The democratic regimes have killed, tortured, deliberated wars, built concentration camps, financed terrorist groups and employed weapons of mass destruction. Where there is a conflict, theres is a democratic country involved directly or indirectly. This is why I did The Black Book of Democracy: Crimes, Terror, Repression.

Other books with similar titles are The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (1997) and Le Livre Noir du Capitalism (1998).

Fragments of the correspondence between the curator Siv Hofsvang and the artist Riiko Sakkinen:

20 May 2010
Dear Riiko Sakkinen,
My name is Siv Hofsvang, curator for the arts organization Punkt Ø in Moss, Norway. We are preparing an exhibition under the title Momentum Design - Art, Design and the Space Between. The exhibition will run from 3rd July to 3rd October this year at the Momentum Kunsthall, Moss. The curators of the upcoming Momentum Design, and myself especially, hope you will participate.

8 June 2010
Dear Riiko,
We are insuring the works from nail to nail, and we are paying the artists a small fee.

19 October 2010
Dear Siv,
Really nice you will send me the press material! By the way, I remember that in the beginning you mentioned something about a honorarium. Is this still a valid thing?

18 November 2010
Dear Siv,
I received the LV bag work back. Thank you! You wrote that you "send both the documentation pictures and the press clippings as well as additional info from the exhibition within short". I didn't receive these (yet). Have the paintings been shipped back to Helsinki? By the way, last summer you mentioned something about a honorarium.

11 October 2011
Dear Riiko.
I hope this finds you well. I'm back from maternity leave, therefore the late reply. Hopefully the paintings arrived in Helsinki well before last Christmas. Have you got the documentation and the honorarium?

12 October 2011
Dear Siv,
Congratulations for your baby! The paintings arrived safely in Helsinki but I didn't receive the honorarium and neither the documentation.

27 October 2011
Dear Siv,
Do you think that I still could receive the honorarium? I just heard that (name omitted) who participated in the show too got it already last year.

6 January 2012
Dear Siv,
I try one more time and then I´ll give up.  You wrote me last year October asking if I had received the honorarium and I told you I haven't. Is there anything what can be done? Or should I accept that I´m not going to receive it never?

I'm making drawings about Monterrey, one of most dangerous cities of the world. When I visited there last year I saw big recruitment ads of Fuerza Civil, the new police of the state of Nuevo Leon. They offer fantastic things to the new officers but that made me just to think how risky job it is to fight the drug cartels.

Fuerza Civil is looking for men and women like you, heroes who want the best for their families and community. The basic salary for a uniformed rookie is over €80 thousand per year. It's not bad in a country where the workers earn less than in China. The novices also receive a huge life insurance, extra help with the mortgage, a private health insurance and grants for their kids from the elementary school to the university.

I found on internet also an ad of Los Zetas cartel offering good jobs for ex-soldiers and promising that they don't have to eat instant noodles. No idea if it's genuine or just a joke. And is it more dangerous to be a Zeta hitman or a police officer?

Certain traits of your personality can play a very important influence on your career as an artist. Your personality has everything to do with your personal relationships, your income, your future, your life and your art. You could find out more about your personality by taking our free Oxford Capacity Analysis® personality test for artists here. Brought to you by Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre London.

- Is your facial expression varied rather than set
- When voting, do you vote the same party ticket straight rather than studying the candidates and issues?
- Do you often feel upset about the fate of war victims and political refugees?
- Does life seem rather vague and unreal to you?
- Are you sometimes convinced of the correctness of your opinions about a subject even though you are not an expert?
- Do you cope with everyday problems of living quite well?
- Is it easy for you to relax?
- Do children irritate you?
- Do you sometimes wonder if anyone really cares about you?
- Are you always getting into trouble?

One of the best things of being married is that you can discover in your own library books you didn't know. Today, I found out that my wife has a xeroxed collection of  books by the Russian formalist  Viktor Shklovsky, famous for developing the concept of ostranenie, defamilirization or estrangemnet, which is an artistic technique of forcing the audience to see common things in an unfamiliar or strange way, in order to enhance perception of the familiar.

Shklovsky writes in the essay Art as Device that the purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. Defamiliarization is a basic satirical tactic and very close to what Turbo Realism does - though we are aware that people don't perceive nor know the world around of them much and that's why our goal it to show it to them as it is.

Shklovsky states in another essay that paintings are not at all windows onto another world — they are things. I could agree but pointing out that the Turbo Realist paintings are stones that break the windows of the banks.

Now I'm going to sit by my fireplace, drink tea with sugar and read Shklovsky's epistolary novel Zoo, or Letters Not About Love.