Aarno Salosmaa - Dance of the Swans

Aarno Salosmaa (b. 1941, d. 2008, Helsinki) was a Finnish painter who worked across a wide range of techniques. He first gained recognition for his collages and watercolours influenced by Cubism. Later, his practice shifted towards object-based works, and in the 1970s he produced small, sparsely coloured paintings characterised by geometric lines as well as letters and numbers. 

In his later career, Salosmaa increasingly focused on video art. His first public video work, Dance of the Swans, was presented in 1999 and was acquired the same year as the first video work in the Wihuri Foundation Collection. The title refers to Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake, and in particular to its well-known scene Dance of the Little Swans, in which four swans move in a precisely synchronised, almost mechanical rhythm.