Please, find the annual report of FRAME Finnish Fund for Art Exchange here.

Vanessa Quang Gallery presents Markus Henttonen’s solo exhibition Night Time Stories from 5 November to 3 December 2011. Henttonen has photographed the Night Time Stories series since 2007. At the Vanessa Quang Gallery in Paris are on show recent photographs from the series.

Most of the photographs are from Berlin, Barcelona, Sao Paulo, New York and Rio de Janeiro, and some from the Henttonen’s hometown Lahti. Night Time Stories won the second prize in the International Festival of Photography in Kalingrad, Russia in 2009. The photo series is still under progress.

“The artist’s main interest lies in the relation between the people and their urban living environment: how different spaces that are ruled and dominated by certain expectations and social codes effect behavior and self-expression, how people move around in different environments or how they escape and seek relief in the hectic rhythm of the city life.” write Kasia Dobrzaska, International Fotofestival Lodz, Poland, and Heli Mäenpää, Viewmasters of Helsinki.

The exhibition is supported by FRAME.

Night Time Stories
5 November - 3 December 2011
Galerie Vanessa Quang
5 bis rue de Beauce
Paris, France

www.galerie-quang.com
www.markushenttonen.com

Jaakko Mattila's works are showcased at the James Hockey and Foyer Galleries, UCA Farnham, in Surrey until 17 December. Mattila has graduated from the UCA, University for the Creative Arts, in 2001 and has received both national and international acclaim. Lowest Common Denominator focuses on expressing the universal in art. The name of the exhibition refers to the artist's urge to simplify painting to the bare minimum.

Curator Christine Kapteijn finds Mattila's works impressive, intriguing and moving. "In Jaakko's work the Finnish light is distilled and stripped to its bare essentials. I became aware of Jaakko's unique contribution to a deeply abstract and mystical strand of art found in all corners of the globe."

Jaakko Mattila works with a diverse range of media: gloss, oil, watercolour, paint and installation. The format and process are essential to his artistic expression. As Mattila says: "Most of the ideas come from the media themselves; it's a natural process, they choose themselves..."

FRAME has supported the exhibition.

Jaakko Mattila: Lowest Common Denominator
7 October - 17 December 2011
James Hockey & Foyer Galleries
UCA Farnham, Falkner Road
Farnham, Surrey GU9
United Kingdom

www.ucreative.ac.uk
www.jaakkomattila.fi

Sasha Huber and Petri Saarikko have been selected to the 2^nd Ghetto Biennale 2011 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Huber and Saarikko pose intriguing questions about messages: how do we send a message and who is there to receive it?

The Drawings & Messages in a Bottle maps out living and forgotten urban tales using drawings and handwritten messages. The final work will be presented as a large mural at the Biennale. Huber and Saarikko will also organize workshops, where the participants tell stories about their everyday lives by drawing.

The Biennale will run from the end of November to the middle of December. Artists are invited to spend one to three weeks in Haiti before presenting their work in the neighborhood to an audience of local people, Port-au-Prince neighborhood communities, arts collectives and arts organizations. The Biennale will be co-curated by Andre Eugene, Jean Herard and Leah Gordon.

FRAME has supported the participation of the artists in the Biennale.

The 2^nd Ghetto Biennale
November - December 2011
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
www.yoonsoo.com/ghetto/

Drawing by Sasha Huber's Haitian grandfather, artist Geo Remponeau from 1955

FRAME, the Finnish Fund for Art Exchange, will cease operations at the end of this year, 31 December 2011. Due to the holiday season, the office is open until 21 December 2011. Unfortunately, the office is not able to receive new grant applications.

FRAME and the Finnish Fine Arts Academy Foundation thank the artists and other partners for the co-operation.

The new foundation

The Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture has decided to allocate economic support to the new FRAME foundation, which will strengthen and promote Finnish visual art, and function as an information center. The FRAME foundation will be located at the same premises as the current office, but the organization will have new administration and hire new staff.

The new foundation will gradually start its operations in January 2012, which will unfortunately affect the efficiency of the organization. Thank you for your understanding during the period of transition.

For more information and other inquiries, please contact from 2 January 2012 onwards: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or tel. +358 40 507 0809.

The Bonnafont Gallery presents Anni Löppönen’s exhibition “It Looks Like Snow” 10-27 November. The book “It Looks Like Snow” will be released at the same time.

"Anni Löppönen’s photographs achieve an intimacy in social spaces, creating a tension between wondering if the scenes have been staged, found or lived. Slowly the notion that she is working in lived and either known or much loved spaces becomes clear, and then her very personal narrative insinuates itself as a clarion voice of an original impression that we have all lived but in which she has found a particularly lyrical voice."

The exhibition is supported by FRAME.

It Looks Like Snow
10-27 November 2011
946a Greenwich Street
San Francisco

Anu Pennanen, based in Berlin, participates in the Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival with her work La ruine du regard (The Ruins of the Gaze, 2010). The film focuses on the historic Les Halles, "the belly of Paris", and on the protagonists idle wandering around the enormous metro station and shopping centre as the masses of people hurry by.

The annual festival, presenting over 200 international documentary, experimental and art films, will be held November 8-13.

FRAME has supported the participation of the artist in the festival.

Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival
November 8-13, 2011
Kassel, Germany
http://www.filmladen.de/dokfest

FRAMEn  yhteistyössä TAIVEXin ja CIMOn kanssa järjestämä seminaari, New Rules of Art Policy and Other Fantasies 12.-13.10., keräsi ilahduttavan paljon yleisöä. Seminaariin osallistui kaiken kaikkiaan yli sata henkilöä. Osallistujia oli laajalti eri taide- ja kulttuurialan instituutioista. Yleisössä oli myös opiskelijoita ja taiteilijoita. Puheenvuoroissa toistui huomio ja huoli globaalista taloudesta johtuvien vaatimuksien lisääntymisestä ja taidealan töiden muuttumisesta hallinnon lisääntyessä.

Noel Kelly ilmaisi huolensa taiteilijoiden tilanteen kurjistumisesta ja Paco Barragán väitti biennaalien muuttuneen taidemarkkinoiksi ja turistivirtoja houkutteleviksi spektaakkeleiksi. Antti Majava peräänkuulutti taiteilijoiden mukaan ottamista kulttuuripolitiikan päätöksiin ja yleensäkin taiteilijoiden mielipiteiden huomioimista.

Seminaarissa keskusteltiin myös vallasta: kenellä valta on ja miten se vaikuttaa? Max Ryynänen totesi puheenvuorossaan, että meillä kaikilla on edes vähän valtaa, toisilla enemmän kuin toisilla, ja meidän pitäisi käyttää sitä. Jokaisen tulisi säilyttää edes jonkinlainen itsemääräämisoikeus ja olla tekemättä mitään, mihin pakotetaan.

Sakarias Sokka vaati kulttuurista demokratiaa, kaikille oikeutta ja mahdollisuutta kulttuuriseen osallistumiseen. Anna-Kaisa Rastenberger käytti puheenvuoronsa instituutioiden puolustamiseen. Hänen mielestään täytyy muistaa, että instituutio on yhtä kuin ihmiset. Lisäksi Andrew Hetherington esitteli uuden tavan hankkia taiteelle ja erilaisille projekteille rahoitusta internetissä tapahtuvan varainkeruun kautta.

Kaiken kaikkiaan lienee totta, kuten GILFER ilmaisi: LESS TALK, MORE LISTENING AND MORE ACTION!

Lämmin kiitos kaikille osallistujille, puhujille ja kommentaattoreille!

Lisätietoja:
projektikoordinaattori Maria Laitinen
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

FRAME welcomes artists, curators, researchers and other professionals in the visual arts to meet curator Boshko Boskovic from New York. Boskovic will give a talk at FRAME on Thursday 20 October at 3 pm. After the talk (approx. 45 minutes), the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions, discuss, comment and, in turn, tell about interesting current Finnish projects in the arts.

The International Print Center New York displays Finnish graphic art this autumn. Entitled Silent Watch, the exhibition will feature Outi Heiskanen, IC-98, Eeva-Liisa Isomaa, Päivikki Kallio, Juho Karjalainen, Maria Kausalainen, Markus Lampinen, Emma Lappalainen, Pauli Parkkinen and Annu Vertanen.

Silent Watch surveys the contemporary scene in the Finnish printmaking. The exhibition was created through the collaboration of IPCNY and Finland-based curators. The curator team headed by Juliette Kennedy included Leena Ahtola-Moorehouse and Päivi Talasmaa.

"As with many surveys, the viewer looking for unification will rather have to settle for an irrevocably diverse collection of works – one finds here a very wide range of intentions, methods, culture and background in a group of eleven artists ranging from senior, very established figures, to artists in mid-career, to student prodigies.", describe the curators.

FRAME Finnish fund for Art Exchange has supported the participation of the artists in the exhibition.

Silent Watch: Contemporary Prints from Finland
15 September - 27 October 2011
International Print Centre New York
508 West 26th street, Rm 5A
New York 
www.ipcny.org