News // Solo-exhibition “Red Heritage” at The Finnish Labour Museum Werstas 20.11.2018-6.1.2019

Carl Sebastian Lindberg’s solo-exhibition Red Heritage is now on view at The Finnish Labour Museum Werstas, in Tampere 20.11.2018-6.1.2019. The film is produced by The Pro Artibus foundation and also funded by Avek / Media-art, Arts promotion Centre Finland, and Eugène, Elisabeth och Birgit Nygréns stiftelse.

www.werstas.fi

News // The solo-exhibithion “Red Heritage” at Third Space 13-16.6.2018

Opening 13.6 @ 4 pm – 8 pm
Closing reception 16.6 4 pm – 8 pm
Visiting hours (13-16.6) @ 4 pm – 8 pm
Red Heritage is a documentary about The Finnish Civil War in 1918 and it’s influence on contemporary Finland from the perspective of one family. The film tells the story of the artist Carl Sebastian Lindberg’s great-grandfather Antti Meritähti who fought for the Red Guards, as told by Lindberg’s relatives and through information from different archives. The fact that Lindberg’s great- grandfather fought for the Red Guards that lost the war is still a taboo in the family, and one of the interviewed, the artist’s uncle, is not willing to show his face in the film, we only see his hands.The video is in Swedish with English subtitles. The work was produced by Stiftelsen Pro Artibus. The exhibithion is supported by Visek and Nylands Nations Kulturfond.
For more info see:

News // The Kiila-magazine Verso is released

The Kiila-Magazine Verso (in finnish) is relased. It’s available for free in the most recent number of Voima and printed in an edition of 50000. It can also be downloaded as a pdf-file at Kiila’s homepage:

www.kiila.eu

The magazine features a text by Carl Sebastian Lindberg about the unemplyement and social situation of Finnish visual artists today. The magazine is edited by Ville Ropponen.

News // Russian-Finnish Speech Karaoke in Helsinki 15.6.2018

As part of the Tok Curators‘ new art research-based project ‘The Russian Bar: Why Relocate? New approaches to neighborliness and interchange’, you are welcome to attend and participate in our Speech Karaoke at Bar Loose in Helsinki!

The main idea of the ‘Russian Bar’ project is to analyze the new waves of migration to Finland fueled by the political turbulence with the focus on the changing of internal and external politics in Russia and Finland.

Speech Karaoke will be based on texts in Russian, Finnish and English that touch upon political and human relations between Russia and Finland.

Click here: http://tok-spb.org/new/en/projects/the-russian-bar-why-relocate to see the project description and the events program in June.

The project is supported by Kone Foundation

For more information please contact:
TOK Curators
T +358 44 94629 89 / tok.press@gmail.com
www.tok-spb.org

Credits for image: http://www.tvc.ru/channel
Person in the image: Harri Manskinen – Uutisvuoksen päätoimittaja

News // Carl Sebastian Lindberg was one of 100 artists creating Sauli Niinistö’s official portrait

 The portrait of President of the Republic Sauli Niinistö.

The portrait of President of the Republic Sauli Niinistö was unveiled in the Presidential Room of the Government Palace on Friday, 4 May. It is a mosaic composed of one hundred partial works by one hundred younger-generation artists — graphic artists, sculptors, painters, video artists, performance artists and photographers — who are or have been active in Finland. The portrait was produced by visual artists Atro Linnavirta and Anita Naukkarinen who selected the participating artists.

Carl Sebastian Lindberg was one of the 100 artists participating. His piece is a collage done with a euro banknote and acrylics.

The portrait of President of the Republic Sauli Niinistö will be placed on display in Ateneum Art Museum on Tuesday 5 June. It will be on exhibition to the public until 2 September, after which it will be returned to the Presidential Room in the Government Palace.

For more info see:

www.yle.fi

www.ateneum.fi

Photo credit: Vilhelm Sjöström

News // Solo-exhibithion: Thicker than water 23.9-12.11.2017

From the series “Selfportrait as Mannerheim” (2017)

OPENING
22 September 2017
5-7 pm

THE EXHIBITION WILL BE OPENED BY AUTHOR AND HISTORIAN  STURE LINDHOLM.

Free bus transfer from Helsinki departures at 3:30 pm from the Kiasma bus stop. Returns to Helsinki at 7 pm. Please, note that there is a limited number of seats and make your reservation not later than 18 September to: 019-2239 010 or proartibus@proartibus.fi

Gallery Elverket’s autumn season is being opened by Carl Sebastian Lindberg, a visual artist who delves deep into the social issues affecting Finland’s recent history. His works combine personal and universal experience, transforming them into totally new narratives. Lindberg deals with the mystique linked to national feeling, and to nationalism in general, and brings up alternatives to historical interpretations that are seen as being universal.

The body of works being shown at Elverket is Lindberg’s (1978) hitherto most extensive solo exhibition. There for our inspection are new and recently created works by this multifaceted artist. Carl Sebastian Lindberg gained his Masters of Fine Arts degree from the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki in 2008, and has since been an active contemporary artist. His works have been shown in various parts of the world. The moving image and photography are his principal media, but he is also a founder member of the Speech Karaoke project. At Speech Karaoke people give speeches, instead of singing.

The exhibition comprises four works or composites. Home and Country (2013) is a videowork that “deals with my aunt, the author Ann-Mari Lindberg’s, experiences as a child during the Winter and Continuation Wars. The work’s starting point is a microhistorical one, I have chosen to relate some minor incidents in a child’s life, but through them also some major events in history. For example, the outbreak of war is dealt with through the way Ann-Mari’s father bought gasmasks for the whole family, and the way her mother sewed snowsuits for the children – similar snowsuits to those that soldiers at the front wore. The military alliance with Nazi Germany during the Continuation War is touched on when Ann-Mari talks about how it felt to do the Hitler salute and to march in step at Helsinki’s German school, which she attended until 1944.”

World Champions (2013) is a video about Finland winning the ice-hockey world championship in 2011. Lindberg has been interested in the mass reaction that followed this victory, and the variety of expressions that people’s feelings took on. The viewer gets to participate in the spontaneous joy, but also in some totally different aspects of the effervescent party atmosphere, which was spiced with a substantial measure of national feeling. The exhibition coincides with the premiere of Red heritage (2017), which was produced by Pro Artibus. This is a documentary dealing with the events of 1918, and with the vestiges of them that still live on. Lindberg’s paternal grandmother’s father, Antti Meritähti, was in the Red Guard, and was imprisoned in Tammisaari until 1919. The documentary deals with the way people in various positions related, and still relate, to the family’s red heritage. This is a story about how a family maintained silence and felt shame, and about the traumas that remain for those who were on the losing side during the civil war. Red heritage is the first of Lindberg’s works that the Pro Artibus Foundation is acquiring for its collection.

The fourth item in the exhibition, Selfportrait as Mannerheim, reveals a more playful side to Lindberg’s art. This involves a series of photographs in which Lindberg replaces the face of Finland’s Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (1867-1951) with his own. The iconic photographs of Mannerheim in various situations instantly become something totally different. The pictures tell us something new about the artist, but also about the viewer’s own reactions.

During the autumn, Carl Sebastian Lindberg will also be participating in two other exhibitions: Raumo Art Museum’s Korkeemman kaiun saa and the Backlight Photo Festival at Museum Center Vapriikki in Tampere. The artist would like to thank everyone who has supported the project: Avek, Konstsamfundet, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Nylands konstkommission, Oskar Öflunds Stiftelse, Eugène, Elisabeth och Birgit Nygréns stiftelse, Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland (Lise och Thelma Standertskjölds fond), Greta och Alfred Runebergs Stiftelse and Pro Artibus Foundation.

Juha-Heikki Tihinen, PhD

www.proartibus.fi

News // Korkeemman Kaiun saa 30.9. – 12.11.2017

Carl Sebastian Lindberg is to be included in the exhibition “Korkeemman kaiun saa” at Rauma Art Museum 30.9-12.11.2017. The exhibithion deals with questions of national identity, indepence and national symbols.

“Näyttely avaa näkökulmia siitä, miten itsenäisyys, isänmaallisuus, kansallistunne, Suomen lippu ja sinivalkoisuus puhuttelevat ihmisiä nyt, kun Suomi on ollut itsenäinen 100 vuotta. Onko identiteettien painoarvo muuttunut, miten keskeistä on suomalaisuus, eurooppalaisuus, maailmankansalaisuus? Mikä on isänmaan ja äidinkielen merkitys? Arvostammeko kotia ja paikallisuutta ja voimmeko olla niistä ylpeitä.”

For more info see:

www.raumantaidemuseo.fi

News // Backlight Photo Festival artists announced

Carl Sebastian Lindberg will participate in the Backlight Photo festival in Tampere in 2017. The exhibithion will open the 8th September 2017. From over 400 applications from nearly 50 countries, the open call jury Tuula Alajoki (Backlight Photo Festival, Finland), Miha Colner (Photon, Slovenia), Ângela Ferreira (Encontros da Imagem, Portugal) and Tina Schelhorn (Galerie Lichtblick, Germany), selected 22 series to be shown at the Backlight ´17 exhibitions under the wide theme of  Independence.

The selected artists for Backlight ´17 are:
Zaza Bertrand (Belgium)
Stefano Giogli (Italy)
Zuzana Halanova & Daniel Laurinc (Slovakia)
Sonja Hamad (Germany)
Juha Arvid Helminen (Finland)
Jaakko Kahilaniemi (Finland)
Nina Korhonen (Finland)
Mariya Kozhanova (Russia)
Daesung Lee (South Korea)
Hanna Lenz (Germany)
Carl Sebastian Lindberg (Finland)
Julien Lombardi (France)
Tito Mouraz (Portugal)
Sami Parkkinen (Finland)
Riina Rinne (Finland)
Delphine Schacher (Switzerland)
Michal Siarek (Poland)
Miriam Stanke (Germany)
Juha Suonpää (Finland)
Bénédicte Vanderreydt (Belgium)
Borko Vukosav (Croatia)
Marta Zgierska (Poland)

www.backlight.fi