Opening on Friday, 9. July 2010, 7-9 pm. The artist will be present. Gallery TAIK proudly presents the first Berlin solo exhibition entitled “Water Ballads” by Finnish photographer Susanna Majuri who is one of the most well known representatives of the Helsinki School. In Majuri's pictures, water plays a decisive role. It is motif, work material, and symbol all at once. In enigmatic scenes that recall film stills, the artist photographs strangers and sometimes herself in and by the water. Her fascination is fed first of all by the properties of water: it buoys people up; they are apparently able to float in it. Water is colorless and yet can adopt any and all colors; it can reflect light in various ways or absorb it; it can defamiliarize or distort contours. The disarray the photos radiate is not least of all associated with photography's presumed character of proof that suggests: “Look, these things can happen.” And indeed Majuri's photographs of at times unfathomable yearning are yet subtly composed and virtuoso in coloring. In the water Majuri seeks counter or parallel worlds, places outside of convention, vanishing points and dream worlds. At the same time she indicates the ambivalence inherent in the utopia of “another” world: “The logic of color illustrates the fiction. The inner world constructs secrets to be seen. Inanimate things take on the role of the living. A picture of sorrow is a picture of hope.” Susanna Majuri lives and works in Helsinki. She is part of the Helsinki School and has participated on numerous of their group exhibitions, the one at Gallery Bryce Wolkowitz New York being the latest (2010). Her first major museum exhibition took place at the Finnish Museum of Photography in Helsinki entitled “The Water Researcher’s Daughter” this spring. Majuri’s works have been published numerously recently at the renowned photomagazine “Next Level”. Susanna Majuri – Water Ballads 10. Juli - 28. August 2010 Unter dem Titel Water Ballads präsentiert Galerie TAIK die aktuellen Arbeiten der finnischen Künstlerin Susanna Majuri. Die junge Fotografin ist eine prominente Vertreterin der Helsinki School. In Susanna Majuris Bildern spielt Wasser eine entscheidende Rolle. Es ist Motiv, Arbeitsmaterial und Symbol zugleich. Am und im Wasser inszeniert sie sich und andere in rätselhaften, an Filmstills erinnernden Szenen. Ihre Faszination speist sich zunächst aus den Eigenschaften des Wassers: Es trägt die Menschen, sie können darin scheinbar schweben. Es ist farblos und kann zugleich alle Farben annehmen, kann Licht in verschiedener Weise reflektieren oder absorbieren, Umrisse verfremden oder verzerren. Majuri sucht im Wasser Gegen- oder Parallelwelten, Orte außerhalb der Konvention, Fluchtpunkte und Traumwelten. Zugleich weist sie auf die Ambivalenz solcher Utopien von einer „anderen“ Welt hin.