Eero Yli-Vakkuri
Eero Yli-Vakkuri (born February 3, 1981, in Helsinki, Finland) is a contemporary Finnish artist. His pluralistic practice spans a broad range of media including performance, video, happenings, and projects using sound&music.
Life and Work
After graduating from the Kallio High School of Performing Arts, Helsinki in 2000 Yli-Vakkuri begun carpentry studies in Lempäälä. The Carpentry studies proved to be unsatisfactory and he turned to Fine Art studies in The Tampere Polytechnic School of Art an Media in 2003. He is known of his patience requiering performances and public avents in which the position of the audience is undetermined.
Yli-Vakkuri cites Bruce Nauman, Pink Twins, and Roi Vaara, as major influences on his work.
Works and Projects
- 2500 km in Space! - Yli-Vakkuri is known best for a performance he performed in the summer of 2005. The performance lasted for 85 days, during which he walked back and forth on a four meter long podium in the center of Tampere. Daily performances lasted for five hours durind which he walked a day trip 30 km, he walked seven days a week. The progres of the walk was shown on a map of the planet Mars.
- ”21 hours – Speech Performance” – During this project Yli-Vakkuri talked non-stop on subjects he improvised for 21 hours. The performance took place in a museum in Tampere and exhibition quests could take part in the performance by commenting the work. “21 hours – Speech Performance” was split to six parts, the first show was for an hour and the last non-stop speech for six hours. The performance was also aired on a local radio station.
- ”The Grand Waterwar” together with fellow artist Pekka Ruuska and Paula Lehtonen, Yli-Vakkuri organised a waterwar happening open for all audiences. The war had two sides, black and red. The colors referred to the Finnish Civil War 1918. Over 150 persons gatherd to the avent, in the center of Tampere and 2500 liters of water was used in an hour.
External links
Contemporary Music Project
fi:Eero Yli-Vakkuri