4,7

About the exhibition

Arja Kärkkäinen’s exhibition at Malmitalo is the first of two 4,7 exhibitions. The works were created during the years 2022–2024 and are part of a wider artistic research and body of works dealing with addiction. The theme of the exhibition is the addict’s relationship with the coveted. The materials of the works are bronze, glass and concrete. The juxtaposition of fragile material and tools of destruction refers to the works’ theme of emotional fragility. The name of the exhibition 4,7 refers to the percentage of alcohol by volume of a medium beer and alcohol as one of the main themes of the exhibition. Through it, the artist has studied the nature of addiction: its effect on communication between loved ones and inner conflicts.
What is it like to live close to an addict, and on the other hand, how does the addiction show up in the addict’s own inner life? The concrete boxes use black humor to describe the brutality, shame and the resulting culture of silence related to the difficulty of quitting. Above all, the works of the 4,7 series take a stand on the current debate about the simultaneous loosening of alcohol regulations and the cutting of funding for foundations that offer low-threshold help. The second exhibition of the series in 2025 includes a video installation that continues the theme, depicting a game of hiding the bottle. The bronze sculpture Depender will be installed in the Nurmijärvi cemetery on the gravestone of the artist’s father and the model of the work in the spring of 2025.

Arja Kärkkäinen (b.1986) works multi-materially with the means of sculpture and video art. Kärkkäinen has graduated with a master’s degree in visual arts and a specialisation programme in public art from the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki, and as a designer from Lahti University of Applied Sciences.