Conceptually organized around the construction of image, language, narrative, and space, Eija-Liisa Ahtila
 | Portrait of Eija-Liisa Ahtila © Jan Ahlstedt. | |
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Marian Goodman Gallery is pleased to continue our artist-centric newsletter IN FOCUS, where we take the time to delve deeply into one artist on the MGG roster at a time. Aiming to show a fuller picture of the breadth of our artists' careers, we will feature our favorite stories, podcasts, interviews, artists’ writings, and videos from the archive, as well as new and upcoming projects.
Conceptually organized around the construction of image, language, narrative, and space, Eija-Liisa Ahtila (b. 1959, Hämeenlinna, Finland) has long been considered a master of the cinematic installation form. Using the visual language of cinema, Ahtila presents large-scale installations with multiple channel projections on multiple screen constructions. These viewing conditions, with their simultaneously charged vantage points, break the tradition of cinematic perspective and construct an experience of several co-existing times and spaces for being. In her recent work, Ahtila has shifted her attention to more profound and basic artistic inquiries, experimenting with conceptions of theatricality and humor, alongside her greater guiding eco-cinematic question: how and with what kind of technology, drama and expressive devices can we build the image of our world in this present moment of ecological crisis?
Today, follow along as we explore the mind and eye of Eija-Liisa Ahtila. ↓
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WE ARE LISTENING TO...
Eija-Liisa Ahtila in conversation with critic Tyler Green, as a part of his The Modern Art Notes podcast. Surrounding Ahtila's 2015 exhibition Ecologies of Drama at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York (the artist's first United States career survey), Green investigates Ahtila's "clever critiques of contemporary culture."
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WE ARE WATCHING...
Hayward Gallery's short-form interview with Ahtila called How Do You Make a Portrait of a Tree? , focusing on Ahtila's 2011 film Horizontal – Vaakasuora, which is a part of their 2020 exhibition Among the Trees. Ahtila explains the inspiration behind the work as well as the double-entendre that unites the installation.
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WE ARE READING...
BOMB Magazine's 2012 interview between writer Cary Wolfe and Ahtila. Through the lens of several film works (including The House, 2002 and Where is Where?, 2008), Ahtila and Wolfe grapple with the question of the animal and human - of different worlds and living creatures existing in synchronicity.
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