TEEMU MÄKI  –  PAINTING AND DRAWING

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PORTRAITS
and landscapes...
SINGLE-IMAGE ALLEGORIES MULTIPARTITES
COLLECTIVE PAINTINGS

Sometimes one piece of canvas is not enough. This became a real problem for me when my single-image allegories got more and more complicated. The solution was the multipartite.

In a multipartite it is also easier for me to use several different styles in a single (multipartite) work. And it gives me the oppoturnity to keep works in progress and update them by adding (or removing) parts, whenever I feel the need to – multipartite
is an endlessly expandable and mutable playground.

A multipartite is not a series. It's a work that consists of several pictures or other physically separate elements, but these elements belong together as tightly as pages of a novel, and may not thus be sold or exhibited separately. However, structurally a multipartite differs from a novel and from a TV-series because the elements of a multipartite are not in a chronological or hierarchical order. The parts of a multipartite are not chapters of a story, instead they are  meant to be different aspects of, a common subject matter – a group of simultaneous perspectives to a knot of common themes.

The most important reason why I make multipartites is that their form as such already embodies perspectivism, an important aspect of my philosophical conviction. Multipartite consists of several, distinct perspectives, bound together in so complicated ways but also so irrecoverably separated by their differences that they could not be reduced into any single, hierarchical system of values. In christian art the altarpiece-triptych was for a long time the most appropriate format. In it the big central panel houses the credo of a monotheistic worldview and is surrounded by smaller supporting panels. My multipartites are fundamentally different, not only because their parts are not in any kind of hierarchical order, but also because they embody perspectives that are in philosophical/political/aesthetical conflict with each other.
 
DARKNESS VISIBLE

POCKET ATLAS

NAUTINTO / PLEASURE

THE NEW FAMILY VALUES OF A COUPLE OF MURDERERS

WHY SOCIALISM IS NECESSARY

VAMPIRE VARIATIONS

THE BURDEN



Darkness Visible

A multipartite containing 7 paintings, 2 CDs of music, a video and a text leaflet.

An undivided whole, but as the work is so large that it very seldom fits anywhere, I have allowed some of it's chapters to be shown (but not sold) separately, as kind of "ambassadors" of the complete work. However, if an extract is exhibited, it has to be accompanied by 30 x 20 cm reproductions of the work's all other paintings and an info leaflet about the whole of it.

In addition to the paintings above the work includes:

Milk (a video)
A Death Follows Another Death (a piece of music by Teemu Mäki & Max Savikangas)
The Battle of Unborn (music by Raoul Björkenheim & Max Savikangas)
BROKEN #4 / RIKKI #4 (a constellation of texts)


 


Pocket Atlas

200 drawings and a chair.

  Mixed media on paper, usually 35 x 27 cm or 27 x 20,5 cm each (46 x 35,5 cm including frame).
A work in progress since 21.9.1993, an undivided whole, must be exhibited complete, no extracts shown or sold.
Preferably hung in one horizontal row of pictures over all four walls af a single hall.
The chair (≈ 160 x 50 x 50 cm), painted wood with an iron attachment and painted text, should be placed in the middle of the hall.

pocketatlasoverview
Pocket Atlas, Laznia Contemporary Art Center, Gdansk, Poland, March 2003, 250 x 1150 cm

Earlier versions shown in the Estonian Art Museum / Rotterman Salt Storage, Tallinn, 2002, and in MUU Gallery, Helsinki, Finland, 2000.

Samples, in sets of eight, click to see bigger images:

atlaspiablackeye






Nautinto / Pleasure

A new (2008–) multipartite, still in its infancy, not yet even exhibited. Will be a younger sister to Why Socialism Is Necessary.

Click to take a closer look:





The New Family Values Of A Couple Of Murderers

4. version, drawings, paintings and texts, mixed media on paper, 57 pictures, 74 x 58 cm each, frame included.1997-2001, in memory of Kathy Acker and Blalla W. Hallmann. A work in
progress, an undivided whole. The overview below shows an earlier version of this work, at that time it consisted of 43 pictures.

newfamilyvborasoverview11cm.jpg

The New Family Values Of A Couple Of Murderers, Borås Art Museum, Borås, Sweden, February 2000, 235 x 900 cm




Why Socialism Is Necessary


(Marquis de Sade Knows Why)

1992–2001, for Marquis de Sade, Derek Bailey, Abbey Lincoln and others... and to my daughter Ursula. Mixed media on paper, 12 pictures 100 x 70 cm each (134 x 99 cm) and a text leaflet that contains the essential text fragments written on the drawings. (work number 420)



  A few extracts from
Why Socialism Is Necessary (Marquis de Sade Knows Why). Click on the images to take a closer look:






Vampire Variations


Dedicated to Blalla W. Hallmann and Cecil Taylor.
Mixed media on paper,1992–1998, 8 pictures, 260x120 cm each. (with frame: 311x?cm each)
Sold to KIASMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, The Finnish National Gallery.

vampirevariations
Vampire Variations, mixed media on paper, 311 x 1200 cm, 1992–1998

Click on the images to take a closer look:
       





(working title for an upcoming multipartite:)

The Burden


I’m working on a new, very large multipartite on paper, formally resembling perhaps the VAMPIRE VARIATIONS that are in the collections of Kiasma.

This time the formal idea is to make a multipartite that consists of triptychs, half of which are black and white ink drawings and the other half watercolors.

Here below you can see one ink drawing triptych, THE BURDEN.  The ink drawings in this multipartite will be pure black and white pictures, no grayscale, and they will be mostly in this two-dimensional, ornamental stick-men-and-writing-style.

The watercolors will have the opposite style, with a strong illusion of three-dimensional space and no writing, in other words, the visual style I usually have used for portraits. I’ve almost finished three ink drawing triptychs now, THE BURDEN is the one that is completely finished and already exhibited, the other two still lack a few touches. The size of each triptych is 330 x 470 cm, and as I've now made three b/w triptychs, the final results will consist of at least six triptychs.

Click on the image to take a closer look:
The Burden


portraits single-image allegories
top of this page collective paintings
 


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