Helsinki
In “Health and Safety” (on view through August 17, 2025), London-based Swedish artist Tobias Bradford confronts viewers with remarkable animatronic sculptures that inspire a complex range of responses. His alternately creepy and strangely playful works composed of musical instruments and twitching body parts cause some to smile, others to cringe, and—most unexpectedly—induce a sense of caring. Curator Markus Åström, in his perceptive exhibition statement, identifies the multiplicity in the work, its horrific attributes and the unproductiveness of its movements, noting that Bradford fuses Swedish folksiness with a sense of urgency.
That sense of urgency is linked to the show’s understated title, which refers to workplace safety regulations and user manuals. Though such protocols—ostensibly devised to safeguard employees and consumers—frequently afford far greater protection to proprietors, Åström posits that these concerns unite us as humans.
Part puppet show, part musical performance, and part mechanical clattering, the exhibition, with its ever-changing meshing of sounds and visuals, surprises anyone who steps in from the quiet pedestrian street outside. Because the actions of the various components rely on motion detectors, programmed running times, and the flow of visitors, the character of the experience is unpredictable. While the movement of some sculptures is initiated by people entering an empty gallery, the exploratory paths taken by visitors bring other works to life and cause some to go dormant. Things become loud when everything is activated and then grow quiet as people leave. If viewers remain motionless, the volume withers to faint taps or squeaks and eventually gives way to total stillness. And yet, an awareness of all these possibilities doesn’t detract from the magic of the work.
Though the mangled appendages, complete with filthy, blotched skin, are unnerving at first, discomfort alone is short-lived. Looking down at the lonely forearm in Detachment (all works 2025) or the legs protruding out from under a torso-crushing mass of cables in To be held in place, one cannot help but be affected by their labored movements. Their writhing is a plea for help. In contrast, the multi-armed Nervous energy / it keeps resurfacing seems thrilled that visitors have arrived, its energetic hands acting as if they want to alert us to something. While one directs its cigarette to a location outside the window and a second points to the floor, a third appears to want to pat visitors reassuringly on the shoulder. Benevolence seems to go both ways.
In Oro / worry, isolated at one end of the gallery, a set of dentures quietly and unabatedly gnaws at fingernails—an action as disturbing (and relatable) as it is humorous. At the opposite end of the space, Accordion 2 / the weight repeatedly emits a single, drawn-out note—an intimation of labored breathing—that pulses through the entire gallery, calling attention to the musical instrument and the mechanism controlling its lateral movements. Bradford disrupts the obviousness of those gestures in Accordion 1 / to be heard and seen and Drummer, their brief and random interjections reminding us of life’s current glitchiness and the many things beyond our control.
“Health and Safety” demonstrates Bradford’s ability to scope out oxymoronic circumstances and construct scenarios that expose their shortcomings. In that regard, the blandness of the title is strategically deceptive. But while the surreal look of his sculptures and their workings recalls animated films by Jan Švankmajer, the Brothers Quay, and David Lynch, Bradford rejects any use of absurdly dark, out-of-the-way, and claustrophobic environments. At Sinne, his works occupy a light-filled space. Then again, perhaps he could be channeling Švankmajer, who said, “Surrealism exists in reality, not beside it.”
