Tapio Haapala
New Arrangement
28.5.-20.6.2021
The artist is present 6.6. and 12.6.2021 from 12 to 17
It all started with a handle. I had an idea of a broken handle after seeing an old one lying around somewhere. It was battered and worn after being used for so long. It was no longer attached to anything that could have been opened or carried. It no longer had its original meaning, it had been released from its duties.
The shape and idea fascinated me to the extent that I first added the handle to one of my sculpture projects. I then created an even more massive version of this theme for an exhibition at the Rauma Art Museum. To highlight the handle as a symbol of reduced functionality, I fixed it to the wall with only one fastener so that it was hanging in a half-loose position. That is how I came up with the Screws.
I only made a few Screws first – just enough to fasten a handle. One to fix the object to the wall and three to lie on the floor as if they had come loose. Then soon there were more and more Screws. I started to see an individual, insignificant part in a new light, as a symbol of a small element in a large entity. As I made more Screws at an accelerating pace, almost as mass production, I began to see unique characteristics in them – like fingerprints on the screw heads. I noticed that the Screws also have a spiral structure. Just like DNA, with only one spiral of course. I dyed the Screws using different methods, joined them together to create absurd elements, looking for the core of non-functionality. Through my process, a common technical item had been given new characteristics and dimensions, but it had also lost its original characteristics. These Screws definitely cannot be used to fasten things together.
The large pile of Screws became a source of installation experiments. I also noticed the interesting world of shadows that appeared, taking the work in a more immaterial direction. Development, the relationship between lightness and heaviness and the relationship between an individual and an entity – it is what this must be all about.
Thanks to: Taike, SKR and City of Espoo
Tapio Haapala
sonnilansavi(a)hotmail.com
www.tapiohaapala.net
