JANI LEINONEN
Jani Leinonen (1978) is a Finnish artist living and working in Helsinki. He works conceptually in various mediums ranging from painting to video, over sculptures and grand installations, glass and mosaics, and also performative acts.
Leinonen is known for his provocative, yet playful works criticizing capitalism and our self-centered consumerist society of today. In his practice, he often pinpoints timely issues and dares the viewer to think outside of one’s comfort zone by taking the most saturated aspects of our modern world and re-presenting them in constantly thought-provoking ways. Inspired by popular culture, corporate brands, and marketing strategies, Leinonen shamelessly adapts the same tactics, turning his objects into articles of ridicule, clichéing our agreed marketing society and economical everyday. What is displayed, though, are not goods but an artistic allegorization that appropriates these marketing strategies only to unhinge their underlying assumptions about value and appropriateness.
Leinonen graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki in 2002 and his works have been exhibited widely, i.e. at the Nordic Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennial. He has had several solo exhibitions and group shows. He is represented in museums and in public and private collections.