Karl TUIKKANEN

Profile

Born 1973 lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden
2004 Post graduate course - "Made in China", Royal Institute Of Arts Architecture
1998-2003 MFA, Royal Institute Of Arts Stockholm
2008 1 year working grant, Commite for arts and grants
2007 Project grant: "A long excuse for the making of a sculpture", Commite for arts and grants
2006 1 year Assistant for Henrik Plenge Jakobsen, Commite for arts and grants
2010 VOLTANY solo project, Nordin Gallery
2009 Standard Model, collaboration with David Brazier, Nordin Gallery, Stockholm
2008 The New Large, Nordin Gallery, Stockholm

About works / performance

The project 'The New Large' reflects my work process fairly well. The project started with my interest in status, status anxiety and value. To get started with this I bought a second-hand luxury car. I wanted to investigate class, economic structures and status by using this car which once was a true status symbol.
How could a car work as a catalyst for different processes regarding social and economic structures in society? I began by examining all of the cars owners and contacted them for possible interviews. I also contacted the factory that had produced the car and the car dealer who initially had placed the order. Then I staged a backward journey from poor to rich, all the way back to the factory were the car once was manufactured. Along the way, I interviewed all former owners and representatives of the factory that made the car. After a sponsored renovation of the car, I decided to return to the original ideas about status, status anxiety and value. I delicately placed the completely renovated car in a recycling plant to separate the metal from all the other materials of the car, to withdraw the actual value of a car, the metals. After doing this, I had metal worth 85 GBP. This metal was brought back into an industrial production line that involved 3-D modeling, NCC-production methods and casting foundries. The metal of the car was then redesigned to its original symbolic sign-value, a solid, 700 kg heavy ejaculating penis. Finally, the sculpture was a painted in the same color as the original car, "Black Diamond 181".