Numerous internationally acknowledged artists, who were once graduates of or taught at the Aalto University School of Art and Design (formerly the University of Art and Design Helsinki), have over years drawn together to form the group of artists celebrated as the “Helsinki School”. With the upcoming show Helsinki School the Christophe Guye Galerie is proud to present, for the first time in Switzerland, the powerful, individual work of eleven of its members. More than a group of artists from a specific locality, this “group” represents an approach that has grown out of a teaching process at Aalto University, where the emphasis focuses on critique, cooperation and exchange of ideas, and where theory meets reality. The concept of the “Helsinki School” is not defined specifically by discipline, nationality or style, but rather, it represents an approach, a way of thinking that has evolved out of a process of this teaching. Including both photography and video artists, photography, the cornerstone on which the “Helsinki School” was built, remains the quintessential tool each of these artists employ creating his or her own photographic process and using the medium as a conceptual means.
