Under a Microscope, Writ Large

Finland, they say, is a country whose national identity is virtually based on the pride it takes in its artists. Over here we have a little trouble dredging up a mental picture of Finnish art. The country’s distinguished place in the annals of Scandinavian design comes to mind, as well as the names of such outstanding architects as Alvar Aalto and Eero Saarinen.

There is a sense that if Finland can be said to have a national style, it probably tends to blend the man-made with the organic and blur the boundaries of craft, architecture and the so-called fine arts.

This hunch is curiously confirmed by the first appearance here of sculpture by Stefan Lindfors in a traveling show on view at the Brewery Arts Complex. Sponsored by the Finnish government, the exhibition consists of six large installations that rely heavily on their architectural surroundings and their materials for their effect.

Lindfors, as it turns out, is an artist in his mid-30s who, according to an accompanying catalog, has a good track record of fine arts exhibitions but has also won awards for product, theater and costume design. Essayist Terrie Sultan calls him a “Renaissance man.” If that carries a suggestion of a character out of the past, forget it. Lindfors’ hybridization fits seamlessly into the look of today’s international-style contemporary exhibitions while retaining a distinctive personality.

Lindfors seems to dwell on large metaphysical issues related to genesis. The atmosphere around his pieces is willfully dark and thoughtful. Their format usually includes a shape fashioned of a skeletal armature of welded steel covered with translucent fiberglass and lighted from inside. Often as large as, say, an igloo or panel for a jumbo jet, they are nonetheless scaled to look delicate and organic, like cocoons or pods spun of spider webs and mucous membrane.

Lindfors’ world is that of the microscope, writ large. This effect is dramatized in a work like “Demos.” A roughly heart-shaped cocoon is suspended from the ceiling. It acts as a screen for the silhouettes of real-but-painted carpenter bees beamed from a nearby overhead projector.

Something about the combined image touches places very deep in the viewer. On one hand, it’s all about elemental nature; on the other, it’s all about technological culture. Lindfors’ Greek titles evoke the Western world’s first high civilization. The bees are arranged in serried rows, like lab specimens.

The artist ruminates on universals. It’s a dangerous practice leading to over-generalization and bad art. It’s not clear how Lindfors brings it off, but his approach is deft, detached and simple, so it works. He’s not trying to sell anything. He just obliquely tells how he feels. Which is not to say it doesn’t get complicated.

“Marathon” is a smaller piece that calls attention to the actual insects set out on the overhead’s bed. In this case they’re huge army ants colored red. A byplay sets up between the dimensional ants and their projected shadows. Because the insects are the only once-living things in the show, they become ourselves.

The old blue-sky philosophical questions come floating out of Plato’s cave. Are we real or the substance-less specters we cast on the world to please the boss? Are we regimented by fate or free? A clock’s second hand turns beneath the ants, counting down their lives and that of the universe. OK, it sounds corny described in prose. But art is visual poetry, and the piece works in its own language. Everybody’s singin’ those ol’ end-of-the-century blues.

“Ephemeron I-XV” is a big, spooky piece in a room draped with grimy painter’s dropcloths. A row of man-tall cocoons is ranked along the wall, but now they’re phallic rocket ship coffins, each containing one large red grasshopper. This is about the old death-or-transcendence question for sure. It comes close to sci-fi melodrama, but Lindfors’ sense of theater includes enough restraint to make it play.

We could use some more Finnish art around here.

* Brewery Arts Complex, 5604 Moulton Ave., through Nov. 9. Closed Sunday and Monday. (213) 226-0658.