Exhibitions

Sten Saarits’ solo exhibition ‘Petrified’ open at Vaal Gallery.  The exhibition is curated by Eva Mustonen and remains open until 10th of September, Tue–Fri 12–6pm, Sat 12–4pm.

‘Petrified’ centers around the sense of detachment from the world and oneself, using familiar architectural forms from the city streets. Inside the exhibition space is created a backdrop of a nighttime cityscape, where the common feelings of this time and age such as anxiety and fear of the unknown are revealed in a new light.
The stillness of the night is a good time for gathering your thoughts, but it is also the time when illuminated screens and artificial lights compete most brutally for our attention.
The video and photo installations of the exhibition are defined by a continuous but aimless movement, where the characters in the videos or the motion mechanisms of the works themselves have succumbed to the endless loop.
The inability to turn around or to actively intervene in one’s surroundings brings attention to irrelevant details, where it falls into the folds of perception, like the blind but all-seeing eye. 

Sten Saarits (b 1987) is an interdisciplinary artist who works mainly with time based media. Saarits’ art practice, which emphasizes repetitions of themes and situations, is characterized by a drive to turn mental spaces into material landscapes to depict the states of mind, typical for the daily grind in a modern society, in a new form. Saarits has studied sound art (MA) and installation and sculpture (BA) in Estonian Academy of Arts. During the years of 2013–2014 he studied in the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where his curriculum focused on sound art, performance and film. Saarits has shown his work in Estonia, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Denmark, France and Lithuania.

www.stensaarits.ee

Graphic design: Kert Viiart

On the 2nd of September the recent graduates and current second years of the Masters of Contemporary Art Program will hold a studio sale at Uus Rada, Raja 11a.

Participating Artists include: Brenda Purtsak, Eero Alev, Heli Haav, Jamie Dean Avis, Janne Lias, Johannes Luik, Junny Yeung, Katariin Mudist, Kati Müüripeal, Lily Marleen Verilaskja, Maris Paal, Marleen Suvi, Maryliis Teinfeldt-Grins, Noah E. Morrison, Olev Kuma, Samuel Lehikoinen, Solveig Lill, Sophie Durand, Triin Türnpuu, Tõnis Laurson, Zody Burke

The aim of the event is to help generate sales of works to support the transition into professional practice following graduation and financing of projects to be produced in the final year of graduate studies. 100% of the money generated from sales will go to the artist. It will be a salon style exhibition, each artist will participate with up to 3 works in a salon style exhibition which will be held at Uus Rada (Raja 11a).

Available artworks can be seen AT THIS LINK 

Opening Reception:

2nd September 2022 – 19:00 – 22:00

The exhibition will be open to the public

3rd September 2022 from 12 – 18

4th September 2022 from 12 – 18

Sold works will be available for collection on the 5th of September.

Please contact Sophie Durand for more information at sophie.durand@artun.ee or +37256256468

FB: https://fb.me/e/2HiBXu8cc 

Four artists look into the future at a safe haven called Viljandi Old Water Tower from 5th of August 2022: Egle Ehtjen, Kelli Gedvil, Hanna-Liisa Lavonen and Helle Ly Tomberg with their exhibition ‘Expectations of the End’.

They explore how to relate to a world that is ending. Denial, fear, grief or reconciliation is on the table. You can also feel joy and wonder. One can be viewed from humanly close or cosmically far.

The end of the world is getting closer every minute.

Reality as we know it is stretched to the breaking point, there is no sense of security and there is a bittersweet smell of ozone in the air. The world around us is in active war, society is crumbling, climate change and everything that comes with paints the future in very hopeless tones.  

The feeling of being surrounded by global disasters as well as personal tragedies that shatter our personal core, have followed people forever. We have been born into these conditions, carry that fragile and heavy weight around daily knowingly that there is more ahead. Any catastrophe hasn’t been the last of its kind.

The future depends on self.

Our gratitude goes to: Marek Gedvil, Leegi Kiis, Svetlana ja Johannes Lavonen, Ian-Simon Märjama, Kristen Rästas, Sten Saarits, Jan Viilma, Tiina Vändre

Graphic design by Henri Kutsar

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Nudist

The exhibition ‘Expectations of the End’ will remain open until 31st of August 2022

Viljandi Old Water Tower is located at Johan Laidoner plats 5.

It is open for visitors Mon-Fri from 11 AM to 6 PM.

Katariin Mudist at Tartu Art House
“To-Do or Not-To-Do”
29.07.–28.08.22

The exhibition, showcasing themes that have long intrigued the artist, focuses on a newly completed monumental piece the exhibition has been named after. The 9-meter-long mixed media composition speaks of the contemporary productivity culture and anxiety relating to both action and inaction resulting from the global pandemic situation.

The inspiration behind the exhibited works is Mudist’s longtime self-critical study centered around to-do lists that have accumulated over several years. The central piece “To-Do or Not-To-Do” visualises activities along with their temporal dimensions – starting new activities, as well as interruptions – and treats this input as anthropological and psychological data which, in turn, reveals interesting patterns describing both the pace of life and the state of mind of an individual.

The exhibition and artwork of the same name are at once personal and remarkably universal studies visualising choices, disruption, inactivity, and exhaustion – both the internal and the societal pressure to be productive.

Katariin Mudist (b 1994) has studied in the Tartu Art College and the Estonian Academy of Arts, supplementing her skills in Budapest and in Ghent. Her previous solo exhibition in Tartu was in 2020 in the Jakobi Gallery.

The exhibition is supported: Estonian Cultural Foundation and Anderson’s craft beer

Exhibition design: Alden Jõgisuu

Exhibition team: Tanel Asmer, Elika Kiilo-Kulpsoo, Johanna Mudist, Peeter Talvistu, Urmo Teekivi and Mae Variksoo

Thanks: Sander Koit, Alan Voodla, Sophie Durand and Maria Elise Remme

The exhibition is open until 28 August

Tartu Art House (Vanemuise 26, Tartu, Estonia) Wed–Mon 12–18. Exhibitions are free of charge

The exhibitions of the Tartu Art House are supported by the Tartu Town Government and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

The opening of the exhibition Hardcore Gentleness by Maria Izabella Lehtsaar and Sarah Nõmm will take place on 25 August at 18.00 at the Vent Space project room.

The first duo exhibition by Lehtsaar and Nõmm focuses on the intertwining of intimacy, mental health, sense of security, control and loss of control in a person’s life through common elements of both artists’ creative practice. In their artistic dialogue, Lehtsaar and Nõmm talk about the challenges of girlhood and coming of age. The artists explore the interdependent dynamics of security and intimacy in different relationships, everyday expressions of gender and sexuality, and the role of everyday rituals in coping with mental health issues.

The tension at the heart of the exhibition is the juxtaposition between categories – such as light and heavy, soft and harsh, safe and dangerous, and acceptable and unacceptable – which is characteristic of the work of Lehtsaar and Nõmm. The aim of the convened duo show is to manifest the role of sexual expression in art and life, emphasising the importance of a sense of personal security and belonging, shared joys and concerns, and the well-being of one’s mind and body.

Curators: Anita Kodanik and Brigit Arop

Graphic design: Michael Fowler

Maria Izabella Lehtsaar (1998) is an artist based in Tallinn who combines textiles, graphics, drawing, installation and text in their work. Their works deal mainly with the themes of queer experience and mental health, often playing on the fragile border between reality and fantasy. Lehtsaar graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Art and is currently studying in the Contemporary Art MA programme. In 2021, they were awarded the Edmund Valtman scholarship.

Sarah Nõmm (1998) is an artist based in Tallinn who works primarily with sculpture, installation, video and performance. Her work deals with the female body and the spaces surrounding it. Nõmm’s works are often based on personal experiences and look at themes of the body through popular beliefs, myths, taboos and everyday rituals. She has a bachelor’s degree in Sculpture and Installation from the Estonian Academy of Arts. In 2021, she was awarded the Young Sculptor Prize.

The exhibition is open every day at 13.00–19.00 from 26 August to 31 August.

Supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia

Special thanks: Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, EKA Gallery, Johannes Luik, Maksim Bondartsuk, Julika Roos

Additional info:

Brigit Arop, curator

brigit.arop@artun.ee

Anita Kodanik, curator

anita.kodanik@artun.ee

Estonian Association of Architects together with Estonian Academy of Arts and SAP Katowice are pleased to invite for an exhibition about the cycle of lectures Masters of Architecture

The opening will take place 18.08.2022  thursday|
18:00 (EEST) I Estonian Academy of Arts | Põhja pst 7
110412 Tallinn | Estonia|

The exhibition opening on the 18th of August will be followed by a polish-estonian panel discussion about the conditions of designing in both countries. Guests invited to participate are Andro Mand, At Ader, Katrin Koov, Matgorzata Pilinkiewicz and Tomas Studniarek.
The discussion will be moderated by Justyna Boduch and Wojciech Fudala.

Masters of Architecture is a series of architecture lectures organized by the Association of Polish Architects in Katowice (SARP Katowice). This special exhibition is created to sum up the historv of all the events.
The series was originated in 2004 and supposed to be a cycle of 5 lectures onlv, given by architects representing 5 biggest European capitals. The speeches about London, Berlin, Paris, Vienna and Amsterdam received extremelv wide interest from local architects and architecture students. As a result, the only decision possible was to go on with organization.
The Masters of Architecture series is organized up to now and influenced the education of hundreds of architecture students who received an access to much extensive knowledge than their predecessors from post-communist era. Between 2004 and 2020, the citv of Katowice hosted 70 architects from all over the world, including winners of the most significant architecture prizes.
A moving installation consists of 70 circles, corresponding to 70 architects who visited the city of Katowice and shared their knowledge with Polish audience. All the elements of the exhibition are mobile, what encourages visitors to interact. Besides the circles with the Masters of Architecture names, the installation contains some bigger circles with architect’s portraits, together with their opinions about the city of Katowice.
An extra gesture are mirrors, located at some of the circles. When young architects are visiting the exhibition, the can see their own reflection there. Who knows, maybe
in the future the will become Masters of Architecture as well?

The event is under the Honorary Patronage of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage prof. Piotr Glinski, the Ambassador of Poland to Estonia Gregorz Koztowski and the Mavor of Katowice Marcin Krupa.

EAL website

The exhibition Halcyon, by Estonian contemporary artist Kadri Liis Rääk, is happening in the capital of Peru, Lima.

Welcome to the inaugural exhibition of Now: Gallery, in which Kadri Liis Rääk exhibits tufted soft sculptures inspired by the bubbling abundance of life, ceramic forms inspired by symbiotic landscapes and microbes, and chimerically transformed industrial design. In her works, we witness a speculative utopian world built, where various biological life forms meet at the hub of the rhizome, conversing with sensitive ways of being together.

Kadri Liis Rääk’s work evolves from an empathetic worldview where touch carries a crucial role in gathering information and relating to one-another. At the exhibition, she exhibits works prepared in Reykjavík, at SIM residency, but also in the residency which preceded the exhibition in Lima. Halcyon is curated by Marika Agu.

One of the founders and gallerist of Now: Gallery, Renzo Pittaluga remarked on the connection between Kadri Liis’ textile and ceramic practice with traditional Peruvian artforms. “What Kadri Liis has absorbed with her research and experiences is very relevant in the local context,” said Pittaluga.

11.08. – 14.09.2022

Now: Gallery, Av. Conquistadores 780, San Isidro, Lima, Peru.

Roemer van Toorn, external PhD candidate of the Estonian Academy of Arts, curriculum of Architecture and Urban Planning, will defend his thesis „Making Architecture Politically. From Fresh Conservatism to Aesthetics as a Form of Politics“ on 7th of September 2022 at 15.00 at Põhja pst 7, room A501.

The defence can be followed in EKA TV  tv.artun.ee.

External reviewers: Prof. Panu Lehtovuori (Tampere University of Technology), Prof. Arie Graafland (Delft University of Technology).

Opponent: Prof. Arie Graafland

The defense will be held in English.

Making Architecture Politically opens with an analysis of the current conjecture of Neoliberalism through the concept of the Society of the And, opposing an understanding of our condition through modes of Eitherorism. It is a voyage, travelling along the many interdependencies of the revolutionary conservatisms of Fresh Conservatism and Progressive Neoliberalism today — parallel to the arrival of a new phase of global modernisation with a special and elaborated focus on the role of contemporary architecture in Dutch society from the 1990s — while its second chapter moves beyond Fresh Conservatism; towards a possible third of emancipation in architecture with its plea for an Aesthetics as a Form of Politics towards a cosmopolitical outlook.

Chapter one, entitled Fresh Conservatism critically addresses how the much-celebrated Superdutch movement in architecture paved the way of an upcoming Neoliberal phase of capitalism. The problem for many was not to make political architecture, on the contrary, its innovative practices — without being too conscious about the political — affirmed what later was called the post-political. With Aesthetics as a Form of Politics of chapter two, exemplary alternative horizons of possibility are being discerned; ones that make architecture politically through their aesthetic regime. It has everything to do with how freedom can be created with constraints, how one can dance with enmeshment, can move beyond limiting adversary, and dare to create lives of sustained optimal wellbeing and joy through the redistribution of the sensible. By grappling with making architecture politically, finding it wanting through critical analysis, observing the exemplary and often a-political role contemporary Dutch architecture played in the 90s and onward, it turns out the problem is not to make political architecture — all architecture is political — but how to make architecture politically.

Making architecture politically is about the creation of running room; a sense of polity — an aesthetic regime redistributing the sensible — that allows for a multiplication of connections and disconnections that reframe the relations between people, the world they live in, and the way they are supposed to act and behave. Such a field of possibility concerns a multiplicity of folds and gaps in the fabric of the common experience of the human and non-human that change the cartography of the perceptible, the imaginative and the feasible. As such, it allows for new modes of political construction of common objects and emancipatory possibilities of collective and private enunciation. Instead of slipping into paternalism or control, the idea of such a radical openness is characterized by indeterminacy, nuance, incommensurability, dissensus and the multitude of encounters it could generate. It is about a becoming that breaks open the conventional way space is experienced, thought and distributed, one that displaces the binary dialectics of colonizer and colonized, the one against the other by introducing a third (And) that belongs to both the one and the other while opening alternative horizons.

Members of the Defence Committee: Dr. Jüri Soolep, Dr. Anu Allas, Dr. Renee Puusepp, Prof. Maros Krivy, Prof. Andres Kurg, Prof. Klaske Havik, Prof. Claus Peder Pedersen.

Please find the PhD thesis HERE.

Screening of EKA Animation graduate students’ films in cinema “Sõprus” on Monday the 20th June at 16.30 p.m.

Films by:

John Francis Quirk, Aspasia Kazeli, Sophia Michele Bazalgette, Lukas Manuel Winter, Jass Kaselaan, Anne Mirjam Kraav, Hleb Kuftseryn, Andrei Bljahhin, Kadi Sink, Ida Lepparu, Sameliina Paurson, Anna Dvornik.

Please come to the screening and bring your family, friends, colleagues and everyone you want to share your works with!

Free entrance!

Cinema “Sõprus”, Vana-Posti 8

See you at the screening!

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