Visual arts Riiko Sakkinen exacerbates in Spain with portraits of country’s leaders: Now he unites Prime Minister’s heroic leader Pol Pot

Madrid

Galleria Forsblomin in front of the stand, there is a commotion at the Arco Madrid Fine Arts Fair, which is spreading in the halls of the Ifema Exhibition Center in Madrid. The cameras are being excavated by the Prime Minister Pedro Sánchezia in front of a two-meter portrait.

Sánchez stares at the viewer in a relaxed and cheerful way, but the text of the book evokes it. It reads “My far-left favorite leaders,” and names are listed below Pol Potista Fidel Castroon.

Many are surprised to find that perhaps the most politically influential work at the fair has been brought to the fair by a Finnish gallery and a Finnish artist – albeit Riiko Sakkinen has lived in Spain for about 20 years.

Sakkinen is for the second time one of the most talked about artists at the internationally acclaimed Arco Madrid Contemporary Art Fair. Two years ago, he introduced the dictator to the trade fair audience Francisco Francon portrait Franco no fue tan Malo Como dicen (Franco was not as bad as they say), which lists the good deeds of the dictator.

Franco, for example, built 230 dams and set up a Spanish social security system. As you progress, the list of virtues becomes more absurd.

The work provoked strong reactions.

“Some cried about the movement. There were some in the audience who had been in prison during Franco’s dictatorship. “

Feedback came from side to side as expected. Some even considered the act fascist, while others accused Sak of mocking the character. In the hometown of the home village, the artist shouted.

Sakkinen himself wanted to show that Franco is by no means Spanish history but also to this day.

Attention was guaranteed, as Sakkinen gave more than 50 interviews to the Spanish and international media in a couple of days. Franco became a phenomenon that is still talked about after two years.

Since then, Franco’s work has been acquired in Finland, in the collections of the Serlachius Museums.

Sakkinen promised the press that he would paint a portrait of Pedro Sánchez at next year’s fair, and so it did. However, there was a pandemic, so the work only found its way to the public this year.

“Political but less polemical art,” El Pais reported, once again elevating Sakkinen to the headlines of cultural news like countless other Spanish and international magazines.

Another of Arco Madrid’s works this year is Peruvian Wynnie Mynervan video installation of a sutured vagina (Cerrar para abrir).

“Sánchez attracts a lot of attention, but not as strong emotions as Franco,” says Sakkinen.

Sakkinen also made works on patriotic scarves for this year’s fair, most of which he bought from a stall he found in front of the Santiago Bernabeu football stadium. The tickets found in the same booth are in the stall for future work.

Director of Arco Madrid Maribel López does not see the provocativeness and media attention of individual works as an advantage or a problem for the event.

“However, I think it’s a good thing that the works activate thinking. Riiko Sakkinen is good at it. He knows how to draw water from certain strings, how to draw attention and how to get the audience to dive deeper into the surface. ”

Sakkinen lives In the village of Pepino in the province of Toledo. He met his Spanish wife on a student exchange, and the couple moved to live in the wife’s hometown in central Spain after the turn of the millennium.

Sakkinen makes political art, to which he draws ingredients by listening carefully to what is being said in the bars of his own village. Pepino is traditionally a right-wing support area, while Sakkinen is an open leftist.

When the Socialist Party PSOE won the Spanish parliamentary elections in 2019, left-wing expectations were high. Sakkinen Lango thinks Spain is now a communist country, but Sakkinen wonders if anything has changed.

“I have lived in Spain Aznarin, Zapateron, Rajoyn and now in the reign of Sánchez. Pretty much nothing changes, even when power changes. ”

“It can be hard for many to see that this is criticism from left to left.”

The Spanish right welcomed Sánchez’s work, as many think Sakkinen equates Sánchez’s left-wing dictators.

Everyone who stops in front of the painting has their own interpretation of the work. Visiting the fair María Seguí suspects the book criticizes current government policy.

“I think it describes how the policies of the Socialist Party have violated Spanish unity.”

One could imagine that Arco Madrid has been a perfect springboard for Spanish art circles in Spanish art circles, but in reality his strongest supporters are still in Finland.

Access to insiders in the Spanish art field has been challenging for Sakkinen, and now that his name has become familiar, the situation has surprisingly become even more difficult.

“Sure, I’ve had shows in Spain, but not more so than in the United States, even though this is my home field.”

Sakkinen’s works have been on display in Finland’s most prestigious galleries for 20 years, he holds exhibitions every year and the Serlachius Museums, among others, have a significant collection of his works. Abroad, his works are in the collections of MoMA in New York, among other places.

As the Franco portrait made headlines, he found his fellow artists even shun him.

“I am the most hated artist in Spain. Those who do not receive the same attention do not like the attention my works receive. ”

Sakkinen feels that an immigrant is not allowed to deal with Spanish matters in Spain.

“I do not accept that Reina Sofía acquires works for her collections after I am dead. Not one of my works goes to any Spanish museum if it doesn’t happen in my lifetime, ”he taps.

Sakkinen’s work stems from his desire to belong to Spain. He has built a house and a studio in the Toledo countryside, and could not imagine moving back to Finland. Without Spanish citizenship, for example, he is not allowed to vote in general elections, but through art he can have his say.

“Many do not realize that through these works I am showing my love for Spain.”

Spanish the cultural community has long been concerned about the curtailment of freedom of expression in the field of art. In 2018, Santiago Sierra’s work was removed from Spanish political prisoners by Arco Madrid. Last year, a rapper in Spain sparked a debate, among other things Pablo Hasélin prison sentence.

Sakkinen is not afraid. In 2012, a Madrid artist Eugenio Merino brought Arco to Madrid Always Franco a work in which a wax doll resembling a dictator was placed in a Coca Cola refrigerator. The National Francisco Franco Foundation sued Merino for insulting Franco’s honor, but lost the case.

“This was a good precedent. I don’t think I’ll be sued. ”

Sakkinen believes that freedom of expression in the field of high culture is on a firmer footing than in popular culture.

“Perhaps a musician, for example, is feared to affect the masses differently than a visual artist.”

Sakkinen knows that provocative art focusing on Spanish politics is not easy to sell, so he praises Ilkka Tikkanen Galeria Forsblom.

“It is special that a Finnish gallery presents such works here in Spain. They have huge credit for me. ”

In addition to him, Forsblom’s Arco artists this year included, among other things Anna Fasshauer, Susanne Gottberg, Heikki Marila, Emanuel Seitz, Kim Simonsson and Marianna Uutinen. Of the other Finnish galleries, Anhava was present at the fair, which ends on Sunday 27 February.

“Hundreds of artists want to come here. I’m selling my work to the gallery with the idea that if you take me, you’ll get attention and get on the telly. And of course we got there, but it was terribly exciting that if we didn’t get to. ”