Photo: Pirje Mykkanen
The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma has selected Klara Kristalova, Benjamin Orlow and Tori Wrånes to represent the Nordic Countries Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The exhibition will be curated by Kiasma’s Chief Curator, Anna Mustonen, and commissioned by Kiasma in collaboration with Moderna Museet, Sweden, and OCA – Office for Contemporary Art Norway.
Representing a dynamic and diverse approach to contemporary Nordic artistic practice, the exhibition brings together artists from different backgrounds and creative disciplines. Known for their distinctive approaches to sculpture, installation and performance, the artists share a common exploration of transformation, resilience and vulnerability, often blurring the boundaries between the real and the imagined. Their work will weave together Nordic mythologies with broader global contexts such as identity, cultural survival and gender equality to bring a compelling and transformative perspective to the Pavilion.
”Kristalova’s contribution centres on a large fallen tree. In Lust for Life, creatures inhabit the trunk, emerge from its surface, and cling to it. Positioned along the length of the tree, the figures are made from a range of materials—ceramic, bronze, wood, and other composites—their surfaces catching and holding light, set in delicate tension with the tree’s weight and roughness. Often associated with the domestic and the decorative, these materials carry a different register of labour and value. The creatures appear both sheltered by the tree and exposed upon it, held in a state of careful imbalance. Rather than functioning as symbols or narrative subjects, they register as conditions—watchfulness, endurance, quiet dependency—marking the tree not as a mere support, but as a shared ground they inhabit.
Kristalova’s chimeras draw on memory, imagination, art history, and a belief in the dignity of all living forms. While fairy tale remains omnipresent, psychology is central—reflecting on what it means to endure, to be carried by structures that are never neutral, and to coexist within environments that are simultaneously material, mythic, and internal. These figures do not resolve tension; they hold it, inhabiting provisional forms that support, carry, and quietly register pressure.”
/ Anna Mustonen
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