This year’s Ars Fennica Award was presented to the artist Mika Taanila at a ceremony at Amos Anderson Art Museum on 21.5.2015. The winner was chosen by the independent British curator and museum director in The Netherlands, Charles Esche.

This was the 22nd time the Ars Fennica has been presented. The Award is worth 40,000 euros. An exhibition of works by Mika Taanila will be shown at Hämeenlinna Art Museum 30.10.2015-6.3.2016.

Ars Fennica Foundation

Frame Visual Art Finland

Helsingin Sanomat article 21 May, 2015

Helsingin Sanomat article 22 May, 2015 

A single-channel video installation and a new text-based piece, both titled My Silence, are on show at balzer projects in Basel 27-31 May, 2015. The show is a collaboration between the gallery and Bildrausch Filmfest Basel.

link to gallery

balzer projects FB

Six short films by Mika Taanila will be screened with a Q&A session at Spazio Oberdan | Cineteca Milano (Viale Vittorio Veneto 2, Milano) on the 4th of June 2015 at 21:15h as part of I Boreali – Nordic Festival a Milano. The films presented are: Futuro – A New Stance For Tomorrow (1998), RoboCup99 (2000), Six Day Run (2013), A Physical Ring (2002), The Future Is Not What It Used To Be (2002), Optical Sound (2005), curated by Lorenza Pignatti. In the afternoon there will be a masterclass by Mika Taanila at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano (via Carlo Darwin 20, Milano).

link to event

link to I Boreali

link to program notes by Lorenza Pignatti

trailer ufficiale da RoboCup99

The fifth edition of Basel’s Bildrausch Filmfest will show an overview of Mika Taanila’s moving image projects on 27–31 May, 2015.  The festival hosts three different short film programs with Mika’s works at Stadtkino Basel, The Double by Anton Nikkilä & Mika Taanila also at Stadkino, live show SSEENNSSEESS with Circle at Reithalle Kaserne, accompanied by an artist talk, DJ set and an display of artefacts from the artist’s various music projects. Additionally, the video installation My Silence in on show at Balzer Projects, together with brand-new text-based work of the same title.

read program introduction (in German)

My Silence at Balzer Projects

Bildrausch catalogue texts pdf

Six Day Run trailer

RoboCup99 trailer

Mika Taanila’s  record Stimulus Progression will be presented on May 29, 2015 at Bildrausch Filmfestival Basel, with an artist performance. The 10″ vinyl EP consists of muzak field-recordings in public places around Helsinki.

Record label: Apparent-Extent (Cologne)

Produced and mastered by Anton Nikkilä

Record produced in cooperation with Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe

link to project at Apparent-Extent website

The exhibition The Powers That Be, on view at the Station Independent Projects in New York from July 17 to August 9, 2015, takes as its point of departure the knowledge of the body and the circulation of energy, more specifically the manifestations of physical energy. The thematic will be discussed through an ensemble of contemporary and avant-garde works of the past by Marcel Mariën, Erkki Pirtola, Mika Taanila and Danila Tkachenko. The exhibition is curated by Ilari Laamanen.

link to exhibition

link to film trailer

A rare screening of The Double – Russian Industrial Music and Low Tech Videos. It is a music video compilation made in 1993 by Anton Nikkilä and Mika Taanila. It draws together 11 film and video works made in the era of the first wave of Russian underground music videos – the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. It also features a documentary introduction shot in Moscow by the compilers in 1993. Subtitles in English. Duration 50 minutes. Followed by a concert of Modern Feelings (FIN/RUS).

link to Teatteri Union

link to The Double trailer on YouTube

The short film Thank You for The Music screens at 18:30 in Sorbus Gallery, Vaasankatu 15, Kallio, Helsinki as part of evening celebrating  Heta Bilaletdin’s Dollarihymni exhibition and the release of Anton Nikkilä’s New Adult Contemporary album.

link to gallery

Facebook link to event

The film Futuro – A New Stance for Tomorrow is part of the exhibition Lo que ha de venir ya ha llegado (“What It Is To Come Has Already Arrived “) at MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León in Spain from 24 January until 3 May, 2015.

Curators: Juan Antonio Álvarez Reyes, Alicia Murría, Mariano Navarro

link to exhibtion

watch trailer

“”What It Is To Come Has Already Arrived” is the title of the project that examines the circumstances of the present moment based on what we expect, hope for or intuit about the immediate future. The exhibition attempts to sketch possible channels of future progress which, though not necessarily opposed to the prevailing systems in contemporary societies, do present alternatives that herald the advent of a different civic status quo.

The show encompasses multiple disciplines, using videos, installations, paintings, drawings and photographs by twenty-odd international contemporary artists and collectives to reveal one of the potential faces of utopia in today’s world.” (MUSAC)