World is full of art. Ideas are fewer. A couple of months ago artist Jani Leinonen (www.janileinonen.fi) introduced an idea that combined art and recycling.

Leinonen launched a ”pimp my art” concept. He brought a container to the front yard of Kiasma, Helsinki museum of contemporary art. For one month, anyone could bring in a painting from home. Leinonen & friends then tuned the art piece: painted something small on it or recreated it altogether. Each client could choose from four options (25€-1000€): finalising, coloring, small tuning or full tuning. The aim was to improve the paintings both aesthetically and in € value. In his container gallery Leinonen exhibited paintings he had already tuned. In the attached studio he worked on incoming assigments.

Jani Leinonen’s project is big for a couple of reasons. It touches the holiness of art. Art by definition is something untouchable, almost sacred. Questioning the taboo is extremely refreshing. The project also separates status value from personal value. Perhaps no-one is bold enough to bring in a Picasso or other masterpiece. But still: finally it is allowed, even encouraged for a citizen to express that a piece of art is boring or lacks something. It is almost as if people are now free to enjoy art based on art itself, not on its investment value.

In other words: if you own a painting and don’t like it, feel free to change it so that you do. It may feel like disrespect towards that certain piece. But it shows huge respect to the relationship between people and art. Nobody should dictate what is good art and what isn’t. The relationship is highly intimate, and should be cherished.

A second hand bookstore once declared that their books have two stories: whereas an untouched book only has the story written by the author, used books also carry the story of their previous owner(s). Artek recently introduced Second Cycle: used Alvar Aalto furniture that proudly carry the marks of previous decades and share their unique stories with new users. Maybe its now time for the world of art to fully celebrate the opportunities of second lives.

http://www.taidetuunaamo.fi/english/

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 17:07 and is filed under Art & Culture, Miami 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.