Sculptor Markus Kåhre wins 2007 Ars Fennica prize

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The coveted Finnish art award, the Ars Fennica prize for 2007, was awarded to sculptor Markus Kåhre (born 1969) on Tuesday.
      Kåhre gets EUR 34,000 in prize money, as well as a private exhibition to be held next summer in the Hämeenlinna Art Museum.
      Kåhre was chosen from among four Finnish candidates by Glenn Scott Wright, co-director of the Victoria Miro Gallery in London. The other candidates were photographer Elina Brotherus and painters Elina Merenmies and Anna Tuori.
      Works of all of the Ars Fennica candidates are on display at the Ars Fennica 2007 exhibition, which will be open at the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki until later this month.
      Kåhre was also the favourite in a poll of of visitors to Kiasma; all four candidates got many votes in the unofficial competition.
     
Glenn Scott Wright felt that the whole exhibition is an excellent one, and that each of those whose work was on display there was "already a winner".
      However, the prize went to Kåhre because his work raised "genuine wonder" in the judge, which he felt was a "rare achievement as such".
      "An exhibition with three magnificent artists has been important. Any one of them would have been entitled to the prize", Kåhre said.
      On his own work, Kåhre says that his career is not an end in itself for him. "I am simply concentrated on my works. Their starting point is in ideas."
     
The ideas are so strong that he remembers every situation in which he got an inspiration for a work of his.
      "There are two levels in my works. The first is easy to see - it brings forth an experience. The other side is more difficult."
      He is pleased that Glenn Scott Wright was able to understand it.
      "I try to question the perception of what art is."
      "It is an important philosophical question for me. I am interested in language - sculpture is also a language. This is also a reaction to the world of art. There are so many languages in visual art. Not everything can be defined in words."
     
The Ars Fennica 2007 exhibition is open at the Kiasma Museum in Helsinki until January 21st. Markus Kåhre will present his works on Wednesday, January 17th at 6:00 PM. Elina Brotherus will present her works on Wednesday, January 10th at 6:00 PM.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Ars Fennica 2007

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