Concrete is hard, a word even harder.
Things other than truth can be cut into stone.
Guidelines for life have been written on walls for ages.
Pure thoughts, sound material.
Nothing is hidden.
The message is kind, the works hard as stone.


The initial idea for the exhibition originates from the Finnish “huoneentaulu” concept – the “huoneentaulu”, a term not directly translatable, is a traditional instructive-admonitory text stitched/embroidered on a piece of canvas located in full sight in the house. Some years ago the two friends, writer Kari Hotakainen and architect Hannu Korhonen, came up with the idea to paraphrase the phenomenon, forget the canvas and cut their messages into stone instead. The writer Kari Hotakainen prepared the texts and the architect Korhonen arranged them into unique pictures on concrete base. The first exhibition in Helsinki in 2007 was a success, the second exhibition with new texts and pictures took place already in 2008, and again it was warmly welcomed. Later the Helsinki exhibitions gave Hannu Korhonen and his friend Toomas Kivi, who resides in Estonia, the idea of repeating the same here and in Estonian language. And yet another exhibition was born.
In broader prospect there is a heritage of wisdom in each culture that seems to be circulating by word of mouth since the beginning of time. If one plays around with the sentences a little like the abovementioned writer and architect have done, the texts obtain a kind of reversed meaning. For a moment a pleasant gust of wind blows in from the window of our dogmatic world, exhilarating us and causing us to change many an outdated view on life. Namely that is the objective and the idea of the exhibition and namely that is how the idea’s authors and executors have enjoyed it.

Concrete is known as somewhat rough grey building material, an artificial stone that, when tenderly handled, can still be set alive, have soulful objects made out of it. Our concrete pictures carry important and very important pieces of advice and observations. Each picture is unique, each has an individual message. I wrote the texts and Hannu Korhonen set them into stone. For ever.
We were good friends.

Toomas Kivi


THE EXHIBITION IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF HANNU KORHONEN (1948–2009)