Guided tour to the exhibition (Anna Rawlings)
God Out of a Washing Machine was Ilya Orlov's solo show at a Forum Box, Helsinki, in three parts:
I. Squares and Freaks of Nature in Time of Evil;
II. Stella Laura Andersson: The Missing Matriarch of Finnish Dada;
III. Metaphysical Washing Machine;
and an introductory work entitled Overthrone.
The exhibition press release stated:
"In Orlov’s new show, his trademark strategy of hacking traditional exhibition formats, toying with contemporary art clichés, and poeticising art administration jargon is pushed a little further. A solo exhibition looks like a group show of mutually incompatible artists; wall texts that normally explain the exhibits become exhibits themselves, to be explained by the works. Finally, the exhibition statement, instead of telling explicitly what it is all about, offers a piece of ‘international art English’ so convoluted that it makes one nostalgic about the clarity of e-flux announcements:
“Marrying Duchamp’s eroticist mechanics with forgotten baroque landscape painting; scrupulously recreating Malevich’s craquelures (only for the sake of switching on gravity in his weightless utopia); putting the artist’s own witticisms into the mouths of contemporary philosophers like Timothy Morton and Donna Haraway; planting inverted perspective of Byzantine icons into constructivist axonometry; and finally, turning Sol Lewitt’s cube into a ‘metaphysical washing machine’, the exhibition invites the viewer to look at culture and art itself through a psychedelic conceptualist kaleidoscope of sorts.”
Overthrone

Fake antique chair, mannequin hand. Detail.
Part I. Squares and Freaks of Nature in Time of Evil

Exhibition view
Part II. Stella Laura Andersson: The Missing Matriarch of Finnish Dada

Stormface. 2023. Oil on canvas, plastic frame, suit jacket, shirt
Part III. Metaphysical Washing Machine

Acrylic and calcium silicate on chipboard and wood. Hight: 270 cm
The exhibition was made with the participation of Eero Karjalainen, Mark Maher, and Anna Rawlings.
Consultants: Juha-Heikki Tihinen, Leonor Ruiz Dubrovin, Matthew Cowan, Andrey Ustinov, Semyon Motolyanets, Sezgin Boynik, and Jyrki Siukonen.
Acknowledgements: Irina Ptakhova, Jan Kaila, Mika Elo, Kaisu Koivisto, Pasha and Sasha Rotts, Frank Brümmel, Elisa Vuori, Lars Federley, Seppo Sinkkonen, Anna Akins, Kamilla Billiers, Avreno Heikka.
Photographs: Anna Autio, Mark Maher, Anna Rawlings.
The exhibition was supported by Taike, The Alfred Kordelin Foundation, and The Finnish Cultural Foundation.


