EKA Gallery

Exhibition of the EKA Museum
INVISIBLE MONUMENTAL PAINTING
Monumental art by students at the Painting Department of EKA 1962–1995

8.10.–5.11.2020 at the EKA Gallery

The opening of the exhibition and presentation of the catalogue will take place at 5pm on the 7th October at the EKA Gallery. Entrance from Kotzebue Street. Please wear a mask!

The exhibition introduces the fascinating collection of monumental painting designs from 1962–1995 stored in EKA Museum including design proposals for various works in all classical techniques of monumental painting: fresco, sgraffito, mosaic, and stained glass. In order to highlight the technical singularity of monumental painting, 12 completed works are displayed at the exhibition, including stained glasses and mosaics made as student works (and graduation projects) as well as two works removed from the former EKA building on Tartu Road before its demolition: a circus-themed fresco by Valentin Vaher and fragments from Urve Dzidzaria’s remarkable sgraffito which covered the walls of the canteen. Screened at the exhibition will be a video by Kai Kaljo, introducing the fate and stories of destruction of monumental paintings through interviews with artists.

The exhibition features 46 artists (and also a few anonymous authors) totalling 138 works. Most of the works at the exhibition come from the collection of the Museum of EKA, with added works from the private collections of the artists themselves. The oldest exhibit is a fragment of the fresco mural by Dolores Hoffmann removed from Rahu Cinema before its demolition (1962–1963); the most recent work displayed is a part of Ivika Luisk’s graduation project in mosaic technique (1995).

The exhibition is accompanied by a 160-page catalogue which provides an overview to the teaching of monumental painting at the EKA in 1962–1995 illustrated with documentary photographs and reproductions. It also sheds light on the fortunate occasions when students were able to realise their ideas in buildings. Worth mentioning here is Dolores Hoffmann’s collaboration with Aate-Heli Õun, lecturer of interior architecture. The catalogue also includes the list of artists who graduated in the specialty of monumental painting, and their graduation works, and provides information on student works which cannot be brought to the exhibition hall. Monumental paintings finished as integral part of architecture are introduced through photographs. During our research we managed to identify 44 works of which only half are available today. The catalogue and its lists of monumental paintings are compiled by Reeli Kõiv. She is also the author of the overview article printed the catalogue.

The catalogue also addresses the fate and status of monumental painting today. In addition to the essay based on Kai Kaljo’s memories, various opinions emerge in a discussion group of painters moderated by Gregor Taul, where artists from different generations talk about monumental painting, its possibilities and future place, drawing on their personal experience.The catalogue is designed by Tiina Sildre, edited by Kristi Metste and translated into English by Epp Aareleid.

Curator of the exhibition: Reeli Kõiv

Exhibition design: Kristi Kongi

Graphic design: Pärtel Eelmere

Exhibition team: Heldur Lassi, Mihkel Ilus, Karmo Migur, Hilkka Hiiop, Taavi Tiidor

Many thanks to: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, OÜ JÄRSI, OÜ Grano Digital, EAA Gallery, Dolores Hoffmann, Kai Kaljo, Epp Kubu, Gregor Taul, Tiina Sildre, Kristi Metste, Epp Aareleid, Enn Põldroos, Tiit Pääsuke, Urve Dzidzaria, Eva Jänes, Mari Roosvalt, Uno Roosvalt, Kaarel Kurismaa, Jüri Kask, Heldur Lassi, Hilja Nairis-Piliste, Saima Vaitmaa, Robert Suvi, Üüve Vahur, Heli Tuksam, Valentin Vaher, Andrei Lobanov, Valev Sein, Kalli Sein, Tiina Tammetalu, Inga Aru, Ivika Luisk, Rene Aua, Kaido Ole, Kai Kallas, Heinart Puhkim, Ilmar Köök, Tiina Meeri, Heie Marie Treier, Aate-Heli Õun, Epp Maria Kokamägi, Iris Uuk, Reet Reidak, Hilkka Hiiop, Solveig Jahnke, Sirli Aavik, Pire Sova, Pärtel Eelmere

 

 

The exhibition focuses on printmaking as a process that is cultivated through contacts between forms and counterforms (negative space), and by the tension produced by these interactions. We are not so much interested in specific images, proofs, shapes or manners as in printed matter’s ability to introduce the new space that emerges between matrix and multiplicity. We focus on forms, and their dissemination through various statements and manifestations of printmaking in the post-disciplinary era. We define material as a subject, while the predicate denotes what the material does. We wish to return to the beginning of the functions of imprint and investigate its points of contacts with other disciplines. The exhibition takes its name from Georges Didi-Huberman’s book La ressemblance par contact: archéologie, anachronisme et modernité de l’empreinte, 2008.

The exhibition curated by Liina Siib and Maria Erikson from the Department of Graphic Art at the Estonian Academy of Arts features artists from Europe and the Americas and is accompanied by a film program.

Artists: Ann Pajuväli (EE), Ari Pelkonen (FI), Augustas Serapinas (LT), Cecilia Mandrile (US/UK), Claire Hannicq (FR), Elena Loson (AR), Dénes Kalev Farkas (EE/HU), Inka Bell (FI), Inma Herrera (ES/FI), Liis-Marleen Verilaskja (EE), Lina Nordenström (SE), Maria Erikson (EE/FI), Maria Izabella Lehtsaar (EE), Maria Valkeavuolle (FI), Riin Maide (EE), Tatu Tuominen (FI), Viktor Gurov (EE).

Curators: Liina Siib, Maria Erikson (Department of Graphic Art, EKA)
Exhibition design: Kaire Rannik
Graphic design: Viktor Gurov
Translators: Tiina Randviir, Richard Adang
Risograph printing: Pärtel Eelmere

We thank: Estonian Academy of Arts, Department of Graphic Art and Department of Graphic Design; Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Tartu Art House, EKA Gallery, Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, Tanel Asmer, Pire Sova, Kaido Kruusamets, Mart Saarepuu, Hans-Gunter Lock.

The exhibition is open on from 22 May until 18 July, Tue-Sat 12–6 PM.

A group show featuring works by Ari King, Linda Spjut, Matilda Tjäder and Nikhil Vettukattil

Curators: Daniel Iinatti and Anna Sagström

Country Music is a collaborative project by Daniel Iinatti and Anna Sagström that is born on the factory floors of the rural rust belts, in the corrosive regress of life and tempo in downgraded de-industrialized wastelands and anti-growth environments, and in the urban steel knit of precarious compositions. An alloy of music and other cultural productions formed out of the potential energy of underused spaces to reimagine the contemporary periphery.

Ari King is a British Finnish photographer based in the French Pyrenees. His photographs depict natural phenomena, rural decline, and the convulsive effects of nature on humans. His work explores our attempts to navigate, synchronise, and make sense of its complex systems, channeling a unique tension between the natural and manufactured.

Linda Spjut is an artist, composer and nature value inventory taker. Starting 2020 she is the new coordinator for the program and artist residency at Sikas Art Center, where she also resides. Spjut’s work has been performed and exhibited worldwide. Recurring collaborations include ones with Trevor Lee Larson and Marcus Ekroth (STARVING/SHARON), Sandra Mujinga (NaEE Roberts/9Djinn), Erika Landström (IMPURE FICTION), Sophie Reinhold, Björn Runge et al.

Matilda Tjäder works with text that is directed, performed, sounded, and sculpted into varying forms of media. Observing the interface between fictional and real scenarios, she often works in collaborative and conversational constellations. She co-runs a speculative fiction writing group based in London. Other recent collaborations include a research project with Asta Meldal Lynge and Nikhil Vettukattil and four-hand piano pieces composed together with Alexander Pierce. Since 2018 she’s been cultivating the Wishing for More cycle; a world-building project with a fictional persona as narrator; a self-acclaimed real estate hero aspiring to build an inter-dimensional theme park with gateways leading to different zones. Each episode in this cycle takes place in a new zone. Recent and forthcoming projects include How To Show Up?, Amsterdam (2020), Speculative Place, Hong Kong (2020), 3236 RLS / Le Bourgeois, London (2020), sink.sexy (2019), LACA, Los Angeles (2019), The Geffen Contemporary, Los Angeles (2019), Damien & The Love Guru, Brussels (2019), and Cell Project Space, London (2018).

Nikhil Vettukattil is an artist and writer based in Oslo. His practice concerns the role of representation and image-making processes in framing and remaking lived experience. Using sound, moving image, sculpture, and text, his work often explores the ways art and cinema can mediate relations between everyday and historical experience. Recent exhibitions and projects include ’The Vapours’, at Kunstverein Bamberg, ‘Housewarming’ at Le Bourgeois, London, ‘An Analog for Listening’ for flatness.eu, ‘Extended Hours’ for Struktura.time, ‘Words Fail Me’ at Auto Italia, London, and ‘Cosmopolitan Universal Cinema’ at Arnolfini, Bristol, and Close-Up, London.

Supported by Nordic Culture Point, Embassy of Sweden in Tallinn, the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and A. Le Coq.

https://www.country-music.co/
https://www.artun.ee/ekagallery/

Join us for the opening of the exhibition “Pretence” by Brenda Purtsak and Eero Alev on Tuesday, February 11 at 6 PM. The exhibition is curated by Holger Loodus.

With this exhibition, two young painters, Brenda Purtsak and Eero Alev portray a person through body and space. Right at the start of the project, the artists reached an agreement that they would not show the face of the person being portrayed. The challenge is to create tension – whether the viewer is able to follow the mystery put together by Purtsak and Alev. We get to know that the person being portrayed is a real human with his or her virtues and flaws. He or she has given artists permission to experiment, allowed them close and opened himself or herself up, as it is generally usual in a portrayal.
The viewers’ task is to be a detective and rebuild the whole from the pieces, so they invited to participate in the Hitchcock-like mystery of painting. The exhibition will remain open until March 7.

Brenda Purtsak (b. 1994) and Eero Alev (b. 1983) are studying painting at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Purtsak has participated in various joint exhibitions – “Let Me Breathe in My Own Way” (2018), “Common Dimension” (2019) and others.
Eero Alev has participated in several group exhibitions, at the Haapsalu City Gallery (“Common Dimension”, 2019) and the Estonian Art Museum (“Open Collections. The Artist Gets the Floor”, 2019). 

Holger Loodus (b. 1970) has graduated from the Department of Cultural Heritage and Conservation (BA, 2008) and the Department of Painting (MA, 2012) at the Estonian Academy of Arts. In 2012 Loodus was awarded the Young Artist Award. In 2018 he received the People’s Choice Award of the Köler Prize and the annual Award of the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and A. Le Coq.

Join us for the opening of the solo exhibition “Five Volumes” by Paul Kuimet on Friday, January 3 at 6 PM. The exhibition will remain open until January 25.

The exhibition, consisting of film projections, a slideshow, photos and an installation, was first exhibited at Narva Art Residency in 2018. In the accompanying catalogue, curator of the exhibition, Nico Anklam, explores the different meanings of the word volume – it can be a part of a series, the amplitude of sound, and, above all, a property of three-dimensional space: its capacity. The various meanings of the title and its subtleties open the contents of the works at a slow and meditative pace, similar to film projections.
Three 16 mm film projections depict the Pärnu KEK building complex, built in 1969. Golden Home (2017) deals with a block of flats forming part of the KEK complex, which according to Anklam “conjures two different eras and styles of architecture – Socialist and Capitalist – with their specific hopes and promises of advancement. Both seem, again, to be stuck in constant return. This motif slumbers already in the title of the exhibition: volume as a word derives from the Latin volvere – to roll or fold, and its recurrence, re-volvere informs the term revolution.”
Kuimet has been working with space since 2013. He is interested in the connection of architectural space to photography and film, and, in turn, their relationship to the architecture of exhibition space. He also pays great attention to the scenography and choreography of both the visitors and the artworks in the gallery. For Kuimet, the relocation of the exhibition content to a new space and context is important when presenting the works at EKA Gallery: “These five volumes or units, which were laid out in separate rooms in Narva and projected onto double-sided screens have been presented as a single volume at EKA Gallery. In Narva, Display for Optical C-Prints hosted two photographs, but at the current exhibition, it will be used as a kind of pavilion that contains all four projectors.”

Paul Kuimet (b. 1984) is an artist based in Tallinn, Estonia. His work has recently been exhibited and screened at Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; European Central Bank, Frankfurt; KUMU Art Museum, Tallinn; WNTRP, Berlin and BOZAR Center for Fine Arts, Brussels. In 2018 he participated in the residency programme at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels and will take part in the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York City.

www.paulkuimet.ee

Supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Muddis Brewery, A. Le Coq.

Graphic design 3rd years students present their project “Wack Dystopia” at EKA Billboard Gallery

On November 20 at 8 PM 3rd-year graphic design students will present their project “Wack Dystopia” at the EKA Billboard Gallery. The course is supervised by Norman Orro. EKA Billboard gallery is located outside on Kotzebue street. The exhibition will remain open until January 31.

In 2015, Mark Fisher coined the term “boring dystopia” to describe the mundane underbelly of the hypercapitalist London society. The first “Blade Runner” movie is already set in history, in November 2019.

Now on the brink of 2020, we live in a WACK DYSTOPIA where truth seems debatable and most news is underlined with the hashtag #notonion.

WACK DYSTOPIA is life in a glimmering technocracy, haunted by a medieval mindset.
WACK DYSTOPIA is a gut feeling, that nothing makes sense anymore.
WACK DYSTOPIA is not a forecast, but a critique of the present.

The metamodern condition finds us in limbo between utopias and dystopias. Both are simplistic caricatures and neither seem real or attainable. To move forward we first have to look truth in the eye. To get real we need to look to the absurd…

In the words of Aldous Huxley ”The trouble with fiction… is that it makes too much sense. Reality never makes sense.”

Participating students: Adam Asztalos, Kersti Heile, Elisabeth Juusu, Roven Jõekäär, Karmo Järv, Anneli Kripsaar, Syret Kärt, Liisi Lasn, Sigrid Liira, Laura Martens, Mikk Tanel Oja, Aliz Stocker, and Johann Georg Villmann
Headline font: Aliz Stocker

Supervisor: Norman Orro

Join us for the opening of the solo exhibition and performance on Thursday, November 5 at 8 PM. The exhibition will remain open until November 30.

Vaarik’s sixth solo exhibition is a continuation of her solo exhibition “Possessed” (2017). The expressive, provocative, daring and heartfelt show is about being a woman, a mother, about saving the world, raising children and cuddling. The artist is observing her close relationships and is seeking for conclusions to save the world.

“Skin is our contact with the world. Scroll up to your sleeves and stroke your arm with your hand. This is a feeling. We feel and learn to feel our bodies through strokes, pamper and cuddles. Sometimes there’s no need to overthink! Weird feelings create weird thoughts. But if you know it’s only that–a feeling–and you stop forcing yourself to collaborate with your brain, you can only feel without attributing linguistic meaning. Things are simply as they are. If we start to over-explain something we can mess it up.
We can try to save the world, but if we grow our children to be empathetic, they are doing it naturally. All humans grow inside their moms! I am lucky I was held tight.” – Marta Vaarik

Marta Vaarik (b. 1986) is an artist, photographer and self-proclaimed blond trickster based in Tallinn, Estonia. She holds a BFA degree in painting from the Estonian Academy of Arts and is currently studying Contemporary Art in the same university. She did an exchange program in UDK studying under professor Josephine Pryde. The current solo show at EKA Gallery is her sixth and she has participated in group shows in Berlin and Estonia. She works in the mediums of painting, photography, performance, and video.

Thanks: Sandra Mäesepp, Rebecca Künnis, Ülle Vaarik, Aadam Taaksalu, Andrus Vaarik, Kelly Turk, Margit Lõhmus, Sveta Grigorjeva, Piret Karro, Rasmus Neljand, Krislin Ots, Big Boy, Gunnar Laal, Taavi Lepp, Pire Sova, Johannes Luik, Kersti Heile

Exhibition title: Sveta Grigorjeva

Graphic design: Kersti Heile

The exhibition is supported by A. Le Coq.

Join us for the opening of the exhibition “Self-Care” on Friday, October 11 at 6 PM at EKA Gallery. Participating artists: Andre Joosep Arming, Hanna-Liisa Lavonen, Carol Katkoff, and Mari-Liis Sõrg. The curators of the exhibition are Kleer Keret Tali and Hanna-Liisa Lavonen.

Taking care of oneself could be an activity that you apply consciously to your everyday. For that, you take time out of or contrive that with your daily activities. Despite different interpretations of the word compound (self-care), it still symbolizes the freedom and assured well being of an individual. 

Four artists are deciphering the meaning of self-care and how they vary in different practices coming from the individual points of view. Self-care can be external and internal; mental and physical. Through the prism of being an artist, they are approaching this topic from different sides. 

The exhibition will remain open until November 2 and is part of the Tallinn Photomonth satellite programme.

Thanks to: Andrus Arming, Silvia Sosaar, Sarah Elizabeth Johnston, Hans-Gunter Loch, Aksel Haagensen, Mart Veelmaa, Kati Jõevere, Jana Niglas, Priit Luik, Katre Lehtpuu, Raner Piibur, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo, Anne Eelmere, Jaan August Viirand, Annabel Konga, Kuldar Nool, Helle-Ly Tomberg, Maria Kurm, Kalle Tali

Supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia

Join us for the opening of ”Terribly Beautiful” on September 11 at 6 PM at EKA Gallery! The exhibition, curated by EKA architecture students Merilin Kaup, Margus Tammik and Ulla Alla, is part of Tallinn Architecture Biennale TAB 2019 and is open until October 9.

Where lies the beauty of a school project? We propose that the most beautiful thing about school project is the venturing, vulnerability and complexity of the process, the notion of getting lost. In the facility for learning, failure is beautiful and ugly matters too! We are shifting focus from the outcome to the process in order to start an in-depth discussion about motives that drive us, values that we believe in, work methods that have served us and bizarre places our mind has taken us when possessed by the project. We want to bring this liminal period into the spotlight because beautiful representations and elaborated briefs can be found all over the internet!

The exhibition brings together master theses, first-year experiments and self-initiated side projects. All projects are essentially critical, either succeeded or failed explorations that are experimental in their approach or rather explore experimentation and play itself as a creative method and a way of learning.

Authors exhibited:
Aleksandr Delev
Alexander Angelov
Aleksandra Lilovska
Marin Markovski
Teodora Todorova
Ralitsa Timeva
Aspasia Strani
Campbell Taylor
Charles Curtin
Miguel Gilarte
Diana Carrillo Silva
Eleonore Devolder
Eugenio Superchi
Maja Piechwiak
Raya Dimitrova
Sara Garcia Santi
Viliam Fedorko

Curators: Merilin Kaup, Margus Tammik and Ulla Alla

The exhibition is part of Tallinn Architecture Biennale TAB 2019 program, which is produced by Estonian Center of Architecture.