A Building Is Not a Building
Ola Kolehmainen’s photographs are extraordinarily minimal and almost exclusively depict sections of building façades. They are organized according to strict principles of order, showing rows of repetitive basic patterns or symmetrical constructs. The Minimalist austerity of these images is occasionally broken by elements that circumvent this formalism: trees or houses mirrored in the façades. Kolehmainen’s works are produced using the Diasec process, which means that the environment is reflected in the surface of the photos as well as in the images themselves—a calculated component of his work.
This volume presents many new, previously unpublished photographs, including two monumental five- and eight-part works by the artist. Ola Kohlemainen (*1964 inHelsinki) is a noted member of the Helsinki School, and he primarily regards his works not as photographs of specific objects, but as objets d’art.
Pages: 132, 88 color illustrations
Size: 33.7 x 28.6 cm( 13.25 x 11.25 ), Hardcover
Publisher: Hatje Cantz Verlag
Publication date: 2009
Text by David Elliott, Alistair Hicks, Arja Miller, Timothy Persons
Price: 82 CHF
Fraction Abstraction Reaction
Ola Kolehmainen one of the most prominent artists of the “Helsinki School,” graduated in 1999 from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki (TaiK). His work centers on the exploration of contemporary architecture. Concentrating on the basic structure of architectural façades and interiors, and the strict geometrical order of serial forms, Kolehmainen creates nearly abstract images whose aesthetics are rooted in Minimalism. Disturbing details, called “visual noise” by the photographer, are thereby eliminated. Yet there always appear to be elements that undermine the concept of a clear, orderly structure, such as tree branches covering a section of a façade or mirrored façades reflecting a fragmented view of the world outside.
This book is a collection of Kolehmainen’s previously unpublished works, which were created over the past two years.
Pages: 128, 75 color illustrations
Size: Hardcover, 31.8 x 28 cm ( 12.5 x 11 in. )
Publisher: Hatje Cantz Verlag
Publication date: 2007
Price: 70 CHF
Search for Mastery
Kolehmainen's photography is concerned exclusively with architecture. His work can be divided
into two distinct groups: architectural facades and interiors. The subjects of his photographs
are contemporary buildings in Europe, the prominent and prestigious as well as the anonymous: ministries, office buildings, museums, apartment complexes, shopping arcades, and subway stations.
Kolehmainen does not work in the typical manner of a professional photographer documenting architecture. He is not concerned with an adequate visual documentation of an edifice, nor with
a kind of photography in which the basic layout and blueprints of buildings can be read.
Kolehmainen's photographs are about geometric structure. He pays attention to staircases,
glass-encased steel constructions, serial cement modules, aligned grid-patterns on the ceilings
of buildings, in short, the patterns and rhythmic series of the buildings. He exploits the existing aesthetic of the architecture and brings into sharper focus the abstract qualities of its formal aspects, which are often closely related to advanced technologies.
Published for the occasion of the exhibition "Search for Mastery"
Pages: 130, with color illustrations, in paper cover
Published by: Stefanie Hereaus, Bielefelder Kunstverein, Danielle Igniti
Publication date: 2004
Text by: Ferdinand Prozman, Klaus Honnef, Ola Kolehmainen
Price: 80 CHF