Taidemaalariliitto

 

The exhibition Der Küchenbau by Iiris Kaarlehto is a spatial proposition consisting of sculptural elements and assemblages. The body of work engages with ideas of modern and postmodern interior architecture, personal and domestic spaces, as well as the processes, techniques, and fantasies associated with them. With found, collected, and modified objects, Kaarlehto approaches the memory and layers of meaning embedded in everyday materials and things.

Placing different elements within the same space creates intensities between the objects and attunes the viewer to the allure and eeriness of discarded aesthetics. In the exhibition’s title, Bau — a word that refers to a building or construction, but also, for instance, to a nest or a burrow — is combined with the kitchen (die Küche), the functional core of a home that defines it as a private space distinct from the public. Fixed kitchen furnishings, with their cabinets and countertops, are characteristic of modern habitation, at once standardized and personal, bearing the marks of everyday life. The kitchen assembled in the exhibition space, dismantled and removed from its original site, embodies the matter’s transformation from object into waste.

 

Iiris Kaarlehto (b. 1987) is a Helsinki-based artist, whose recent practice focuses on installations, assemblages, and text. She graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree from Uniarts Helsinki in 2019. Kaarlehto’s work has been shown, among others, at SIC (2023), HAM Gallery (2021), Outo olo art space (2021), and the Project Space of the Finnish Museum of Photography (2018) in Helsinki. Her works are included in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma and the Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art.

The artist’s work has been supported by Kone Foundation, Uusimaa Regional Fund of Finnish Cultural Foundation and Arts Promotion Centre Finland. Some of the works were also developed during a residency at HIAP in Suomenlinna.