| Using cultural clichés as a catalyst, this exhibition focuses on the labels that have given cultural meaning to the specificities of a given region. Finland does not belong to the Arctic in any literal geographic sense, but the Finns—as well as the French and the English—are believed to have specific national characteristics, due to their northern location. Finns do not speak much; Bertolt Brecht famously wrote that Finns keep silent in two languages. They may be a little naive and may not be good at small talk, but at least they say exactly what they think. Some of their customs and habits may appear so strange for outsiders that their resemblance to “arctic hysteria” is not so far driven. | 
|
Marketta Seppälä, Director of FRAME, and Alanna Heiss, Director of P.S. 1
Arctic Hysteria is on view at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in New York from June 1-September 15.
Tea Mäkipää, My Life as a Reindeer, 2008. Photo courtesy of Vesa Ranta. Image courtesy of P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center.Using cultural clichés as a catalyst, this exhibition focuses on the labels that have given cultural meaning to the specificities of a given region. Finland does not belong to the Arctic in any literal geographic sense, but the Finns—as well as the French and the English—are believed to have specific national characteristics, due to their northern location.
Finns do not speak much; Bertolt Brecht famously wrote that Finns keep silent in two languages. They may be a little naive and may not be good at small talk, but at least they say exactly what they think. Some of their customs and habits may appear so strange for outsiders that their resemblance to “arctic hysteria” is not so far driven. Marko Tapio, a major Finnish novelist, when drafting a plan for his novel series entitled Arctic Hysteria in the late 1950s, was pondering: “Arctic hysteria is not a disease. We don’t know what it really is. It is a phenomenon in our life amidst a harsh climate and unpitying conditions. It is a dejection that, when it breaks loose, knows no boundaries.”
With regards to contemporary art, it is hard to say to what extent cultural traditions contribute to it today, or, more specifically, how Finnish can contemporary Finnish art be in the post-national world, which, due to the ever more intensifying spread of communications technology, is simultaneously shrinking while also expanding. Fragmenting in a way, it is also becoming more uniform. In any case, in spite of the growing connections of the Internet age and the constantly increasing flow of information, the art of those who come from afar is still especially judged in terms of whether it is original, imitative, or something in between. As the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss has put it in his A General Theory of Magic, 1902: “When two cultures come into contact, magic is usually attributed to the lesser developed. Classic examples are the Dasyus of India, and the Finns and the Lapps, accused respectively of sorcery by the Hindus and the Scandinavians.”
One cliché often repeated is the supposedly close connection of Finnish art with nature. It is certainly true that natural conditions give shape to cultural features and peculiarities, particularly in a sparsely populated, recently industrialised and urbanized country with strong agrarian roots such as Finland, “the country of thousands lakes.”
Nature, environmental issues, and human-animal relationship emerge as a sort of connecting thread throughout the exhibition in the works of the artists who embrace social and political themes as well. It does not come as a projection of Finnishness as such, but as a point of departure, in which human culture participates in the cycles of nature. It seems this connection is so self-evident that one needs not make any number of it.
In the mystical and outlandish visions of 16 artists and artist groups in Arctic Hysteria, the utopian optimism about technological progress from the 1960s is confronted with the anxiety about the environment and future in the works of younger artists. This reflects a general change occurring in the world at large for the last 40 years. From the science-fiction utopia of a new era—a space age—we have to get back to Earth and acknowledge a reality in which, after centuries of neglect, we have no choice but to take environmental threats such as the climate change seriously.
As the ice melts on the North Pole, rising political heat poses yet another threat to the region. Paradoxically, this will only increase as a consequence of global warming, in the guise of a global rush for arctic territories and the region’s energy reserves. This rush was started last year by Russia, when a robot hand from a Russian submarine planted a Russian flag made of titanium at the depth of 4.261 meters on the North Pole on August 2nd. This race, a breathtaking international play of national greed, was rapidly joined by Canada, the U.S., Denmark, and Norway. If we do not soon get new rules and improve international cooperation between arctic nations, one of the world’s most fragile regions, which also plays a critical role in stabilizing the planet’s climate, could face irreparable damage.
In Marko Tapio’s opinion, the Finnish people should be understood in the light of the arctic hysteria they are suffering from. However that may be, the dreams, fears, and worries of the Finnish artists presented in this exhibition are deeply rooted in our common—and so often hysteric—collective consciousness. The problems the artists take up with their creativity resemble a call for general recuperation, as well as regeneration of the mind and the senses. In today’s world the local has multiple global significances.
Excerpt from the essay introduction of the Arctic Hysteria catalogue, June 2008. Published by FRAME Finnish Fund for Art Exchange and P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center.
