The exhibition explores connections between physical sculptures, photographs and texts. The works feature warped dimensions, illogicality, vacuums, holes, distortions and weightlessness. Kumpulainen approaches spaces and objects experimentally through the construction of images. Various structural components can be discovered in the pieces; objects found on the street, words collected from books and newspapers, archived photographs and analogue photographic papers.
In the exhibition, I unravel the two-dimensional spaces in photographs into three-dimensional photographic sculptures and explore statuesque elements created in the photographic spaces. I am interested in how the perception and existence of a physical object in a space is transformed when presented alongside photographs.
In the photographed sculptures, the object and the word, detached from their original function and context, are brought to the focal point. As a result, the connection between the image and the word forms a dialogue between the two points of origin. The name of the exhibition, Eye and Idea, refers to the discovery of associations hidden from everyday perception through viewing and thinking.
In his previous series (Out of Sight 2015–2018), Kumpulainen edited and cut some of his family’s archived photographs and images he discovered. He used the series to process his volatile relationship with his past. The process formed the basis of the photographic book Out of Sight, released by the German publishing house Hatje Cantz in 2017. Kumpulainen’s works have been presented in solo and group exhibitions in Finland and abroad since 2014.
