Publications 2001

Social Hackers

Edited by Cristina Ricupero and Paula Toppila

Social Hackers started as a series of three exhibitions at the artist-run gallery MUU in Helsinki. Each exhibition project involved a confrontation or collaboration between an artist from the Nordic region and one from continental Europe. The projects presented in this catalogue were shown simultaneously at two different venues in Geneva in September 2001. All of these exhibitions deal with various phenomena in the field of contemporary art, commenting on and analysing social and political issues.

The works strongly relate to the communication system and power structures in society, problematising the system and its message. The artists presented in Social Hackers use everyday familiar codes: all-around advertisement, information flow, television, newspapers and magazines. However, they use these signs innovatively, subverting their original message and context, making fun of these through literal interpretations of the messages and bringing art into the very focus of different contexts: consumerism, commercialism and manipulation.

The participating artists: Jeremy Deller/Karl Holmqvist, Matthieu Laurette/Gunilla Klingberg, Jarno Jokinen & Katja Valanne/Swetlana Heger, Plamen Dejanov, Tuomo Tammenpää/Claude Closky and KLAT, a local group of young artists.

Co-published by: NIFCA and FRAME - Finnish Fund for Art Exhange

ISBN 952-5065-13-8
Publication year: 2001