When the world enters to the museum...

All ARS exhibitions have, in their own way, shone the spotlight on the most significant phenomena and artists of their own time. ARS 01, opening in September, is the largest of these exhibitions, at least when it comes to the opportunities and challenges that the global network of today’s art world has to offer at the beginning of a new century. This is also implied in the subtitle of the exhibition ‘unfolding perspectives’.

To this vantage point, Kiasma has invited 73 artists. They have not, however, been chosen in the Olympic spirit, impartially from all four corners of the world. Nowadays, it is increasingly more difficult (and perhaps not necessary, either) to define exactly what nationality an artist is many of them are nomads and work around the world, and many of the ARS artists have a multicultural background.

A central theme in the compiling of this exhibition was the concept of ’third space’. It dismantles the hierarchical definitions of culture as an unchanging entity that strives to protect its pure and original core and defend itself against all outside influences. The issue is no longer the bipolar relationship between the centre and periphery, but the network of time and structures in the global era, a network with complex cause and effect relations, in a state of constant metamorphosis.

In the world both integrating and disintegrating, in the flow directed by the global economy, art can carry human values and act as a means of communication between people, adjusting and lending itself to different interpretations and twists of meaning. The thematic goal of ARS 01 is not, however, to meld all ’local colour’ into one and create a multicultural utopia where everybody understands each other. Nor can that be achieved outside the museum.

Luckily, the globalisation of culture and economy also produces its own critics. Santiago Sierra is one of the many artists invited to ARS 01 who live and work within/between two or more cultures. Born in Spain, Sierra has, since 1995, been based in Mexico City, a metropolis that is a realised vision, both good and bad, of the global village of the future. In his works, Sierra deals with the relationship between economy and power in our time, peels off and reveals the hidden structures of the urban society. It remains to be seen how Sierra will apply his delicate strategy in Helsinki.

Jari-Pekka Vanhala
The writer is one of the curators of ARS 01