Sebastian Reis' solo exhibition Pendulum at MUU Helsinki Contemporary Art Centre emerges from unexpected encounters and the unpredictability of our surroundings. Pendulum consists of free-standing two-dimensional photographic imagery that is transferred, cut out, overpainted and playfully attributed with three-dimensional structures.

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Within almost a year to the same day, Reis witnessed the eruption of a volcano and visited the once-biggest accessible cave by chance. While the volcano Fagradalsfjall erupted – after 6000 years of sleep – during his stay at a residency in Iceland, his visit to the Grotta Gigante occurred because he accidentally stepped onto the wrong bus. Reis ended up in a village in the North of Trieste, where kind guides sneaked him into a sold-out tour.

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The exhibition Pendulum engages with the cross-section of natural wonders, their cultural implications, and the Earth as an all-connecting factor. While some natural phenomena are made accessible as sublime spectacles, they reveal our powerlessness when experiencing them. In the show, Sebastian Reis explores imagery based on personal encounters, investigating notions of monumentality and ephemerality.

Sebastian Reis (b. 1985, Austria) is a Helsinki-based visual artist. In his practice, he combines photography, painting and sculptural elements. Reis’ approach emerges from synthesising subjective experiences with culture-historical and art-historical occurrences. He often explores the contradiction between monumentality and ephemerality in his work. Reis received an MFA from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, Germany. His works have been shown in Finland and abroad 

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Sebastian Reis’ work is supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation / The Uusimaa Fund.