The artist will be present at the gallery on Sunday, 23 February, from 2 pm to 4 pm.

“… I made myself available to analysis. I gave them to believe that I, the clouds, could be reduced to a typology.

It was hard work. I had to replace the shapeless caprice of my atmospheres with 4 basic cloud types. I had to edit the indecipherably fluid filigree of my language into a dry-as-dust classificatory system replete with Latin terminology. And beyond that, I had to be flirtatious. If you bring a concept or category close enough to the human mind to be very very attractive and then whisk it away so it stays out of reach, it becomes erotic. Flirting is not in my nature but who would be bothered doing science if it weren’t erotic.

The 4 basic cloud types, as defined by amateur nephologist Mr. Luke Howard in a lecture at Plough Court in London on 10th December 1802, are: cirrus, cumulus, stratus and nimbus. Cirrus, from Latin for “lock of hair,” means a tendril or fibrous shape; cumulus from the Latin for “heap” or “pile” means a heap or pile; stratus from the Latin for “layer” means a horizontal band; and nimbus, Latin “cloud”, is a rainy combination of the 3 previous types. It was, let me repeat, hard work to dash about the universe impersonating these 4 cloud formations, not to mention the ceaseless transitions between them with their seductive lacy gaps…”  

– Anne Carson, Wrong Norma (2024)

Lately, I have been particularly interested in portraiture as a form of dialogue. I suppose, as something inherently reciprocal and mirroring, that can potentially dissolve boundaries between self and other, but also, on the other hand, as a point of contact, where the very same boundaries can diverge, only to recede further apart. This multi-directional and fluctuating movement seems to interest me. My inquiries seem to be intrinsically tied to specific material questions, as well as to methodologies deeply rooted in the making of moving images.

How to destabilize a set of binaries so innate to portraiture? These ostensible divisions between subject and object, self and other, maker and subject, portraitist and sitter, or the gaze and its object. Can also the camera be approached dialogically? And how? So that it becomes a tool of exchange, that only heightens the unfixity of its subjects; allows images to be porous, elastic, uncontrolled, and thus, endlessly fluid. Could a camera, or lens based media in general, not freeze or capture? Or relinquish trying to find ”a soul”, ”a core”, ”an essence” or ”truth” about its subject, but rather acknowledge something else entirely, and not even function on the axis of empowerment/exploitation.

Even if I think my interest lies in the portrait in general, I find myself mostly looking at self-portraits made by other artists. I might be inclined to actually think all portraits are always, also self-portraits of sorts.

(Excerpt from The Uses of Not, an email conversation between Jani Ruscica and Taneli Viljanen 2023-ongoing)

Jani Ruscica’s exhibition is structured around two new bodies of work; a suite of videos titled Portrait of a Poet and a series of print works and window painting titled Autoritratti.

The exhibition has been supported by: Taike and AVEK

Thank you: Taneli Viljanen, Aleksandra Oilinki/Galerie Anhava, Sini Pelkki, Antti Ratalahti, Jaakko Hukkanen, Suomen Videoviestintä and Pro AV Saarikko.  

Jani Ruscica (b. 1978, Finland/Italy) lives and works in Helsinki. They work with moving and printed images, sculpture and performance. Central to the artist’s practice is the slippage and simultaneity of meaning animated by forms that move, stretch, shape-shift, and exceed the borders of time, space, and bodies. Ruscica was awarded the AVEK prize in 2010, the William Thuring main prize in 2018 and is currently nominated for the 2025 Ars Fennica prize.

Ruscica has studied sculpture at Chelsea College of Art & Design in London (BA 2002) and new media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki (MA 2007). Ruscica has held numerous solo exhibitions, most recently at Kunsthalle Helsinki (2022) and at 1646 Art Space in the Hague (2021). Their work has been included in numerous group exhibitions internationally; Kiran Nadar Museum, New Delhi (2023); 6. Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh (2023); HAM Helsinki Art Museum (2023); MMOMA, Moskow (2021); AGWA, Perth (2020); and 1. Riga biennale RIBOCA (2018). Ruscica’s works are held in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Saastamoinen foundation and Kiasma among others