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Riiko Sakkinen: artist and sinophile

Riiko Sakkinen: artist and sinophile

Riiko Sakkinen: artist and sinophile

Riiko Sakkinen is a Finnish artist living in Spain. China has often been a topic in his political art, which has been censored both in the East and West.

Riiko Sakkinen was born in Helsinki in 1976. He graduated from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2002. Sakkinen lives in Cervera de los Montes in Spain with his Spanish wife and their two children.

Riiko Sakkinen’s comic-like drawings, paintings and handwritten favorite lists have sparked interest internationally. He has held exhibitions in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in the Camden Arts Centre in London and in the Beijing 798 Biennale, among many other places.

Sakkinen has spent a lot of time in China. “I went to China for the first time in 2006 when there was a Finnish art exhibition in Hong Kong.” During that trip he also visited his friend in Shenzhen. “Shenzhen felt like another planet. I thought right away that I simply need to return to China someday. I got that chance when my Spanish friend Judas Arrieta invited me to his artist residence in Beijing.”

Always a dissident

Much of Riiko Sakkinen’s art concerns China. Sakkinen’s art pieces include, for example, lists of his favorite Chinese parties and words that Chinese search engines censor.

“The correct political opinion in Western countries is to oppose the Chinese government and the Communist Party of China in all possible ways. I try to view the Chinese government positively since I am always a dissident. I think an artist’s responsibility is to think differently than most people. Nevertheless, I try to make art that is neutral and objective.”

Sakkinen has said that he is a communist. “I say I am a communist because I live in capitalism. If I lived in communism, I would probably say I am a capitalist. In my opinion artists should question the prevailing political system. Still, my agenda as an artist is not to define the world but to make it visible.”

Turborealism from China

Riiko Sakkinen has established an art form called turborealism. The aspiration of turborealism is to show the world as it is. The theme of Sakkinen and Judas Arrieta’s Operation Golden Monkey exhibition last fall in Helsinki was China’s political, economic and cultural influence on the world. In the exhibition, Sakkinen and Arrieta wanted to show a China that was more diverse than the stereotypical image people usually have.

Sakkinen feels that the worst kind of stereotype about China is one that treats Chinese people as a group and not as individuals. “European people talk about Chinese art and Chinese artists without saying any names. When they talk about European art, they immediately mention the names of specific European artists.”

Western people tend to criticize China more than Western countries. “Western people often say that China is not a true communist country since its politics are not real communism. Nowadays the Labor Party is the biggest party in Spain also. It hasn’t done anything for Spanish workers but still nobody is saying it’s not a real labor party. People have a lot to say about Chinese politics. But when I ask them what they know about China, they answer that they don’t know anything. And they are even proud of it.”

Pictures from the Chinese point of view

There was a series of pictures called China for Dummies in the Operation Golden Monkey exhibition. The series consisted of thousands of photographs that Riiko Sakkinen and Judas Arrieta had taken, found or borrowed. “We named the series that way because we thought that after seeing it, someone who has never been to China would know what the country looks like in reality. Most of the pictures were originally taken by Chinese people, so the viewpoint of the series is Chinese.”

Sakkinen is also interested in prostitution as a phenomenon, and has dealt with it in his artwork. “Prostitution is related to many things, like feminism, the economy and the collision of cultures. It’s like a summary of everything that happens in the world.”

For example, Sakkinen found a Chinese porn site on the internet where prostitutes post their ads. “The photos in the ads interested me because they didn’t necessarily seem like ads for prostitution. The photos also told about Chinese ideals of beauty.”

Censorship in democracies

Riiko Sakkinen’s slogan Human rights damage our economy was censored in China a couple of years ago. However, his worst censorship case so far was in South Korea.

“I combined the most well-known Korean brands by writing We love Samsung and Kim Il-Sung in a wall painting. So, there was a political brand as well as a commercial brand in the same line. South Korean veterans arranged a demonstration against the wall painting and both the Korean intelligence agency and the police interrogated me. The wall painting was censored and I was told that I am not allowed to come to South Korea anymore.”

Sakkinen says that his artwork has been censored in Europe also. “Censorship in Western countries is usually self-censorship. The director or curator of a museum says that it is better to leave a controversial piece of art out of an exhibition so that the museum doesn’t get into trouble. So like in China, there is an authority telling you what to do. How does it differ from censorship in China?”

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