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Stalinist Suite - Riiko Sakkinen Suite

STALINIST SUITE

10 October 2010, Helsinki

My mom was waiting me at the airport with a heavy winter coat of the Finnish Army, it's snowing in Helsinki. She drove me to Hotel Klaus K where I was received by Ylioppilaslehti's editor-in-chief and photographer. I dressed in the hotel's bathrobe and posed, drinking Scotch with a straw, in the front of the Hong Kong Noodle Robot mural of the Riiko Sakkinen Suite. Later we had dinner in the hotel's restaurant and I told to the interviewer that I'm a Stalinist and that I spend the profits of my art in financing revolutionary terrorist groups. She said that she can't write that because nobody would believe it.





Helsinki Accords - Riiko Sakkinen's Encyclopedia

HELSINKI ACCORDS

08 October 2010, Cervera de los Montes

SUNDAY 08.00 Driving to the Madrid airport / 13.00 Drinking weissbier at the Frankfurt airport / 17.45 Arriving in Helsinki / 19.00 Chekcing in the Riiko Sakkinen Suite in Hotel Klaus K/ 19.30 Photo session and interview for Ylioppilaslehti

MONDAY 09.00 Taking the grant application for funding my Special Economic Zone Painting project to the Finnish Cultural Foundation / 10.00 Signing my new screen prints at Persten Collection HQ and visiting Jani's studio / 19.00 Preparing the Encyclopedia DVDs with Simo

TUESDAY 09.00 Picking up equipment at Korjaamo Gallery /10.00 Beginning of the installation at Kunsthalle / 19.00 Dinner at my mum's

WEDNESDAY 09.00 Installing at the Kunsthalle / 19.00 Fiesta at Katja's place where I've promised to do a ketchup performance

THURSDAY 10.00 Secong signing session of the screen prints

FRIDAY 13.00 Press at Kunsthalle, interviews / 18.00 Opening at Kunsthalle / 21.00 Dinner hosted by the Estonian collector Enn Kunila

SATURDAY 19.00 Dinner at Eeris'

SUNDAY 05.00 Cabbing to the Helsinki airport





Distasteful  Field Work - Encyclopedia

DISTASTEFUL FIELD WORK

04 October 2010, Cervera de los Montes

I drove to the Carrefour hypermarket and bought materials for Riiko Sakkinen's Encyclopedia (Revised and Updated Edition) slideshow installation, which I'll show next week at Kunsthalle Helsinki. I got Phoskitos Choco Leche, Picotadas Super Quinitos, Disney Princess Minicakes, Tang Sabor Piña, Chupa Chups Gomis Lollies, Mosskys Sabor a Queso, Filipinos Go, Diverchok Hello Kitty and shitloads of other processed food targeted to kids.

Normally, I like a lot this kind of field work but now it made me feel anxious and disturbed. To speak about consumerism I have to buy things I detest. Back home, I tried to offer some sweets I got to my daughter but she didn't want them and showed a nauseated face.

My friend Jani who works with similar materials, has told me that he distributes the food he buys to the poor but in my village all the disfavored people are Muslims and they don't want to touch anything from my kitchen saying that it's not halal.

Then I felt like cooking some real and healthy food and while  I was cutting green beans I chopped also my fingertip and my wife had to take me to the hospital which is located in front of the Carrefour.





Secrets Of Sexy Cooking - Secrets Of Sexy Cooking

SECRETS OF SEXY COOKING

27 September 2010, Cervera de los Montes

I opened a bottle of Moët & Chandon and told to my wife that I had amazing news, I just had found out that my drawing Secrets of Sexy Cooking was included in the exhibition Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen at MoMA. My work on view at the Museum of Modern Art! My wife looked at me indiffrently and said that it's fine but nothing surprises her anymore. I can be in the next Documenta or Biennale de Venezia. Or I can be soon nowhere. And she's totally right. I'm as close to the failure as the success.

The Secrets of Sexy Cooking was made in London in the summer 2002, when I was an artist-in-residence at Camden Arts Centre and Delfina Studios. I just had graduated from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts. Two years later I was represented in New York by Priska C Juschka Fine Arts  who sold 19 of my early drawings to the Judith Rothchild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection, which donated them to MoMA. This year they made a show of the donated works but (boringly) exclusively with the work of biggest names like Martin Kippenberger and Jasper Johns. Then I thought that the my works in the most prominent collection of the world are in a tomb and will never see light anymore. I was wrong.

It's only one drawing. It's mainly a design show. But it's the most important exhibition in my career. The other artists include William Eggleston, George Maciunas, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Lucas Samaras, Cindy Sherman, Tom Wesselmann and Andy Warhol. Strangely, nobody from MoMA informed me about the show and I found it in my weekly googling. Maybe it's good, because I would have been tempted to travel to the opening, something that I couldn't have really afforded.





Great Artists Don't Create, They Destroy - Cute 9/11 Teddy Bear

GREAT ARTISTS DON'T CREATE, THEY DESTROY

23 September 2010, Cervera de los Montes

Being an artist is the important thing – producing art works is just merchandising. The true artists could give to the world much more than artifacts to fill museums and private collectors' living rooms. The attitude is what matters.

I want to be a hyper powerful artist. Power is not only money  to equip armies or to bribe politicians. Power is to be on the first page of the morning paper and on the prime time TV screen. Power is to be interesting. Power is to disagree and to be always wrong. like when Damien Hirst congratulated 9/11 attacks kind of like an artwork in its own right. Artists should be always wrong. Artists are not there to tell what to do or what to think. Artists are not going to give answers or create utopias. Great artist don’t create, they destroy.







Riiko
Sakkinen
 

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