Modernismens förespråkare : Gösta Stenman och hans konstsalong

This dissertation, based on material from Stenman s vast private archive, examines the role played by Swedish-speaking Finnish art dealer Gösta Stenman (1888-1947) and his art gallery, Stenmans Konstsalong, in the Finnish and Swedish art worlds from 1911 to 1947. This archive is examined here for the first time. The analytical framework used for this empirical study derives from Pierre Bourdieu s sociological theories. An art-sociological approach allows for the inclusion of more mechanisms at work in the art world than are typically embraced in such inquiries. This approach provides a fuller understanding of how Stenman attained his standing and central role in the art world in Finland as well as Sweden; enabling us to appreciate how he came to occupy such a prominent position in current art historical writing. All of these issues constitute new areas of research. Taking his cues from the contemporary art world of Paris, Stenman became the year 1914 a modern art dealer like no other in the Nordic countries. This dissertation represents the first academic investigation into his operations, strategies, and objectives, offering insight into not only the art dealer himself but also the functioning of the art market one of the most vital aspects of the art world. A by-product of this work, is that the modern art market in Finland is portrayed, including essential issues related to its growth and development as well as how it altered the conditions under which art could be produced, exhibited and promoted and what this entailed for the art world at large, artists and patrons alike. This first systematic analysis of the operations of Stenman s Konstsalong offers greater understanding of the art worlds of Sweden and Finland in the early twentieth century. The work also looks at how an agent of the art market could move between the fields of art in Sweden and Finland. The manner in which Stenman promoted individual artists, including his relationships with Tyko Sallinen, Helene Schjerfbeck, Juho Mäkelä, Jalmari Ruokokoski, Siri Derkert, Esther Kjerner, Eva Bagge, and many others, also falls within this purview. Stenman s contract with Sallinen from 1913 stands out as a new phenomenon in Finnish art promotion, whereby an artistic career became established via a far-sighted, strategic promotional program. The case study of Stenman s promotion of Schjerfbeck in Sweden provides evidence of the increasingly advanced nature of Stenman s strategies. The title of the dissertation, The Promoter of Modernism, attempts to convey that Stenman was the consummate modernist, modern in his thoughts, his actions, and his approach to art. Keywords: Gösta Stenman, Stenmans konstsalong, Stenmans dotter, art market, modernism, collecting, Novembergruppen, Helene Schjerfbeck, Tyko Sallinen, Juho Mäkelä, Jalmari Ruokokoski, Wäinö Aaltonen, Siri Derkert, Åke Göransson, Esther Kjerner, Eva Bagge.

Ruumiinkuvia! : Suomalainen performanssi- ja kehotaide 1980- ja1990-luvulla psykoanalyysin valossa

My PhD-thesis Body Images! Psychoanalytical Analysis of Finnish Performance and Body Art in the 1980s and 1990s considers Finnish performance and body art performed mainly by visual artists. In Part I, I chart the historical construction of performance art and its extension since the beginning of the 21st century. There are several wievs of the historical background of performance art. I introduce three different genealogies of performance art. One is Rose-Lee Goldberg s view. She connects performance art with the European avant-garde already at the beginning of the 20th century from futurists and dadaists to Russian avant-garde and the Bauhaus. I prefer to present performance art as contemporary art, which began to take shape in connection with visual arts in the 1950s and 1960s. The focus on the body is apparent in nearly all performance art. Nevertheless, throug the concept of body art I want to empasize the artist s body as the place of art. Body art (as part of performance art) functions as thematic and interpretive concept, which allows me to focus on performances where the questions of body image, narcissism, desire, language and pleasure are incorporated in particular intensive ways. In Part II, I explore the arrival of performance art in Finnish visual arts in the 1980s. I study the new generation s relation to earlier Finnish happenings (1960s) and performative actions in 1970 s. I briefly introduce performance groups of the 1980s art scene and consider their reception in media. The main focus is on the group Jack Helen Brut, in which I see many similarities to the so- called Theatre of Images. The goal of this part II is to provide historical context for the performance analysis that follows. In Part III, I develop the concept of body image which is my main theoretical term. The concept of body image is used according to Lacanian psychoanalytical theory, especially his considerations of mirror stages. My first mapping of body image, which I call imaginary body image, is based on Lacan s famous mirror stage article (1949). According to my reading, body image is narcistic and aggressive. The important concepts here are ego, imaginary, méconnaisance and alienation. In 1953 Lacan began to develop different version on mirror stage, in which he emphasized the primacy of symbolic dimension. It is not image, but language which constructs the foundations of body image. Central concepts in this chater are Other as language, ego-ideal, demand and desire. In the last chapter I connect the third version of the mirror stage to concepts of gaze, phantasy, real, jouissance and object a. In previous chapters I had considered body image in relation to ego. Now I explore it in relation to subject. In my reading the body image is fragile phenomen, which oscillates between yearning for coherence and phantasies of fragmented images. Part IV of the thesis begins with an introduction to the central concepts and debates in performace studies over the last few decades. Important concepts are presence, performativity and theatricality. The main substance of my thesis, however, is the performance analysis, which focuses on works by three Finnish artists and one Finnish group. The first analysis concerns the performance (1992) of Kimmo Schroderus. I discuss the relationship between narcissism and body art and the changes in demands projected on body images of men in recent decades in a Euro-American context. I also explore this performance in relation to the myth of Narcissus, which I reinterpret through Narcissus s aggression against his own body. The group Homo S is the main subject of the next analysis. I discuss the relationship between feminist art and performance art, especially in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. Homo S is different from this early performance art because of its anarchism, humor and rejection of all ideals. Homo S characterizes its performance Body Body (1983) as liberating vulgar feminism . Sociality and performance of erotic relations between women are central in Body Body. Pia Lindman s performances are the subjects of my third analysis. I study three of her performances: Olen muoto (1993), 17 and in love (1994) and Arranged views (1995). I interpret these performances as efforts to disperse the imaginary and symbolic structures of the body image. She constructs the peculiar object a and phantasy space of her own. In the last analysis I move from questions of image and gaze to a study of language, sound and jouissance. I discuss at a general level the performance of orality and helplesness (Hilflosigkeit) in body art. The central elements in Pentti Otto Koskinen s performances are the ear, listening and receptive gestures and postions. Perseveraatio (1998) can be understood representing as submission to the super-ego s power, which compels one to enjoy. I examine particularly closely the performance Maissi on hyvää ei missään nimessä maissia (1995), which I interpret as the return of a baby s body image to the liminal site of choice: language or jouissance?