This comment voiced by Tapani Raittila at an art exhibition is typical of him: sarcastic, to the point, true. This is what art is all about – subtle differences that cannot be rendered as speech without a certain residuality. Why is the line of one draughtsman unspeakably beautiful, while another draughtsman’s line is not? What is beauty in general? How can a tiny drawing or watercolour be more important, more arresting or greater than a large painting? A fine work of art makes us recognize, have insight and experience things – but how and what?
There are big questions. And the best answers are the finest works of art, like those made by Tapani Raittila. The present exhibition at Galerie Anhava presents works by Tapani Raittila from seven decades: from his expressive watercolours and drawings of the 1940s and 1950s to his later, extremely precise, reduced and polished expression that has become broader and less restricted in recent years. Regardless of period and the particular ‘ism’ to which Raittila’s respective means of expression were related, his works are always marked by kind of ease of breathing, air, light and the fact that he says what says and hardly anything else. Raittila’s works usually proceed from an observation, its recording in memory, and as the work progresses they emerge to become something universal, valuable and abiding.
Tapani Raittila is also the most amusing grey eminence of the visual arts in Finland. He has taught many important contemporary artists. He serves as an expert in the visual arts for many important art collections and foundations. He has met and come to know the powers that be and fools alike, and he remembers everything. He is an unrivalled connoisseur of the cultural history of 20th-century visual art.
A catalogue with an article by Otso Kantokorpi will be published in connection with the exhibition.
