One for the Road: Elena Näsänen's Round

Chris Gordon

In a world in which attempts to impose meaning and logic are often futile, the extremes of calamity and bliss can be equally bewildering. This is true of illness, heartbreak and just about all the little things that impede our daily progress through life. But it is just as true of all the small joys that appear out of the blue.

Enveloped by this haze of uncertainty, where we nonetheless aspire to complete mastery of our environment, opportunities for disappointment, confusion and frustration are ever-present. How we deal with the pressure to engage says a lot about who we really are.

Focusing too closely on the negative can seem a bit like asking for trouble–tempting the gods to retribution. At the very least it seems unwise when the universe has such vast reserves of indifference on hand.

But Elena Näsänen is anything but superstitious. And while the stakes are indeed high, the potential rewards of illuminating the darker corners of existence in a precise and succinct manner far outweigh any negative consequences. As a result, the artist has succeeded in crafting an extremely satisfying and ambiguous take on the matter with Round, offering at leasrt a modicum of consolation, if not hope.

It is tempting to read the piece as a simple morality tale about the perils of alcoholism or as a political fable. But that just might be missing the point. There is too much here we don’t know and since we are in an art galley and not in the cinema, different rules apply.

After all, the protagonists are not down-and-outs scrounging for their next drink but rather smartly dressed businesspeople wearing expensive sunglasses. They don’t seem to be any more or less desperate than anyone else but rather simply dropping into a bar for a bit of refreshment. Entirely alone, they are quite literally minding their own business and could just as easily be sitting at home. They do not develop as characters but remain ciphers –it is not who they are that matters, but what happens to them.

Drinking a cup of strong wine to the dregs and getting drunk are sometimes presented as a symbol of God's judgment and wrath. And how the drink affects the dual protagonists, like a bolt of lightening from the sky, is startling, if not altogether unexpected. But keeping things on a more terrestrial level, Näsänen shows that whether we know it or not, we are equally prone before certain influences.

With a deceptively simple premise, Näsänen conjures a poetic vision of human frailty, our indomitable spirit in the face of adversity and, in a neat bit of sleight of hand, a comment on the artistic process too. Perseverance may not always be rewarded but there is a certain amount of satisfaction to be had from the struggle. And while it can be seen as either incredibly masochistic or remarkably brave, because the outcome of any endeavor is always uncertain, Näsänen seems to come down firmly on the side of the latter.

The hermetic, binary and circular form she has constructed to explore these themes elevates the episode she depicts from a single, isolated incident to an operatic rendering of a continuous present that includes us all. While the elegant structure offers no hope of escape, neither is it fatalistic. It simply is. Näsänen mixes violence and innocence, and the characters she portrays in a state of survival can be taken as a metaphor for the human condition.

Näsänen’s works are often about a search of some kind and are just as frequently elliptical. Because they are not very descriptive, they leave a lot to the imagination and include the viewer in the construction of their meaning. With Round, her subjects could just as easily be suffering some sort of violence as they could be experiencing an epiphany. Destabilization comes in many forms. Are they drawn to return like moths to the flame out of some unavoidable compulsion or, on the contrary, have they discovered access to an expanded reality? Perhaps it is a bit of both.

With a point of view that is essentially etymological, the artist's investigations often convey both the transience of individual passions and the immutability of passion itself as a motivating force in human behavior. As someone who appreciates the ephemeral, Näsänen knows that everything will ultimately pass away. She also understands that this is exactly what makes it so beautiful. The intoxication may not last, but its presence sets things in motion and makes the world she has created go round and round.