In the project “Curators for Sale” finnfemfel switched the roles in the delicate relationship between artists and curators, in a very practical and undramatic way. The participating curators became producers of art while finnfemfel acted as the curator, initiator and broker. The curators who took part in the project was Marketta Seppälä, Helsinki, Mika Hannula, Berlin, Zsuzsa Laszlo & Dora Hegyi, Budapest, Dan Holm, Vaasa, Finland, Tomas Ivan Träskman, Helsinki and Valentin Rothmaler, Plön, Germany. Curators for Sale! was the start of future projects that enhance and look at the phenomenon from different perspectives.

Hommage à Ready-Made: From Strategy to Product
Lecture sheet, Inkjet-print, Dimensions variable, 2008, Unlimited edition

The naked truth about marketing Finnish art abroad.

Marketta Seppälä was the founding director of the Pori Art Museum, Finland in 1979-1998. Since 1998 she has been Director of FRAME Finnish Fund for Art Exchange and the founding editorial director of Framework: The Finnish Art Review, published by FRAME. In 2001 and 2007 she has been Commissioner of the Nordic Pavilion at the 49th and 52nd Venice biennials. In 2008 she has been co-curator with Alanna Heiss for Arctic Hysteria: New Art from Finland at P.S.1, New York and curator for Adel Abidin: Abidin Travels at White Box, New York.

(… at the time for the project)

Situations I – X
Pencil, Ink, Wash on papper, 24x32cm, 1997-2007

Former curator of art in the Ostrobothnia Museum, Vaasa, Finland.

Curator for different art project in different places

(… at the time for the project)

Exhibited drawings, paintings and installations since 1973 in Finland, Sweden,

Germany, Italy

Illustrations for the newspapper Vasabladet, Finland, including drawings from trials

Illustrations for periodicals and book covers

7 posters, Texts on white strong paper, Texts either in black or red, 38x53cm 2008, Unlimited edition

– Artistic Research – theories, methods and practices, with Juha Suoranta and Tere Vadén, Kuvataideakatemia and Göteborg Universitet, 2005

– Politics of Small Gestures, Chances and Challenges for Contemporary Art, Artist Publishing, Istanbul 2006

– Curator for Estonian Pavilion at Venice Biennial 2007, artist: Marko Mäetamm

– Blonde Miss World 1951 – , Birgir Snaebjörn Birgisson, Reykjavik Art Museum 2007

– Night on Earth – Berlin (showroom et al.), Shanghai (Moca), Helsinki (Myymälä2 & Suvilahti) April – August 2008

– A Good Idea – Two Nordic Group Exhibitions on Contemporary Painting at the Göteborg Konsthall, 1) Painting, Space and Society, 20.6. – 5.8.2007 & 2) Tomorrow Always Belongs to Us 5.6. – 28.9.2008

– Talkin’ Loud and Sayin’ Something, Four Perspectives of Artistic Research, Gothenburg Museum of Art, 24.9. – 16.11. 2008

KUNST=KAPITAL in Iasi – documentation
Two-sided C-print, 2008, 5 copies

For Periferic 8 – Contemporary Art Biennial, Iasi a publishing house was founded by the name of KUNST=KAPITAL that issued its first multiple “Joseph Beuys Edition Iaşi”, which worked in a self-service way offering the visitors the possibility to create – using their banknotes – their own copies of KUNST=KAPITAL’s first signature edition. The photos presented at ARTmART are documenting this project.

Dora Hegyi is an art historian, curator based in Budapest. Between 1996 and 2003 she was a curator at the Ludwig Museum Budapest, initiator of the Project Room of the museum in 1999. She curated, among many others, the exhibitions “Budapest Box – The hidden scene of the 1990s” (co-curator), 2002 and “Moszkva ter-Gravitation”, 2003. Since 2005 Dora Hegyi is project leader of tranzit.hu, a contemporary art initiative supported by the Erste Bank Group, which organizes discursive events. In this framework she started the Free School for Art Theory and Practice, to strengthen the professional discussion of art and critical thinking in Hungary. In 2008 she was the curator of Periferic 8 – Biennial for Contemporary Art, Iasi, Romania.

Zsuzsa Laszlo is a curator and art critic based in Budapest Hungary. She is currently doing a PhD course in Art Theory and has been the assistant curator of Periferic 8. She is also teaching at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts and is involved in several projects of tranzit.hu – a network of autonomous initiatives in contemporary art in Central Europe. Previously she worked for the Studio of Young Artists, taught at the Institute for Art Theory and Media Studies, Budapest, and worked as an art mediator. Her research interests are institutional critique, text based artworks, and the reinterpretations of the genre of group exhibition.

(… at the time for the project)

THE PHOENIX (Nasdaq 2.0), POST
THE PHOENIX (Nasdaq 2.0) – Ashes and wood, 2008
POST: Send Art Here: Berndt Arell, Inkjet-print, 24x18cm, 2008

– The Phoenix (Nasdaq 2.0): conceptual experiment including a hopeful element

– POST: a conceptual experiment in interdependence and networking

Tomas Ivan Träskman is an art historian who works in the borderland between design, architecture, media and art. 2001 Friend of Contemporary Art: Tomas Ivan Träskman and his television-team were declared THE Friend of Contemporary Art by The Contemporary Art Museum Kiasma. ”The fascination of what’s difficult” is what first drew Träskman to this borderland. In 2005 he founded alltihopa (Everything), a platform for border-crossing designers, filmmakers, architects, authors, artists and choreographers. Since the year 2004 he has been a regular contributor to the Nordic Architecture/ Interior/ Design Review Forum Aid. Now he is the Finnish editor for ProjectBaltia: a Baltic architecture and design magazine. Träskman is the 4th member of YKON, a non-profit advocacy group for unrepresented nations, experimental countries and utopian thinkers.

(… at the time for the project)

Aus Der Sektkorkenkorbwelt
Out Of The Champagne Cork Cave World
Prints on paper 30x30cm, 2008, Signed

These are monotypes printed at an etching press from found pieces, ready made, technically seen. These are embossing of a spatial reality in a new two-dimensional aesthetics, conceptual seen, which against allows you to imagine space: from a cowboy’s hat to architecture. It’s up to everyone’s imagination. These are unique copies, signed by hand, from the point of view of an art collector. Each “champagne cork cave” was printed just from its two sides. I call those Tiefdruckmonotypien (etching monotypes). Again, each print appears individual, conceptually like each bottle of champagne, which is served for any celebrate occasion ever and it is unique as any individual.

V. R., born 1950, studied in Berlin and Munich, since 1993 Professor of Art at Wismar University. He paints, draws, prints, writes, publishes, curates.Since 1990 several shows in several cities and countries (i. e. Christo and Jeanne Claude, Stephan Craig, Michael Dörner, Ulrich Eller, Harald Naegeli, Raffael Rheinsberg, Franz Erhard Walther, Günther Uecker). Since 2008 curator for St. Petri in Lübeck.

(… at the time for the project)