Ola Kolehmainen

Ola Kolehmainen was invited artist at Rheinisches Billdarchiv Köln as part of the first edition of the Artist Meets Archive programme.

At the beginning of the 2000s he belonged to the successful first generation of artists at the so-called “Helsinki School”. Ola Kolehmainen is known for his minimalistic abstract close-ups of architectural details, such as geometric surface structures or reflective window façades. In his early groups of works he deals with the modern 20th and 21st century buildings by architects such as Mies van der Rohe and Alvar Aalto. At the heart of his precise and designerly oeuvre is confrontation with the interplay of structure, chromaticity, construction history and the location-specific lighting conditions of architecture. His reduced shots inspire questions concerning the reality of what is shown, the spatial experiencing of architectural photography, and buildings’ universal, timeless, ornamental fundamental character.

In his current, Cubist-looking photographs the artist deals with sacred interiors and exteriors, with synagogues, mosques, churches and cathedrals. Through the fragmentary assembly of multiple individual shots, which have been taken from various, slightly displaced positions, Kolehmainen shifts perspectives and, in doing so, breaks the symmetries of familiar visual axes.

The Rheinisches Bildarchiv guards many photographs. These are predominantly perceived as documentary photographs for the sake of their illustrated motifs but, at the same time, as haptically tangible objects – retouched glass plate negatives, for example – they are important testimonies of photographic history. Ola Kolehmainen’s approach pays tribute to both aspects in a highly exciting way. In his works, he breaks with viewing habits and, as a result, motivates conscious seeing. Kolehmainen brings the negative, so to speak, out of its shadowy existence as a means to an end into the limelight of artistic scrutinization of its own aesthetic qualities.

Dr. Johanna Gummlich, Director of the Rheinisches Bildarchiv