Shopping mall enterprise Citycon censored and destroyed a consume critical art piece of Finnish visual artist Teemu Takatalo.

Takatalo and more than 20 his fellow artists opened yesterday - 28th of October - an art exhibition in one of Citycons shopping malls in Tampere, Finland. After 2 hours of being open a security guard an one of Citycon bosses came down the exhibition room and moved all artists and visitors out. The reason for closing down the exhibition was: too critical art. In 2 hours of being closed, a worker commanded by Citycon came and destroyed a wall painting made by Takatalo - without artists permission.

In his piece, Takatalo was criticizing 9 enterprises (Citycon, Seppälä, Tunnelin Kenkä, Vapaavalinta, K-Market, The Earth Collection, Vera Via, Eurokangas and Tullintori Pharmacy) who has their shops in the shopping mall. The criticism was mainly about environmental and social responsibility of the enterprises and how loose the international contracts and certifications are that guides the markets globally. Citycon itself was one of the target of the critic.

"It is all right to be critical, but just now the critic was targeted to Citycon and it´s lessees. We did not know this before hand. The lessees are paying the exhibition so we can not stand this", says local Citycon boss Mari Laaksonen. " I don´t say we are perfect. We have innocent means to go further."

Takatalos painting: Confession of an Aware Consumer