Point of view: Marko Vuokola: On The Spot I, 2000

Two yellow pictures on the wall, both alike. The colour is intense, but the eye does not fix on anything in particular. Except one’s own reflection, which looks back in askance. As the point of view changes, the reflected image of the viewer and the surrounding gallery begins to move on the surface of the glass. "The reflecting surface tells a story and conveys the information in the livest broadcast possible. Only thoughts are faster," says Marko Vuokola, creator of On The Spot.

An image of an image

On The Spot I consists of two yellow surfaces, identical in size, covered with glass. The images cannot be presented separate from each other, they are essentially interconnected: the image on the left is an aluminium sheet painted yellow, the one on the right is a photograph of it. The series also includes another, nearly identical pair of images, On The Spot II.

Outwardly, the images of On The Spot I differ from each other very little, but in content they are far apart. The image on the left consists of specks of pigment, the one on the right consists of the grains of a photographic print. The photograph is just a little darker than the painted surface. Another visible difference is a lighter semi-circle on the bottom of the photograph, which contains a clue to the documentary nature of the work. The white patch is a trace captured on film, left by a lamp in Vuokola’s studio. Through this arrested reflection, the moment of photographing has been captured in the work of art. At the same time, it reveals a representational subject hiding in the seemingly abstract pair of images.

A yellow live happening

The hue of the alkyd paint used in the work is RAL 1016. Vuokola says he finally decided on the yellow colour after having worked long with the RGB (red, green, blue) theme. "The colour, however, does not matter. Here yellow just represents colours in general". And to Vuokola, colour consists primarily of light.

Vuokola has striven for an effect as neutral as possible. "I did not want my handiwork to show on the work". That is why the left-hand surface of the pair is painted industrially. At the same time, the painting dissociates itself from the tradition of painting in order to associate with the tradition of conceptual art: it is not a painting, but rather a painted spatial element.

Time is an important element in Vuokola’s work. A parallel is drawn between two surfaces, created at different times and with different techniques, in a new context. The present also manifests itself in the reflection off the glass surface: The work, On The Spot, the gallery room with its works of art and the people moving about in the room all participate in a continuous live happening, which is dyed yellow over and over again. In addition, Vuokola says that he has thought about photographing the pair of images when they are on display, which would bring yet another time dimension to the work.

Light as medium

Vuokola is interested in communication, which he thinks is at its fastest, when it takes place through vision. In his artistic work, he has studied light as a physical phenomenon. The transmission of light, and with it information, extremely fast is a process, which Vuokola has also examined in the works On The Spot. The point of departure offered by them is perceiving a surface of colour. "It is seeing in its most primitive form," Vuokola says. He reminds us that an image is transmitted to our brain as light. "At the end of the day, all information received through the eyes is light."

A work of art as a space and an event

The encounter between the viewer and the work of art is given a central role. This is already apparent in the ambiguous title On The Spot. The title is associated with both being on the spot and the light phenomena in the image [spotted, spotlight]. The work is based on the viewer being in a room and, therefore, in interaction with the work. For Vuokola, On The Spot is not just a pair of images on the wall: In the end, the work of art is complete only after the viewer’s spatial experience becomes a part of the work. For Vuokola, the viewer is not just a subject looking at the work of art, rather, it is a two-way relationship.

Vuokola likes to see his work of art as an event or a performance, which makes no demands on the viewer. In this way of thinking, the artist has a two-fold role. He is both the director of the performance and part of the audience. Especially when the work of art is being created, the artist is, for a long time, the performance’s only viewer.

Vuokola wanted to offer the viewer a work of art which is easy to approach without previous information or presuppositions. All unnecessary and extraneous information has been eliminated from it. Vuokola characterises the work as extremely simple, aware of the paradox included in the idea. Although the work is meant to be simple, viewers may see the unaffected work as "boring" or "difficult". In the end, it may require more explanation than many other works of contemporary art. Vuokola thinks, however, that such an attitude contains prejudice. He wants to encourage the viewer to look at the work in a simple way: "It’s just it".

Minna Raitmaa
Source: Conversation with Marko Vuokola 1 March 2001