MY GETSEMANE – Kalervo Palsa
Kalervo Palsa: MY GETHSEMANE
PORI ART MUSEUM
November 20, 2002 – January 19, 2003
WING, PROJECT ROOM
Kalervo Palsa (1947–1987) transformed the harsh realism of his hometown Kittilä into art. The brutal nature of life is laid bare in Palsa’s sharp and startling depictions of his surroundings and himself. His art reflects layers of earlier art history. Palsa described his work as fantastic realism and saw himself as a successor to an artistic tradition that dates back to the Middle Ages. His works exhibit connections to Expressionism, Surrealism, and Naïve Art, which he considered integral to fantastic realism. The artist also frequently created original interpretations of traditional visual art themes.
The exhibition at the Pori Art Museum presents a selection of Palsa’s extensive oeuvre. The chosen works reflect the artist’s approach of working simultaneously on very different themes, using a variety of techniques and styles. In Palsa’s art, themes of violence, sexuality, and death intertwine in myriad ways. His portrayal of humanity includes numerous self-portraits and portraits of people close to him. In addition to symbolic and often dark depictions of human strength and frailty, his output includes still lifes and landscapes. A recurring subject is theatrical interior scenes representing “inner landscapes,” often set in the interior of his small cabin, which he referred to as his Gethsemane.
The artist bequeathed his estate to his longtime friend Maj-Lis Pitkänen, who donated a significant collection of Palsa’s works to the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in 1999. This collection includes over 2,000 of Palsa’s works as well as sketches and diary material related to them.
The exhibition Kalervo Palsa: My Gethsemane has been organized by the Pori Art Museum in collaboration with curator Jari-Pekka Vanhala. The exhibition was produced by the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma and complements Kiasma’s exhibition Kalervo Palsa: The Second Coming.
Kalervo Palsa was born in Kittilä in 1947 and spent most of his life in his northern homeland. He only managed to leave Kittilä during his studies in Helsinki (at the School of Industrial Arts, 1971–73, and the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, 1973–79) and during trips to Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United States in the last years of his life. Palsa drew diverse influences from philosophy, literature, and visual art. His output also includes extensive diary entries closely connected to his visual art. In the North, his most important artistic contacts were Reidar Särestöniemi (1925–1981) and Timo K. Mukka (1944–1973).
Related Events:
As part of the Kalervo Palsa: My Gethsemane exhibition, Maj-Lis Pitkänen will give a presentation on Sunday, December 1, 2002, at 2:00 PM. The presentation is included in the museum entrance fee.
Associate Professor Tere Vadén (University of Tampere) will give a lecture titled “Kalervo Palsa: A Finnish Mystic and Moralist” on December 11, 2002, at 6:30 PM in the lecture hall on the museum’s second floor. Admission to the lecture is free.