Exhibitions

The Young Sculptor Award Exhibition 2022, organized by the Department of Sculpture and Installation of the Estonian Academy of Arts, will be opened in the ARS Project Room on Thursday, February 17 at 4 pm.

The aim of the Young Sculptor Award and the accompanying exhibition, which has been awarded since 2012, is to highlight and recognize the professional activities of young artists engaged in sculpture and installation. There is a selection of works completed by EKA students over the past year, from which a jury of experts selects the best. The winners will be announced at the opening of the exhibition on February 17.

The main prize of YSAE 2022 is a one-month opportunity to work and improve oneself in Maajaam creative residency in Southern Estonia.

Simultaneously with the Prize Exhibition, the personal exhibition “Wrap Me Up” of the 2021 Young Sculptor Prize winner Sarah Nõmm will be opened in the ARS Showroom gallery.

The Young Sculptor Award has previously been awarded to Hanna Piksarv, Sten Saarits, Anna Mari Liivrand, Johannes Valdma, Rosa Violetta Grötsch, Johannes Luik, Siim Elmers and Sarah Nõmm.

Participating artists: Zody Burke, Sophie Durand, Heleliis Hõim, Sandra Ernits, Loora Kaubi, Inessa Saarits, Jonathan Stavleau, Karoliine Lausing, Lisette Lepik, Laura Liventaal, Johannes Luik, Katariin Mudist, Aleksandra Sofia Helena Nyyssönen, Rebeca Parbus, Laura Taylor Tehan, Triin Türnpuu, Junny Yeung.

The exhibition is open until March 5, every day from 2–8 pm.

ARS Kunstilinnak, Pärnu mnt. 154

Supported by the Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonian Cultural Endowment, ARS Project Room, Estonian Artists’ Union.

Narva Art Residency (NART) in cooperation with MTÜ Valgusklubi brings light installations to the Kreenholm district of Narva. The exhibition is located in the immediate vicinity of NART and contains five large-scale works. “Narva Väike Valgus” changes the mood and landscape of the Kreenholm area and gives it a new look. The exhibition runs from the beginning of February to the end of March and is equipped with video surveillance.

The open-air exhibition features works by Estonian artists and students of the Estonian Academy of Arts: “Peal(t)kiri” (Elo Liiv, Alyona Movko, Taavi Suisalu), “Mis on siin, see on seal” (Elo Liiv), “Galerii maht on täis” (Anna-Maria Vaino, Aivar Vaino), “Latern”
(Janne Lias), “Klaaspilt” (Inessa Saarits, Raahel Rüütel, Sandra Ernits, Kadri Joala).

“Väike Valgus” is format of miniature exhibition of light installations created by MTÜ Valgusklubi. It offers the opportunity to take part in the art of light for different parts of Estonia and enriches the public space for local people in the dark time of the year. The main artist of the exhibition is Elo Liiv, who also was part of the team of the Tartu light festival TAVA.

Elo Liiv: “It is small but at the same time a lovely light event that fits nicely with the scape around NART. Light is magical and always brings joy to people’s eyes and hearts – which is very much needed by all of us in these difficult times. Narva is still terra incognita for me, but I am fascinated by the Art Residency and the kindness of the people here. I hope that our architectural lighting workshops will inspire the creation of the NART permanent lighting scheme and that “Väike Valgus” will be the beginning of the larger light festival in Narva. ”

As part of the project, lighting designers Marko Kuusik and Janno Siil conducted a master class in architectural lighting at the end of December, with the participation of local people. The art residency now stands out against the background of the surrounding buildings – the intriguing lighting scheme has made it possible to emphasize the architecture of the building and give a much-needed visual accent in the urban area.

The exhibition is open from Wednesday evening 02.02.2022. Another workshop took place on that day with the clients of Narva Social Work Center. They learned to draw with light and capture it in photos.

Thanks to: Eesti Kultuurkapital, MTÜ Valgusklubi, EVDA, OÜ Event Center, OÜ Kunst ja Pärimus.

Pictures of the workshops and lighting installations are HERE.
www.nart.ee

Additional information:
Johanna Rannula
Head of NART
56150154
johanna.rannula@artun.ee

Elo Liiv
Artist
5698 4477
elo@tartuvalgus.ee

Lisette Lepik’s exhibition ‘’Garden of Eve’’ will be opened at the Uus Rada Gallery on Friday, January 28th at 6 pm.

Using the motif of the flower the exhibition presents an ongoing series of oil paintings by Lisette reflecting on the experience of the menstrual cycle; menstrual pains and the choices women make regarding their own birth control choices. The exhibition space is transformed into a womb holding a series of paintings within its walls. Through expressive use of colour and gestural mark each painting speaks to totally different experiences within the monthly cycle.

Everything began from there: the land, the world, the air, the sky, the soil, the water, the fire, the land. Me and you, you and me, us and we. Everything begins from there. I took a picture of my sister’s hand, which was holding a rose. This beautiful, pulsing, throbbing, bloody, thorny, sad, fertile rose reminded me of a vulva. Some ancient, primal, feminine impulse fired at me. It told me to give more attention to this flower. I didn’t explain it to myself. I just started painting and gradually deciphering this phenomenon. – Lisette Lepik

The exhibition will be open until the 3rd of February. After the opening of the exhibition it can be visited by arrangement by writing an email to lisette.lepik@gmail.com or calling +372 53313428. 

Uus Rada is a community art space run collaboratively by the second year Masters of Contemporary Arts Students in the former Raja gallery space.

Curatorial assistance for the exhibition from Sophie Durand.

Graphic design: Cristopher Siniväli

The artist thanks: Elisa Margot Winters, Olivia Soans

Facebook event

On Saturday, 22 January Kelli Gedvil’s  solo exhibition “Purifying Your Skin” will open in the small gallery of the Tartu Art House. The exhibition is curated by Hanna-Liisa Lavonen.

The exhibition focuses on the methods by which virtual and physical tools change the look and texture of human skin as a material. The modified skin on advertisements looks soft, smooth and flawless. The dissonance between the real and the manipulated makes us crave for the artificial beauty standards and the advertised products seem like otherworldly magical potions. This, however, results in a frustrating cycle when one product, which was advertised as omnipotent, is followed by another, that is equally as ineffective.

By removing the physical and virtual manipulations from the skin, we notice its diverse and hidden ecosystem. This protective, elastic material reveals pores, pimples, wrinkles, sebum, and the creatures that help with its functioning. The present exhibition shows how our obsessive desire to improve our skin based on false visuals can make us forget about the real and natural dermal texture and its individual characteristics.

Kelli Gedvil (b 1994) has graduated from the Department of Painting (BA) and the Department of Contemporary Art (MA) at the Estonian Academy of Arts. She has also studied as an exchange student at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts and the Valand Academy in Sweden. Besides Estonia, she has participated in exhibitions in Sweden, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Hungary and Poland. Gedvil is the co-founder of the artist group Robin Ellis Meta and the gallerist and web developer at the online gallery post-gallery.online. This is her first solo exhibition in Tartu.

The exhibition is accompanied by a sound design by Natalia Anna Wójcik.

The technical support of the exhibition was provided by Ian-Simon Märjama.

Artist thanks: Egle Ehtjen, Kaupo Haukanõmm, Anti Kidron, Leegi Kiis, Madli Lippur, Kristen Rästas, Sten Saarits, Liina Siib.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and open until 20 February.

www.kunstimaja.ee

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.

Students of the Design and Technology Futures curriculum of EKA and TalTech will present the 3,000 utopias created during the autumn semester of Paide Theater on the “Shadow Council Committee Day” starting on Sunday, January 23 at 10.00 am. Guest of the day is Kersti Kaljulaid.

Utopias were designed with locals and people from Paide using a variety of co-design methods. In shaping the future, the problems were approached from different possibilities and four different scenarios were created:
1) how we eat in the future
2) how we plan the city and the community together with the vision
3) how we learn and
4) how we perceive time.

SCHEDULE:

10–11.30 – TalTech and EKA Design and Technology Futures students present the utopia of a small town they have created
11.30-11.45 break
11.45–12.45 Kersti Kaljulaid talks about her experiences with local governments
12.45-13.30 noon
13.30–16 Discussion rounds “Five actions that bring us closer to the utopia of a small town, but which do not require an additional 10 million in the city budget, but the joint contribution of the community”

The course is supervised by Martin Pärn, Francesco Martinez and Ruth-Helene Melioranski.

“Shadow Council Committee Day” is a discussion day on Sunday dedicated to the meeting, during which the shadow commissioners discuss all the topics that reach the city council in Paide. Each committee meeting will be opened by one expert’s insight, followed by a public hearing open to all those present.

More information on Facebook

Team AEGLA

Leaving calendars and rushing behind, we make room for action and different time rhythms. A system that takes into account and combines different tempos supports an environment where time is a value and its enjoyment is essential.

Team VISIONARY

A concept created to intensify the visions of Paide through interactive experiences

Team PARENG

The method of acquiring knowledge for a practical future

What would happen if the traditional upper secondary school system no longer existed and young people could build their own curriculum based on individual characteristics? “Pareng” introduces a vision of the future of the method of acquiring knowledge, in the development of which the young people of Paide participated.

Current solo exhibition “Of Becoming a Land(Scape)” serves as the third part of Britta Benno’s artistic research in the doctoral school at the Estonian Academy of Arts with the working title “Thinking in Layers, Imagining in Layers: Posthumanist Landscapes in the Extended Field of Drawing and Printmaking”.
Pre-reviewing of the exhibition will take place on 12.02.2022.

The protagonist in Benno’s last project in the series of personal exhibitions of the doctoral programme is landscape that formerly has appeared in a background role in Benno’s artwork. Image is becoming abstract and architecture is backing away from the stage. A layered landscape comes forth, the rocks in earth’s crust reveal themselves underneath the soil. At the same time, the crystallization of posthumanist philosophy in Britta Benno’s artistic (self)definition reveals itself through the agency of minerals. University of Tartu Natural History Museum with its collection of minerals is situated in the close proximity to Tartu Art House. Museum-like expositions, striped textures of fossils and conversations with geologists place the exhibition both to local time-space and the timeless spirit of art and science.

Tectonic layers are alive, moving and breathing, forming mountains and flooding continents. The layers arise from above while shaking and cracking holes and fissures to the earth’s crust. Similarly to the sunrise on the horizon, layers of gas and oil in the depths of earth emerge towards the surface and slowly transform the earth’s landscape. At the same time, somewhere another soil goes down in the depths of earth. In order to imagine the future, one has to look at the past to form a better understanding about the present.

Britta Benno comments on her artistic method: „While imagining the earth’s layers I am working with the means of art in layers. In a way, working in layers can be also called a method of piling up.  Materials, tracks and images cover each other just like the layers of Earth form a huge globe. How should one call the large-format artwork made of canvas, frame, coat, prints, watercolour, coal, acrylic paints, ink and plexiglass? Modelling paste, fabric and other (found) materials in combination with metamorphic rocks in litosphere, in the depths of earth, create new conceptual landscapes. Poetically flowing mountains can be also discovered while observing the heap of blanket on my bed, on a topographic map or in atlas of imaginary beings.”

Collaborational input to the exhibition works: Ragnar Neljandi (cameraman, animator, post-production), Kassandra Laur, Iti Oja, Kristiina Tali (installation), Juhan Vihterpal (composer).

The artist expresses her gratitude to: Laine Groeneweg (Smokestack Studio Hamilton), Pudy Tong (Open Studio Toronto),  Robert Zeigler (Cotton Factory Hamilton), Madis Kaasik (Prototyping Lab manager at the Estonian Academy of Arts), Mare Isakar, Juho Kirs (holder of geology collections at the University of Tartu, consultant), printmaking workshop of the Estonian Academy of Arts, Katrin Piile, Elnara Taidre.

Supporters: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Academy of Arts, Nukufilm OÜ.

Video games museum LVLup! in Tallinn used to be the first and only one in the Baltics, but from the 15th of January until the 10th of April the cosy atmosphere of the museum will be recreated in the Narva Art Residency (NART). The project “VGA” invites guests to enjoy retro video games and reflect on the impact they’ve had on our culture through the perspective of contemporary art.

The project “VGA” (Video Games & Arts) is done in cooperation with LVLUp! museum, curator Juhan Soomets and Narva Art Residency. Johanna Rannula, the head of NART, said “In the nineties, video games were played at game rooms that were often located in the basements, so the basement of the residency was perfect for the museum. It’s also a way to bring new people to art exhibitions. Once they’ve finished playing games, the visitors go up the stairs and find themselves at an art exhibition that opens the subject from different perspectives. The two fields have not been juxtaposed in this way in Estonia before. It is unique, especially for Narva.”

In the last month, the project team has collected Soviet-era furniture across Ida-Virumaa. They needed to find 24 floor lamps, 10 sofas, 13 carpets, 4 armchairs, 5 stools, 11 TV tables, 4 curtain rods, curtains, cabinets, 2 coffee tables, many houseplants and a box of old vinyl. Now everything is ready for guests to travel back in time and spend time with friends and family playing Nintendo, Sega, Sony PlayStation, Guitar Hero and other legendary video games.

On the first floor is an exhibition of contemporary art called “Näotus” (‘Facelessness’), which makes sense of the video game collection and gives it new meanings. The exhibition is curated by Juhan Soomets and it includes works by Oleg Frolov (RU), Denisa Stefanigova (CZ), Alexei Gordin, Anna Shkodenko, Henri Hütt, Danel Kahar, Mihkel Kleis, Raul Keller, Kaspar P. Loit (EST).

The project opens on January 15 at 3 pm, admission is free. The opening day program includes curators’ tours, video game tournaments (and prizes for the winners!). The curators, DJ Nextraxx and DJ Суперюкс Лимитед, will be playing the music as well.

From January 16 to April 10, Narva Art Residency will be open as follows: the art exhibition “Näotus” is open Wed – Sun from 2 pm to 6 pm.

The video game museum LVLup! WarpRoom is open Wed – Sun from 2 pm to 9 pm. Bring your slippers!

The project is being implemented in partnership with the British Council under the People to People Cultural Engagement program.

Photos

Additional information

The exhibition “Remake” of EKA Art Education students can be seen on the information screens of EKA from January 14 to February 4.

The works of the art education students were completed within the “Creative project” subject .

Artists: Inga Ausmeel, Liina Oja, Liina Raidoja, Marju Rajasalu, Lilli-Krõõt Repnau, Triin Resik, Tanel Roomere, Piret Suviste, Zhanna Toht, Kertu Tort, Kalev Vapper, Merle Vingerfeld, Viire Jagomägi

Supervised by Anna-Kaisa Vita

The works can be seen on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th floors of EKA and on the screen of the auditorium on the Kotzebue street side. Videos with sound on the 2nd floor screen. 

More about EKA Art Education studies

“The Science of Freedom”
Third act of the 18th Tallinn Print Triennial main exhibition “Warm. Checking Temperature in Three Acts”
22.01—26.02.2022
Tue-Sat at 12—18 pm
Opening and curators’ tour: 21.01 at 3 pm.

Curator: Róna Kopeczky
Artists: Olson Lamaj, Igor Eškinja, Flo Kasearu, Nada Prlja, Katja Novitskova and Bojan Stojčić

Join us for the opening of the exhibition “The Science of Freedom” on January 21 at 3 pm at EKA Gallery! The curator will give an exhibition tour at the event. Entrance with Covid certificate.

“Warm. Checking Temperature in Three Acts” is a multi-part exhibition that primarily gives thought to the radical political, cultural and social turns that affect Central and Eastern Europe, and it also inscribes these changes in a global perspective through the lens of universal absurdity. The project gives voice to contemporary artists based in or originating from the Central and Eastern European region who reflect boldly and critically on burning issues such as the rise of far-right politics, globally misplaced priorities, the collapse of democracies, the shrinking of freedom – in both life and art – and the general sense of conditioned fear and hostility prevailing today.

Inviting artists from the regional contemporary art scene with existing works and new commissions, Warm comprises three intertwined cycles entitled The Nation Loves It, Pickle Politics and The Science of Freedom. The imaginary, conceptual theatre play that embraces these three acts is conceived as dramatic and intensifying narration. It articulates around the spectacles of absurdity with the intention to dissect, appropriate and distort them, but also to playfully propose humour and derision as an intellectual antidote or an imagined alternative that builds on visionary defiance and poetic escapism.

The third act entitled “The Science of Freedom” presents a variety of proposals to counteract the oppressing situations of present times by referring loosely to natural sciences, biological and mathematical systems that, sublimed by imagination and given unknown forms, allow to visualise alternative ways to exist, perceive and behave. Humour, poetics and absurdity are the main conceptual pillars of this section and are employed to playfully divert or lyrically distort reality through the gentle negation of fixed roles or functions. In this newly created situation, instincts prevail over order and discipline, and make space for rethinking the unquestionable rules of our existence, imagining and demanding the impossible, and ultimately freeing ourselves from existing and imposed frames.

18th Tallinn Print Triennial venues: KAI Art Center | Temnikova & Kasela Gallery | Põhjala Brewery and Tap Room | EKA Gallery | Liszt Institute Tallinn | Flo Kasearu House Museum | Kanuti Gildi Saal