Kalervo Palsa
Encyclopedia
Hugo Kalervo Palsa or Kalle was a Finnish
artist in a style that has been described as fantastic realism
.
Long neglected, Kalervo Palsa has enjoyed a revival of sorts since the publication of critical works, a biography and two major retrospectives in Helsinki
and Pori
.
in Lapland he had the reputation of a drunken artist masturbating at home and painting furiously. He is said to have felt haunted both by his perverse urges and the provincial and narrow-minded mental perimeter of his northern hometown.
While he lived there, his abode was a tiny studio cabin which was closer to a shack than a house. He wired it for electricity by drawing a long extension cable from a nearby house. He called it his "Getsemane
" after the biblical site, or sometimes his "castle in the clouds".
Upon his death two rumours spread in the local community. One that he had in a drunken stupor collapsed into a snowbank, and died from exposure
. The other that he had hanged himself. The latter was more understandable, since several of his self-portraits featured a hangman's noose around his neck, and several other of his paintings also used the symbology of hanging.
The real circumstances of his death - lying in bed with pneumonia
, without anyone checking to see how he was doing - were perhaps, and regrettably more fitting to an artist, but not to the figure they knew.
During his life he had many artist friends such as Reidar Särestöniemi
, but only two real supporters; his mother, and a soul-mate/muse he found in Maj-Lis Pitkänen, a psychiatrist
specialising in troubled children who shared his morbid view of the world.
Maj-Lis was actually the sister of Kalervo Palsa's childhood sweetheart Maaret. For whom he maintained a long-lasting unrequited torch of love, quite openly writing about it in his letters to her and her sister and eventually sisters husband.
After his death Maj-Lis fought a protracted and bitter battle to raise an appropriate cenotaph for "Kalle". The monument shaped like a stylized seed or bullroarer
was viewed by the parish as being pagan
, or even representing female sexual organs. Many voices proclaimed that it was a mistake to let the "pervert" be buried into holy ground to begin with.
Over time, the notables from Kittilä, who once strenuously opposed the monument, have instead begun to express pride that an internationally renowned artist was a local boy.
Mostly the works explore in graphic detail the dark side of humanity in general and his native northern regions specifically. Grotesque sexuality, sadism
, homosexuality, bisexuality and a general emotional frigidity paraphilia
reflect his own inner turmoil and were perhaps a reaction to the mental atmosphere of his hometown.
Palsa did have a brief fling with abstract art
while staying in New York
, but as he recounts in his diary, that phase came to an abrupt halt when one day he saw a passed out black man sprawled on a subway bench.
Besides Hieronymous Bosch, his work has been compared to that of Frida Kahlo
.
and
Genet
, and many more subtle influences are listed on the first page of Eläkeläinen muistelee, where he mentions such kindred spirits as Jonathan Swift
and Lenin among many others.
Despite this brand of what might be called intertextuality
, some researchers have noted that though he remained active in his work up to his death in 1987, his work did not show signs of the postmodernism
evident in the work of many other artists of the time.
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
artist in a style that has been described as fantastic realism
Fantastic Realism
Fantastic Realism can refer to:*Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, a 20th century group of artists in Vienna combining techniques of the Old Masters with religious and esoteric symbolism...
.
Long neglected, Kalervo Palsa has enjoyed a revival of sorts since the publication of critical works, a biography and two major retrospectives in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
and Pori
Pori
Pori is a city and municipality on the west coast of Finland. The city is located some from the Gulf of Bothnia, on the estuary of the Kokemäenjoki river, which is the largest in Finland. Pori is the most important town in the Satakunta region....
.
Life
Among his local contemporaries of KittiläKittilä
Kittilä is a municipality of Finland and a popular holiday resort.It is located in the province of Lapland, Finland. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is ....
in Lapland he had the reputation of a drunken artist masturbating at home and painting furiously. He is said to have felt haunted both by his perverse urges and the provincial and narrow-minded mental perimeter of his northern hometown.
While he lived there, his abode was a tiny studio cabin which was closer to a shack than a house. He wired it for electricity by drawing a long extension cable from a nearby house. He called it his "Getsemane
Gethsemane
Gethsemane is a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem most famous as the place where, according to Biblical texts, Jesus and his disciples are said to have prayed the night before Jesus' crucifixion.- Etymology :...
" after the biblical site, or sometimes his "castle in the clouds".
Upon his death two rumours spread in the local community. One that he had in a drunken stupor collapsed into a snowbank, and died from exposure
Hypothermia
Hypothermia is a condition in which core temperature drops below the required temperature for normal metabolism and body functions which is defined as . Body temperature is usually maintained near a constant level of through biologic homeostasis or thermoregulation...
. The other that he had hanged himself. The latter was more understandable, since several of his self-portraits featured a hangman's noose around his neck, and several other of his paintings also used the symbology of hanging.
The real circumstances of his death - lying in bed with pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
, without anyone checking to see how he was doing - were perhaps, and regrettably more fitting to an artist, but not to the figure they knew.
During his life he had many artist friends such as Reidar Särestöniemi
Reidar Särestöniemi
Reidar Särestöniemi was a Finnish painter from Finnish Lapland. He is considered one of the greatest Finland-Lappish artists in the entire history of Finland....
, but only two real supporters; his mother, and a soul-mate/muse he found in Maj-Lis Pitkänen, a psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
specialising in troubled children who shared his morbid view of the world.
Maj-Lis was actually the sister of Kalervo Palsa's childhood sweetheart Maaret. For whom he maintained a long-lasting unrequited torch of love, quite openly writing about it in his letters to her and her sister and eventually sisters husband.
After his death Maj-Lis fought a protracted and bitter battle to raise an appropriate cenotaph for "Kalle". The monument shaped like a stylized seed or bullroarer
Bullroarer
Bullroarer may refer to the following:*Bullroarer , a ritual sound instrument and an ancient communication device used for communicating over greatly-extended distances*"Bullroarer" , a song on Midnight Oil's Diesel and Dust CD...
was viewed by the parish as being pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
, or even representing female sexual organs. Many voices proclaimed that it was a mistake to let the "pervert" be buried into holy ground to begin with.
Over time, the notables from Kittilä, who once strenuously opposed the monument, have instead begun to express pride that an internationally renowned artist was a local boy.
The art of Kalervo Palsa
Kalervo Palsa used an incredibly varied palette of techniques and materials even including housepaint. The subjects with the richest content, generally received the most hurried and crude treatment. The over 1000 self-portraits on the other hand generally were treated at the very least with competent technique.Mostly the works explore in graphic detail the dark side of humanity in general and his native northern regions specifically. Grotesque sexuality, sadism
Sadism and masochism
Sadomasochism broadly refers to the receiving of pleasure—often sexual—from acts involving the infliction or reception of pain or humiliation. The name originates from two authors on the subject, Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch...
, homosexuality, bisexuality and a general emotional frigidity paraphilia
Paraphilia
Paraphilia is a biomedical term used to describe sexual arousal to objects, situations, or individuals that are not part of normative stimulation and that may cause distress or serious problems for the paraphiliac or persons associated with him or her...
reflect his own inner turmoil and were perhaps a reaction to the mental atmosphere of his hometown.
Palsa did have a brief fling with abstract art
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
while staying in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, but as he recounts in his diary, that phase came to an abrupt halt when one day he saw a passed out black man sprawled on a subway bench.
Besides Hieronymous Bosch, his work has been compared to that of Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....
.
Influences
Palsa drew a great deal of influence from both the lives and works of numerous painters, writers and philosophers. Painters who influenced him include Magritte and Van Gogh. His works include clear references to such people as Sartre, StrindbergStrindberg
Strindberg may refer to:People* August Strindberg , Swedish dramatist and painter* Nils Strindberg , Swedish photographer* Anita Strindberg , Swedish actor* Henrik Strindberg , Swedish composerOther...
and
Genet
Jean Genet
Jean Genet was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing...
, and many more subtle influences are listed on the first page of Eläkeläinen muistelee, where he mentions such kindred spirits as Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
and Lenin among many others.
Despite this brand of what might be called intertextuality
Intertextuality
Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can include an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined...
, some researchers have noted that though he remained active in his work up to his death in 1987, his work did not show signs of the postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
evident in the work of many other artists of the time.
Notable works
- Turva ("Security") is a painting of a giant anus surrounded by images of all the Boschian horrors that a sensitive artist could imagine. At the center of the painting the anus opens as a window showing a man blissfully seated in a rockingchair seemingly untouched by the horrors.
- Missi Paskantaa ("A Beauty Pageant Contestant Takes a Dump") a black-and-white inked comic strip. The work consists of a few pages of PythonianMonty PythonMonty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
deadpan illustrated technical description of the practical ramifications of even beauty pageant contestants having to defecate. It finally ends with an illustrated listing of varieties of consistency of faeces that might come out such a girls anus with attendant analysis. - Eläkeläinen Muistelee ("Retiree Reminisces") A black-and-white inked comic-book recounting a plethora of highly surreal homosexual sadistic tales.
- Miehen Kuukautiset ("The Male Period") Painting of a man's bleeding anus.
- Vapautuminen ("Deliverance") a Münchausenian painting of a man suspended in mid-air hanged by a rope attached around the glans of his own huge penis.
- Uusi Ihminen ("New (Hu)Man") a man giving birth through his anal opening.
Quotes
- "Lempipuuhiani niin ikään runkkaamisen ja maalaamisen lisäksi oli kuseminen sillalta, mieluummin virtaavaan veteen, myötävirtaan." - Kalervo Palsa
- Translation: "My favorite pastimes indeed in addition to wanking off and painting was pissing down from a bridge, preferably into an effluence, downstream."
- "Ei riitä että maalaa kukkia, täytyy maalata hirttosilmukoitakin." - Kalervo Palsa
- Translation: "It won't suffice to paint flowers, one must paint hangman's nooses too."