Film Screening by and with Erkka Nissinen

06.08.2014

Erkka Nissinen’s experimental work defies genre categorization: computer animations are combined with theatrics in the studio, seemingly spontaneous directorial cues, and musical interludes. With unpredictable humor, the film artist creates works characterized by absurdity and intentional awkwardness, a poetry all their own, and social pessimism. Nissinen has presented a selection of films at the Frankfurter Kunstverein:

“West Project” (2010, 7 min.) portrays the opening ceremony of a like-named, doomed cultural project in an environment where every social order has apparently come to an end.

“In Rigid Regime” (2012, 11 min.), the nameless and armless protagonist lands via helicopter in a resort in the Far East to talk about freedom and to inspire the local community, which, however, does not end well for him…

“Night School” (2007, 16 min.) revolves around moral values in a volatile collage of nighttime roadside abductions, zombies on a spaceship, cheesy sing-along songs, three obese chefs, and love overtures to an animated panda. The film comes across as a disturbing comment on “ethical relativism,” which seems to pervade human social behavior.

“Material Conditions—Inner Spaces” (2013) combines Buster Keaton-like skits with quasi-philosophical modes of expressions, allowing viewers an in-depth view of the emotional worlds of the protagonists, where it is evidently about nothing less than a new social contract.

Erkka Nissinen (born 1975) studied art in Helsinki and London and took part in the residency program at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. His works have been shown at Art Rotterdam 2011, where he won the illy Prize. He lives in Helsinki, Hong Kong, and Amsterdam.