PAST EXHIBITION

Esko Mannikko: Cocktails

September 7, 2006—October 21, 2006

Reception for the artist: Thursday September 7, 2006, 6-8 pm

The exhibition is composed of work drawn from three recent series entitled Southern Comfort, Flora and Fauna and Harmony Sisters. The images, most of which were taken in Männikkös native Finland, are intermixed in an installation created by the artist to suggest a narrative about life in a rural setting. As he describes it, My installation is like a village, composed of people, animals, buildings, still lives all together. Männikkö places his photographs in old found frames carefully selected to complement the details or subjects of his images. He also uses the rough thrift store quality of the frames to serve as an ironic reference to his backwoods origins.

Recognized as Young Artist of the Year in Finland in 1995, Männikkö first gained international prominence with his portraits of Finnish bachelors in the Far North who epitomized a kind of loneliness and self-reliance. In 1996, he was awarded an ArtPace international artist residency in San Antonio, Texas, where he photographed the residents of two small Mexican American communities on the border of South Texas. An ongoing series titled Organized Freedom focuses on abandoned houses discovered on walks throughout remote parts of Finland. With twenty-five percent of the country unemployed, the owners of the houses have, in the words of the artist, locked the door and walked away leaving their rural life for the city.

Works by Männikkö have been acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Foundation Cartier, the Moderna Museet and the Malmo Art Museum, among others. In April Männikkö was awarded the first Ordonez-Falcon International Photography Award and he is currently the subject of a 100-piece retrospective at the Kursaal Art Museum, San Sebastian Spain.

For visuals please contact Tracey Norman, tnorman@yanceyrichardson.com, ph: 646 230 9610

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