Antero Takala

Mindscapes 1960-2010

Mindscapes 1960 - 2010 is a retrospective view of the 50-year oeuvre of photographic artist Professor Antero Takala (b.1939). The hundred-plus photographs now being shown together for the first time form a black-and-white landscape study; a paean to Finnish nature, to northern light, to lake landscapes, and to Lapland. The exhibition also includes a series of portrait studies of Finnish stage actors from the 1960s.

At the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, Takala was the first Finnish photographer to investigate the use of photography as a means of expression in television. The exhibition includes two major works of experimental film and video art, Romeo and Juliet (1972) and The Courtyard (1980), which belong to the Finnish Museum of Photography's collection. Also on display is the 1972 Photoshop, i.e. "the video colouring agent" created in YLE's (the Finnish Broadcasting Company) design laboratory.

Antero Takala began working as a TV cameraman at YLE in 1960. He retired from YLE as a Head Cameraman in 2002. Takala was one of the founders of the Imago 6 group in 1966. He was awarded the State Prize for Photographic Art in 1967 and in 1973. In 1997, he was given the honorary title of Professor. Takala says that, after the Mindscapes 1960-2010 retrospective, he will continue studying light and the landscape, and aiming for the impossible, i.e. total mastery of natural light and the landscape of the mind.
The exhibition coincides with the release of the book Antero Takala Mindscape / Mielenmaisema by publishers Musta Taide.

Further information on the exhibition:
Chief curator Anna-Kaisa Rastenberger +358 9 6866 3628, +358 05 518 7619, anna-kaisa.rastenberger@fmp.fi 
Curator Tiina Rauhala, +358 9 6866 3622, tiina.rauhala@fmp.fi 
Further information on workshops, guided tours and supplementary program
Educational curator Erja Salo, +358 9 6866 3620, erja.salo@fmp.fi