Jari Silomäki

Jari Silomäki | The Affectionate Kalpana – My Story of Class Mobility

Exhibition: 26 November 2022 – 25 February 2023

Venue: Persons Projects, Lindenstr. 34, 10969 Berlin

"The streets in my hometown had no names. Two streets in Bombay are named after me. There is an influential deity in India called Bhagavān or Bhagwan. I am called Mada Bhagwan. I have done what the gods could not. I have helped the poor and the despairing.”

– Dr. Kalpana Saroj

Persons Projects is proud to present Jari Silomäki’s new series The Affectionate Kalpana – My Story of Class Mobility which depicts the many different shades and outcomes of social class mobility. The selection of works presented in the exhibition consists of portraits, group pictures, and landscape photographs that the artist combines with text, written by the subjects in their native language, telling their life stories from their own perspective. Between objective documentation and subjective artistic perspective, this group of works introduces the viewer to the complexity of a global phenomenon that is still quite unknown to the western society. To further inform about this sociocultural matter, the series will be included in Silomäki’s latest monograph Jari Silomäki: Atlas of Emotions.

Jari Silomäki | We are the Revolution, after Joseph Beuys

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Joseph Beuys’ birthday, Persons Projects is proud to present the exhibition We are the Revolution, after Joseph Beuys by Jari Silomäki, based upon and inspired by the famous work of Beuys La Rivoluzione Siamo Noi from 1972.

Exhibition: 12 March – 24 April 2021
Venue: Persons Projects, Lindenstr. 35, 10969 Berlin

Silomäki has built his career around a documentary-like approach in how he creates his own personal narratives. He has developed a style in interacting with his subjects that enables him to twist and expand the space between fact and fiction in creating his own conceptual language, where his hand-writing becomes part of the photographs. Silomäki follows upon Beuys’ idea that society could transform itself through art and creativity, thus setting the groundwork for his experiments with social sculpture that reflected the Fluxus attitude that "everyone is an artist”. Silomäki states, "Beuys is walking with great confidence towards the camera, suggesting that we, the viewers, could form a revolution if we joined him. Beuys was a political artist who considered art as a currency that could be used to change society. I somewhat reversed Beuys’ idea by creating and following my alter ego as an individual who becomes the object of the inevitable forces of history rather than its master. Like a tourist, I traveled to historically significant cities throughout the world that have suffered from political tragedies. But my artistic intention and experience was far different than that of a tourist. I was there to walk as many steps as there were victims due to the major political atrocities that made these cities historically significant.”

Jari Silomäki | We are the Revolution, after Joseph Beuys

The Helsinki School – The Nature of Being

Exhibition: 27 June – 5 September 2020

Participating Artists: Elina Brotherus, Ulla Jokisalo, Janne Lehtinen, Ville Lenkkeri, Anni Leppälä, Sanna Kannisto, Sandra Kantanen, Eeva Karhu, Riitta Päiväläinen, Jyrki Parantainen, Jorma Puranen, Jari Silomäki, Santeri Tuori

Venue: Lindenstr. 34 – 35, 10969 Berlin

Persons Projects | Helsinki School is proud to present our group exhibition The Helsinki School – The Nature of Being. This show will take place in both of our spaces Lindenstr. 34 and 35, and will be accompanied with our latest publication from the Helsinki School series volume 6 by Hatje Cantz.

This exhibition focuses on how these selected artists from the Helsinki School use their internal compass to intrinsically measure and guide their perspective in interpreting the landscape they live in. Historically, Nordic culture abides by the power generated by the changing of the four seasons. Each of these natural time periods either by its wrath or grace, notches its mark upon its passing, leaving a reminder in its wake of how fragile our human presence is within it.

Jari Silomäki – Framing the World.

Exhibition: 3 November 2017 – 10 February 2018
Opening: 24 November 2017, 6 – 9 pm

Gallery Taik Persons is proud to present Jari Silomäki's solo exhibition Framing the World. An Essay on the Organization of Experience.

For this project, Silomäki collected more than two-hundred personal stories written on online platforms from all over the world, from people completely unknown to him. He translated a selection of these stories into a series of photographs that are now on display in the exhibition. Together, they form a collective narrative, in which the personas behind the aliases begin to unfold.