well the
viewer who, ingeniously, is also body double for the artist. The
decentering
and lateral movement of Bambi, viewer and artist creates a complex
triad where
sexuality is the work’s epicenter underscored in the painting’s
suggestive
title. But sex, here, could also be metaphor for Marx taking liberty
with an
archetype of American culture and bastion of capitalism: the Disney
corporation. Also possibly layered onto the work is the notion that
those who
adhere to Marxism are being ideologically duped. One could say
colloquially, then,
that followers of Marx and leaders in general regardless of political
affiliation are being taken for a “ride.” The plethora of meaning in Marx Rides My Bambi is telltale sign of
an artist with sophisticated and amply wide formal and narrative
horizons. More
recently, however, Tukiainen has expanded her painting’s aesthetic
lexicon via the
inclusion of three-dimensional objects including those that illuminate,
and a
display aesthetic that borrows from many different forms of visual
culture. This
is underscored in a recent solo exhibition at Galerie Forsblom.
With
the ostensibly innocuous title of Such a Lovely Place (2011-2012),
Tukiainen’s one-person show was an
imaginative tour de force. The paintings exhibited were in various
formats and
sizes including rectangular, square, oval, and diamond shape. There was
also a
broad scope of painterly application and a cornucopia of colors that
were
visually luscious; but the polychromatic works were displayed with
austerity
and control, which could be attributed to the exhibition’s sublime
design and
installation. The paintings appeared to be presented in an orderly
fashion yet
there was a refined quirkiness that suggested everything from salon
style
display to showroom in IKEA, albeit with conceptual flair. What dovetailed the
exhibition and the
individual works collectively to another level was the use of lights
that
wrapped around the gallery’s interior. The lights strategically used
were round
light bulbs in soft red and white that were staggered and placed at the
bottom
and top of the exhibition space were the floor, ceiling and walls met.
Because
they were of low wattage, the emanating lights did not interfere with
the
paintings or the totality of the exhibition. The lighting did, however,
create
a kind of aura that was pinpointed and localized as slight illumination
spilled
directly near its source. What was challenging was to decipher the
function of
the light emitting bulbs that strung together like garlands: were they
strictly
a design component, did this mean that what was presented was one work
since
the lights went around the exhibition, and in doing so, was Such
a Lovely Place a site-specific
installation
or exhibition? Like all engaging art that demands thought from its
viewer, many
questions were raised by Tukiainen’s solo show that left much room for
interpretation. Indeed, what conceptually complicated things was the
panoply of
references evoked through the exhibition’s illuminated ambiance: the
carnival,
funhouse, as well as vernacular establishments were lowbrow
illumination is
used. Taken
together, the presentation
shifted between painting, sculpture, installation, and design. Such a Lovely Place was a strong
exhibition for numerous reasons including the coalescing of multiple
media with
artistic and curatorial aplomb. More recently, Tukiainen has extended
her practice
into the register of sculpture proper, for three-dimensionality has
always been
one of her formal and conceptual concerns and investigations.
Not
one to leave anything to happenstance,
Tukiainen titles
her sculptures individually though she has also referred to them as
“mannequins.”
As the term implies, they are mostly upright figurative works in the
round
based on her female protagonists. The sculptures convey playfulness,
yet
because they are slightly larger than human size they can have a
threatening
demeanor. This strategy is not unlike a sculpture by Charles Ray made
in 1991
titled Mannequin Fall 1991. The
title
is a play on designer clothes for the sculpture is of a full woman
wearing a pink
dress suit with her arms akimbo. Adding to the assertive pose of a
model in a
fashion show is the sculpture’s aggressive Amazonian height: 8ft tall.
There is a similar trope used by Tukiainen in her
sculptures but her
strategy is more affective. The reason being is that these “mannequins”
have an
air of innocence because they are recognizably like a toy, but are also
subliminally intimidating in their monumentality. Their oversized
dimension,
plus their cute candy like hues, makes them compelling yet one can also
feel
dominated by them. It is this concomitant aspect of the sculptures that
also
encapsulates Freud’s psychoanalytical rubric derived from heimliche/unheimliche.
This
essay has framed Katja Tukiainen’s art
around the
uncanny, but it is only one narrative among many that her work
embodies. The
sheer formal diversity and multivalent quality of her corpus
underscores this:
for Katja Tukiainen is an artist of imagination evinced in the genres
she works
in that are imbued with visual finesse and a sense of the poetic. Her
oeuvre to
date has established her as a formidable artist, thus it will be
interesting to
see what’s to come from one whose iconography evokes our lamented,
irrecoverable childhood. And
like one’s
own past that one is never completely free of, it beckons us regardless
that it
may have been fraught both with joy and melancholy, comfort and terror,
and the
familiarly strange as well as the strangely familiar.
Raul
Zamudio
New
York City, 2013
[i]See Charlie Levine, “Did Pop Kill Art,“ Artfetch, http://www.artfetch.com/edition/054/didpop-kill-art/ accessed on July15, 2013.
[ii] Sigmund
Freud,
“The Uncanny,” [1919] in The Uncanny,
trans. David McClintock (London and New York: Penguin, 2003)
[iii] Ibid,13.
[iv] Theodor
Adorno,
"Valery Proust Museum in memory of Hermann von Grab,” in Prisms,
ed. Theodor Adorno (London:
Garden City Press), 175.