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ART MARINES FINLAND Juha Metso & Timo Mahonen In one of their works, the Art Marines are camouflaged and have become a part of Finnish nature. Does the field of photographic or visual art need its own terrorists, artists who with their heads held high travel in the undergrowth made up of both high and popular art, questioning the existence of this superficial dividing line? Of the above mentioned picture, Anders Barnevik wrote: “This ugric pair who smell of tar and sweat are truly the avant garde of granite-laden Fenno-Karelian art. A two-man SWAT-team on an absurd trip somewhere between the noble and the common.” These hit-happy art commandos don’t fret or make a fuss. The pair point their cameras in an environment in which it is easy to detect classic Finnish attributes. The artists rise from under thick fir trees in the deep forest to attack cultural talebans, undecisive politicians and apathetic civil servant zombies. Art is something quite different than the clicking of champagne glasses in the cabinets of the privileged. The Art Marines Finland were established in Karhula, a part of Kotka, in 1997. The duo consists of photographer Juha Metso, b. 1965, and painter-visual artist Timo Mahonen, b. 1960. The pair work with military precision in their art projects, and are able to operate everywhere in the world on short notice. Every piece or picture requires long-time planning with scripting, sketching and the working out of strategies regarding execution. The self-irony, dry sarcasm and comical subjects are the results of an intended laidbackness. The humour of these two partisans is a healthy nutrition for the soul of both the layman and the art afocinado, as well as for the semiotically minded. The pictures, which effortlessly blend with an European art tradition, pamper the careful observer with their stories and multiple meanings. |