Fellow artist and Artspace curator Mark Maher Interviewed Tuomas Laitinen about his work.

You’ve stated that you think your art, even though laced with art-historical references, is designed to be accessible to a more general audience. Are you suggesting that you reject the line between “high” and “low” art, or rather that your work is meant to be interpreted quite differently by these different types of viewers?

With this issue, sometimes I feel like Charlie Brown amongst highbrows. The distinction of “high” and “low” is very superficial to me and I find the whole discussion about it a bit outdated.

I´ve always been amazed by the fact that it´s so hard to make a three minute pop song so that there´s something meaningful and real in it and at the same time it´s also easy to approach. It´s like the archaism of country blues that dips into the hearts of people using the simplest terms. It´s raw and it´s real but it still has the power to make you dance and enjoy yourself. This is basically something that I aim to apply to my work.

I think that this idea of giving out accessible stuff need not get in the way of giving out something worthwhile looking, and worth pondering a little longer. The form is never the whole content. What´s there in-between the lines and forms can create a realization of ideas that are not necessarily in the work itself, but in the space between the viewer and the piece, a space that allows the opportunity to keep on the lookout for an experience. With my recent work, I´ve been trying to create a visual catalyst for the creation of different experiences, interpretations and stories.

Through your art, do you see yourself as a participant in popular culture – or more as a slightly distanced commentator on it?

I need to have a certain distance from my sources, and as a matter of fact, I´m not commenting on popular culture as such but more using the tools and the visual language to create something else from it. I see myself as kind of a sampling parasite burrowing around the history of visual and aural culture.

For example, I chose the light box as a medium just because I see it every day in commercial use. And I thought that this object is fascinating because it´s so mundane, it´s like the opening lick of “Johnny B. Good”, either you want to run away fast or then go and do something with it, chop it into pieces and rearrange it to make it relevant. In my case, I chose the latter option, for better or worse.

“R.P.M.”, 2001, Modified punchbag, light
Photograph: Perttu Saksa

Tags: Interview, Mark Maher, Tuomas Laitinen

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