Kalevi Helvetti is the satanic alter ego of guitarist Pertti Kurikka. Kalevi’s main art form is visual art, but he’s done also radio drama and performances. Dressed in a dracula outfit and accompanied by a musician or band, Kalevi tells horrible ghost stories mixing fiction and the unpleasant facts of life. Kalevi Helvetti has made numerous performances, most of them intimately in small clubs.
Kalevi is one of Finland’s best-known outsider artists, who has also had an extensive international career. Kalevi has had a solo exhibition in Helsinki (2019) and several group exhibitions in Finland and abroad. Kalevi’s theme is fear and style humour. It is brilliant how he can address difficult issues in a simple and funny way. Kalevi predicted the pandemic in 2019 while performing in Outsider Art Fair in New York. Since then, Kalevi’s New York plague collection has toured around the world, for example at the Pertti’s Choice popup event in London (2019), the virtual gallery (Arilyn, 2020) and the SXSW trade fair (2021).
Curators’ comment: Kalevi’s performances and film intersects nostalgia and the current in a very macabre way. The retro style of the film also makes it unique. In the 20th century style horror film music, editing and gloomy visual language create the atmosphere. Cold and current.