ANTTI LAITINEN
Bark Boat
6 May - 19 June
2011
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NETTIE HORN is pleased to present the
second UK solo show by the Finnish artist Antti Laitinen featuring
his latest performance entitled “Bark Boat”, documented
through a series of photographs, a video and a boat.
On the 7th of August 2010 at 4am, a rudimentary and yet authentic
sailboat was launched for the first time in the Finnish peninsula
of Porkkala to embark on its inaugural journey
across the Gulf of Finland. At its command was a young and resilient
journeyman who has made a name for himself through his adventurous-spirit
and his ritualistic quests for achievement, and known by the
name of Antti Laitinen.
The young sailor along with his boat, made of ancient pine bark collected
from the floor of the Finnish forest, confidently undertook the conquest
of the Baltic Sea with the firm intention to reach the welcoming island
of Naissaar situated northwards of Tallinn in Estonia. During a nineteen
hour long journey the small vessel braved the elements of this unpredictable
Sea; meeting on his way a seal and narrowly crossing paths with ocean
liners sailing at high-speed.
“Bark Boat” is the latest in a series of performances where
Antti Laitinen embarks on a personal journey, pushing the boundaries
of his physical endurance and braving the natural elements, to engage
with the world in a collective mission to stage mythologies and erase
the boundary between success and failure. As in most of his previous
projects, “Bark Boat” originates from classical Finnish
tales and cultural imagery - in this instance, the title is taken from
a Finnish childhood game whereby pieces of tree bark are used as rafts
and are set sailing onto the vast sea until they disappear out of sight.
The children would imagine their miniature boats sailing all the way
to faraway lands. |

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The concept of this lone adventurer transiting physically from one land
to another on a handmade raft in an epic journey across the sea is an
extension to previous projects by Laitinen reunited under the title “The
Island Trilogy”. In “It’s My Island”, the first
performance in the series, Laitinen constructed an island made of two
hundred bags filled with sand which the artist dragged into the Baltic
Sea over a period of three months. The second chapter presents a second
handmade island which the artist rowed throughout various seascapes.
In the final chapter, the third island is embodied by a small iceberg
which Laitinen preserved throughout the winter to then resurrect during
the summer months. For two days, the artist went on a slow rowing journey,
iceberg in tow, during which the ice progressively disappeared and melted
back into the water it once came from. The melting of this island and
its symbolic disappearance ended this trilogy.
Through these islands or paradise-like places which are the emblems of
independent lands and micro-nations, Laitinen points to the incongruity
between an individual’s performance and circumstances and how it
grows into a cultural metaphor. The particularity of Laitinen’s
work lies in the multiple readings it offers, ranging from an intrinsic
ecology-oriented aspect to the Monty Python-esque nature of his performances
from which he shares some of its absurd seriousness and idiosyncratic
imagination.
Antti Laitinen was born in Finland in 1975. He lives and works in
Somerniemi, Finland.
Exhibitions include “Journeymen (Antti Laitinen & David Blandy)”,
Air Space Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, UK (2011); Touched - Liverpool Biennial,
(2010); Collection exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki,
Finland (2010) ; Rauma Biennial Balticum, Rauma, Finland (2010);
Earth: Art of a Changing World / GSK Contemporary, Royal Academy of
Arts, London (2009-10); I-Lands, Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense and Fuglsang
Kunstmuseum, Toreby, Denmark (2009 - 2010); Athens Biennale, Greece
(2009) ; It’s My Island, NETTIE HORN, London (2008) (SOLO
SHOW).
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For
inquiries regarding availability of works and prices, or additional
information about the artist, please contact the gallery.

Bark Boat I , 2010
C-Type Print mounted on Diasec
80 x 60 cm
edition of 6

Bark Boat II , 2010
C-Type Print mounted on Diasec
115 x 80 cm
edition of 6

Bark Boat III , 2010
C-Type Print mounted
on Diasec
115 x 80 cm
edition of 6

Bark Boat IV , 2010
C-Type Print mounted on Diasec
115 x 80 cm
edition of 6

Bark Boat V , 2010
C-Type Print mounted on Diasec
115 x 80 cm
edition of 6

Bark Boat VI , 2010
C-Type Print mounted on Diasec
115 x 80 cm
edition of 6
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