Exhibitions

A joint exhibition by Tiit Pääsuke and Kris Lemsalu, the stars of two different art generations, at the Tallinn Art Hall.
A large-scale, as well as playful and colourful, dialogue between two top artists from different generations will open at the Tallinn Art Hall. The exhibition will provide the viewers with a survey of the works produced by Tiit Pääsuke, and by Kris Lemsalu, who is well known for being active on the international art arena. Inspired by each other, both authors have also produced new works for exhibition, which will be open until May 1st.
You are invited to the exhibition opening on 18 March at 6 p.m.!
Curator Tamara Luuk has created a surprising cross-generational dialogue in the exhibition with the participation of Tiit Pääsuke, the grand old man of Estonian painting, and Kris Lemsalu, a rising star in the international contemporary art scene.
“Two artists – Tiit Pääsuke (b. 1941) who established himself forcefully and firmly among Estonia’s top painters in the 70s and Kris Lemsalu, born in 1985, who was educated as a ceramicist, developed into a nomad and is now marking the art landscape as a powerful crustacean, have much in common visually: an intensity and synchronicity of colours and subject matter, which includes a substantial number of animals and women. And they are connected by the taxidermic quality, dramatic theatricality and significance of their work,” says the curator.
The independence and originality of these two artistic characters form the basis for the exhibition. Beauty and the Beast does not aspire to set the work of one artist in opposition to the other, or to make them dependent on each other.
The exhibition exudes a delight in old and new myths, as well as being as ritual. Tamara Luuk: “Lemsalu fills a gap in Estonian art history, with its dearth of “primitive energy” that works with real, wild and authentic images. Pääsuke is a sensitive master and professional, who has recognised the power of this immediate and raw cross-cultural power and who, without betraying his erudition and resources, is moving towards this primeval power and towards Kris.”
Jean Cocteau’s film Beauty and the Beast from 1946 will be screened at the Sõprus Cinema on March 23rd at 8 p.m. The film will be introduced by curator Tamara Luuk. The film is in French with English subtitles.
The exhibition was designed by Neeme Külm, installed by Valge Kuup, and the educational programme was developed in collaboration with Sally Stuudio.
Thank you: Estonian Contemporary Art Development Center, Outset Eesti, Estonian Artists Association, Surfhouse, UBC Eesti, Sõprus Cinema, NO99, Tallinn Art Ceramic Factory, Vaike Pääsuke, Riho and Margit Lemsalu, Katharina Aus, Ingrid and Andres Allik, Railey Harmond, Kerli Praks, Olga Temnikova, Kadri Karro, Risto Kalmre, Martin Kuum, Kristopher Luigend, Jan Moszumanski, Mart Norman
Art Museum of Estonia, Tartmus, Tõnis Arro, Lilja Blumenfeld, Jüri Hain, Epp-Maria Kokamägi, Rene Kuulmann, Marje Lohuaru, Janek Mäggi, Maria Mägi-Rohtmets, Indrek Orro, Epp Rebane, Ain Tähiste
Tiit Pääsuke and Kris Lemsalu. Beauty and the Beast
Curator Tamara Luuk
Tallinn Art Hall
19 March – 1 May 2016
Vabaduse väljak 8
Wed-Sun, Noon – 6 p.m., € 3.50/€ 2.50
www.kunstihoone.ee
More information:
Tamara Luuk, curator
tamara@kunstihoone.ee
Press release by:
Anneli Porri
anneli@kunstihoone.ee

LadyFest Tallinn 2016 presents:
Exhibition “Welcome me Estonia. Добро пожаловать мне в Эстонии. Tere tulemast mulle Eestis” will be opened at Rundum artist-run space (Pärnu mnt 154, courtyard building of the ARS House) on Tuesday 8 March at 18:00.

The LadyFest team has organised art workshops at the Vao refugee centre since November 2015. The series of workshops has been a process to get to know the Vao residents, make them feel welcome and offer opportunities for self-expression in different artistic media. The workshops brought the participants variance to their relatively isolated environment and created a situation for communicating and spending time together in an enriching and creative way. Our visits to the centre showed us that this was appreciated mostly by mothers whose daily life consists of looking after their underage children, cleaning and doing laundry. At the same time they don’t have any personal space because the temporary accommodation is shared in addition to family members also with strangers. The exhibition is the outcome of this process. It doesn’t use Vao residents as material for art, but rather offers them a platform for self-realisation and expression, for communicating among themselves and with others living in Estonia. The exhibition renders the lives of Vao residents visible in a direct and personal manner and unlike the mainstream media does it on their terms. This allows us to see them not as intruders but as human beings and hopefully make the Estonian people become more considerate towards the asylum seekers and promote fair treatment of minorities.
The workshops took place in cooperation with the Accommodation Centre for Asylum Seekers (Vao Centre).

Exhibition participants: Ahmed from Egypt, Irina from Ukraine, Maret from Ingushetia, Olga and Mira from Ukraine, Qeta from Georgia, Sattar Ilyas from Balochistan, Sonia from Dagestan, Zahra from Afghanistan and Umar Saleem from Pakistan.

Exhibition and workshop organisers: Minna Hint, Mari-Leen Kiipli, Pire Sova and Killu Sukmit.

The vernissage will take place together with the opening of LadyFest Tallinn 2016 at Rundum artist-run space on Tuesday 8 March at 18:00. The vernissage will be accompanied by an informal discussion panel.

The exhibited art works are for sale with all the revenue going to the respective author in full.

During the vernissage Vao residents will offer for purchase home-made dishes with the revenue going directly to the cook. Please remember to bring cash.

NB! We kindly ask you not to take any photos, film or record sound during the opening.

Exhibition opening times:
8 March – 20 March 2016
Tue–Sun 13:00–18:00
Wed (9 March) 13:00–17:30

Exhibition is supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Council of the Gambling Tax
Rundum is supported by Ministry of Culture of Estonia

Thanks: Vao Centre, Jana Selesneva, Pille Õnnepalu, Lilli-Krõõt Repnau, Liisi Eelmaa, Camille Laurelli, Giulia, Taavi Timm, Kirill Tulin, Mattias Agabus, Katrin Essenson, Berit Renser, Riinu Rahuoja, Enli and Tarmo Kiipli, Martin Rünk

More info:
www.ladyfest.ee
www.facebook.com/ladyfesttln
www.rundumspace.com
www.facebook.com/rundumspace

On Friday 11 March Tartmus will open the international group exhibition “On Disappearing And For Vanishing”.

Participating artists: Susanne Bürner, Kris Lemsalu, Mikk Madisson, Ivan Moudov, Rabih Mroué, Hito Steyerl, Laivi, Danila Tkachenko and Ivar Veermäe

Curator: Sten Ojavee

On Friday 11 March Tartmus will open the international group exhibition “On Disappearing And For Vanishing”. Works by nine contemporary artists will be shown, all in one way or another dealing with the theme of disappearance from present-day society. The aim of the exhibition is to discover the aspects that facilitate the disappearance of a person and to offer the viewer different approaches to the beauty and the tragedy of vanishing. The exhibition will remain open until 29 May.

There are good and bad reasons for disappearing from society and there are better and worse ways to do it. This exhibition looks at the reasons for disappearance (why people decide to disappear) and the various methods of achieving it. Most disappearances have been shadowed by negative and tragic events that are then broadcast through the media. In parallel with these events, the topic of escaping is also considered, with its aim of leaving a bad situation and striving for a more fulfilling life.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication that works as a guide, containing an introduction to the exhibition and essays explaining the works. The 32-page Estonian and English booklet was edited by Sten Ojavee, and the graphic designer of both the exhibition and the booklet is Viktor Gurov. For visitors the publication is free.

On 14 April, the survival instructor Erki Vaikre will talk about the possibilities of disappearing from Estonian society and the means of surviving. Vaikre will be interviewed by the curator, Sten Ojavee. Guided tours and meetings with the artists will also take place.

Additional information on the exhibition’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1113376842047210/

Press photo: Documentation of the work Teleporting Machine by Ivan Moudov. Photo: Alexander Gerganov

Exhibition design and graphic design: Viktor Gurov

Exhibition team: Marika Agu, Nele Ambos, Rael Artel, Karl Feigenbaum, Margus Joonsalu, Aap Kirsel, Julia Polujanenkova, Kristel Sibul, Ago Teedema and Urmo Teekivi

Lenders: Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Temnikova & Kasela Gallery, Tallinn

Supporter: Cultural Endowment of Estonia

Special thanks: Retro-Boho-Vintage Stuudio

Thanks: Markus Åström, Christiane Berndes, Virginija Januskevičiūtė, Tartu Art House, Martin Luiga, Rein Muuluka, Valerie Oleynik, AS Retent, Constanza Zähringer, Airi Triisberg and Marcia Vissers

Additional information:
Sten Ojavee
Coordinator of the Exhibition Department
Phone: 00372 5881 7802
Email: sten@tartmus.ee

TARTMUS
Tartu Art Museum
Raekoja plats 18
Tartu, Estonia
Thu 11–21
www.tartmus.ee
www.facebook.com/tartmus
www.instagram.com/tartmus

Jaan Toomik
First Slumber
Art Hall Gallery
4 March – 3 April 2016
After the solo exhibition at the Temnikova and Kasela Gallery that ended in January, in which he snickered about the beauty of aging, Jaan Toomik now steps into the madness of the outside world, which he drags onto a home yard decorated with an idol enthroned on a sawing block and a log that is growing out an axe handle.
Each of Jaan Toomik’s exhibitions is realised in a rhythm and context that is his alone, according to his logic and in a light focused by him. While the interrelation of the artist’s works and message may seem disconnected and uneven to the viewer, it is the next exhibition that reveals the continuity and meaning. And, as Hanno Soans notes, the fact something very significant* is present in the artist’s discontinuity is meaningful. His honesty in the documentation of himself as a place of reflection (Alina Astrova’s astute expression)** is comprised of a large number of premonitions and seemingly irrational connections, which whip both the artist and the interpreters of his work toward ever greater precision. Toomik’s ability is not only to capture and halt feeling and thought, but he has the power to actuate and start them up. The latter is much greater than the intimacy that is visible on the surface. It is the unformulated engine that moves all of us. So who can say they are not affected?
This exhibition continues the characteristic feature of Toomik’s recent exhibitions: alongside the dark and dull colour combinations typical of the artist, we see explosive paintings borne by the intensity of orange and violet. Compared to a fear of the unknown and longing for intimacy that immediately gets under your skin, there is a delayed inevitability and inescapability to the brightness of these paintings. This inevitability has the power to wake people from their slumber and the ability to help the set up the next frame of a long film that talks about life. About life, which as long as it is ticking, is always a sequel that becomes an image.
*Hanno Soans. Elu surmasuunaline voolus. Sirp, 18 December.2015
**Alina Astrova’s press release for Jaan Toomik’s exhibition Smells Like Old Men’s Spirit at the Temnikova and Kasela Gallery 5 November 2015 – 9 January 2016
Art Hall Gallery
4 March – 3 April 2016
Vabaduse väljak 6
Wed-Sun 12 noon to 6 p.m., free
www.kunstihoone.ee
More information:
Jaan Toomik – jaantoomik@gmail.com
Press release compiled by:
Tamara Luuk
tamara@kunstihoone.ee

The Open Day at the Estonian Academy of Arts will take place on March 24, 2016 from 10am-6pm. If you are a foreign student and need guidance in English, please contact admissions@artun.ee to register for a tour.  The programme is posted in Estonian here: https://www.artun.ee/x/avatuduksed/kava/

The Estonian Academy of Arts will hold an Open Day for all interested prospective students and others on March 24th, 2016. All lectures are open for visitors as well as there will be exhibits, information hours in departments and other activities. All are welcome! More information will be available soon.

Rundum Prooviruum: Kristin Reiman
idle time disquiet
12.01-17.01.2016, Rundum artist-run space, Pärnu mnt. 154
On Tuesday, 12 January at 18:00 Kristin Reiman will open her exhibition idle time disquiet at Rundum artist-run space (Pärnu mnt. 154). Artist talk will follow at 18:30.
“Only I didn’t know that the constant mild unease was boredom. /…/ We were all thoroughly numbed by boredom. There was nothing we could do to escape it, with its uninterrupted droning and flickering.”
– Marlen Haushofer “The Wall”
Idle time is the time associated with waiting, or when something is not being used while it could be. The amount of free time could be used for anything, yet the potential is so vast it generates anxiousness and every possibility seems distant. One ends up doing nothing and falling into boredom. The boredom, however, is a nervous boredom: pacing, loitering, fidgeting, passing time just to pass time, pointless movements and the repetition of them, waiting for something to start while not aware of what it is, feeling unsatisfied and not knowing what to do. The momentum of movement is kept in order to occupy oneself and hide the uneasiness of the lack of purpose. When still, every small movement, like the flickering of lights or humming of electricity, becomes induced, driving one disquiet to escape it.
Kristin Reiman (1992) is studying in the Installation and Sculpture department of the Estonian Academy of Arts, has been on exchange studies in Antwerpen Royal Academy of Arts and completed a traineeship in the Estonian Pavilion in the 56th Venice Biennale. Since 2012, Reiman has actively exhibited her work in Estonia and abroad, including Lithuania and Belgium.
Exhibition will stay open til 17. January
Opening hours: every day 13:00 – 18:00
Address: Pärnu mnt 154
Rundum is supported by the Estonian Ministry of Culture
For more information:
www.rundumspace.com
https://www.facebook.com/rundumspace
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www.rundumspace.com
https://www.facebook.com/rundumspace

PRESS RELEASE
Tallinn Art Hall
Ülle Marks & Jüri Kass
Vüüming
Art Hall Gallery
17.12.2015 – 10.01.2016

You are cordially invited to the opening on December 18th at 5 p.m!

This exhibition of drawings called Vüüming denotes initiation and dedication. Be it the initiation into the skill and nature of drawing or being a man/woman.

The generation of designers and architects who arrived in Estonian art during the late 1960s shook the relationship between professionalism and innovativeness, introducing outsiders amongst those who approached the art world through a single art medium. The newcomers associated with their surroundings as a collective body, a living environment, which included an awareness of style and trend creation, as well as the will and ability to change the urban space and quality of life. By the late 1970s and early 1980s – a time when Jüri Kass (s. 1956) had already entered art and design graphics – Andres Tolts, Jüri Okas, Ando Keskküla, Leo Lapin, Villu Järmut, Ülo Emmus, Silver Vahtre and many others had already established themselves in the fine arts. Some predominantly, others as a sideline. Even today Jüri Kass has one foot in design and the other in art.
Ülle Marks (b.1963) completed a traditional in-depth programme in one medium – graphic arts. At the end of the 1980s, when her works started appearing in exhibitions, Estonian graphic art as a trademark was already waiting for her with: a) a large number of emotionally supersensitive and labour-intensive female artists whose skills were Ülleunsurpassable; b) Estonian art scene in general was undergoing great changes. Ülle Marks brought with her a powerfully generalised and focused image and an expressively traced line, which culminated in Grand Prix awards at the 1992 Tallinn Print Triennial and Intergrafia’94 World Award Winners Gallery in Katowice, Poland.

When Ülle and Jüri joined forces at the end of the decade, a strong tandem was born, which was active in both: in the graphic art and design landscape. “A few years ago, in collaboration with Jüri Kass, Ülle Marks, who garnered the most prizes in graphics during the 1990s, made a change in direction and started using digital photos. Marks and Kass command the situation splendidly, by demonstrating an effective symbiosis of graphic art and photography,” Eha Komissarov wrote in 2000.
Black-and-white asceticism and the expressiveness of the human body – whether zoomed in or out, in close-ups or movement seen from a distance – captivated them both and still do. Time and again they return to difficult and meaningful messages, searching for simplicity and purity in the world order. “The rediscovered old seems new,” (Kreg A-Kristring about Jüri Kass’s paintings at the Sammas Gallery, 2001) and “Based on international experience, there is a fatiguing amount of mixing on the technical side of the global graphic picture. The high-quality command of classical graphic techniques is quite an elitist phenomenon,” (interview with Jüri Kass by Urve Eslas in the Postimees newspaper, 2007).

This exhibition of drawings called Vüüming denotes initiation and dedication. Be it the initiation into the skill and nature of drawing or being a man/woman – Jüri’s monumental resolute guards, who surround Ülle’s transparent figures brimming with vulnerable hesitation, are filled with a longing for order and values and the readiness to defend them.

Art Hall Gallery
17 December 2015 – 10 January 2016
Vabaduse väljak 6
Wed-Sun 12 noon to 6 p.m., free
www.kunstihoone.ee

More information:
Jüri Kass: jyrikass@hot.ee
Ülle Marks: ylle.marks@artun.ee

Press release compiled by:
Tamara Luuk
tamara@kunstihoone.ee

Tõnis Laanemaa – graphic artist and painter
The group of young artists called ANK-64 bears a resemblance to EKR (Group of Estonian Artists), and was also established in the modernism-keen decade. It lasted, despite the different individual traits of its members, for quite some time, gradually becoming a legend. It was not possible to register such a group in the 1960s, nor did it have a constitution, but the members were united in a certain closeness of aesthetic ideals. Compared to the previous generation, the ANK members, with their strikingly individual style and associative symbols-images, came closer to contemporary international art. The dominant trend in the latter was pop art, which expressed the mentality of urbanism, mass culture and the consumer era in a language influenced by advertising, comic strips, and the tabloid media. It was also affected by the radical manifestations of the early decades of the 20th namely collage and assemblage. Pop art had taken root in a different society from which young Estonian artists developed. Features typical of a Western society and way of life were only beginning to turn up here, and the postmodernist eclecticism and social context of pop art aesthetics became more comprehensible a bit later, which was reflected in the work of the group SOUP-69. The ANK-like reception of pop art was essentially aesthetic; searching for style was also influenced by the legacy of the past, namely Art Nouveau and rediscovering symbolism of the time, which blended with impulses received from the barely half-a-century-old surrealism as a reactivated modernist trend. Constructing your own “aesthetic universe”, as Elnara Taidre described the work of Tõnis Vint, characterised other ANK members as well. Tõnis Laanemaa also aspired towards this, although he was not as focused as some other young graphic artists. He studied graphic art at the State Art Institute from 1961 to 1966. His graduate work was a series of tourism posters. As early as in 1961 he was elected as Chairman of the Student Research Society. A year later he was replaced by Tõnis Vint. Through the Society, Laanemaa initiated student exhibitions in the Tartu University café and Tõravere Observatory. The student display in 1964 was the first of his numerous later exhibitions. The first individual exhibition at the Tallinn Art Salon took place in 1970, after which he was admitted to the Estonian Artists’ Association. He could be compared with the graphic artist Vello Vinn who did not belong to the ANK group. Both used the novel technique of etching in relief printing: Vinn – white lines against a black background (Crab, Cat), Laanemaa – red lines against a black or brown background (Spiral I-II). Vinn’s works displayed clarity of detail and rigid symmetry of composition that characterised his later style as well. These were in a tense relationship with the gloomy, ominous and anxiety-inducing emotional impact of his symbols. In Laanemaa’s etchings, the associative undercurrent could be perceived much more weakly, the emotional content was more on the surface, expressed directly via a dynamic confusion of lines where details tended to dissolve. This approach, that largely ignored details, was influenced by a wave of abstract work in Estonian art in the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s. The artist presented similar works (Flight, Youth, Archers, all 1971) also at the 2nd produced one of his most successful posters for that exhibition.
The posters he displayed at his exhibition in 1975, clearly show the artist’s skill in the field that however remained secondary in his overall work. The relief print etchings he presented at the 3rd Two Clouds, 1974) reflected the increasing general interest in the surrounding reality in its specificity, or to be more precise – in urbanising milieux, mainly expressed by the generation of young artists who followed ANK. In rapidly changing contemporary art, generations follow one another after much shorter intervals than is normally estimated in human life.
In Laanemaa’s case too, it mattered that he was a few years older than the other ANK members, as he studied at the Tartu Art School between 1952 and 1957 where he acquired some home truths about composition. The latter did not make him exceptional in ANK: there were, after all, compositions of Jüri Arrak or Enno Ootsing in the 1970s (born in 1936 and 1940, respectively). Against the general image of ANK, Laanemaa’s “social sensitivity” stood out, a fact also mentioned by Riin Kübarsepp (Riin Kübarsepp, Anne Untera. Tõnis Laanemaa. Tallinn 2009). Besides the etching Wheels depicting rolling car wheels and the sheet To the Country showing parachutists, mention should be made of works by other young artists of the time tackling rather similar topics: Tiit Pääsuke’s painting In the Forest with a Car (1973), Kaisa Puustak’s sheets Flight and Railway with a Cloud (1974) in vernis mou-aquatint technique.
Tallinn Print Triennial. He Triennial (Wheels, To the Country, Between In the 1970s, artists aspired for photographic impression not only in traditional techniques, but photographs were used more directly as well. Laanemaa, too, was taken with this trend. Photo etching At the Dog Show (1976) secured him – together with etchings Race and Clouds – a purchase award at the 4th and the graphic artists really made an effort for these forums in their specialty. Laanemaa took part in the 5th Artists and a Super-excavator (1977). His enthusiasm for experimenting faded in the 1980s, and he produced works in line etching with more modest ambitions, such as Dance Party on St John’s Eve (1983) based on linear rhythms), Sunday on Horses (1983), Organ Concert in St Nicholas Church on 25 August 1991 (1991) and views of Tallinn.
Earlier, Tõnis Laanemaa had already begun cultivating vedutas. Some of his etchings resembling old vedutas became very popular, such as View of Tallinn with St Olaf’s Church and View of Tallinn with St Nicholas Church (1972), which were also displayed at exhibitions of Estonian graphic art abroad. Urban views were much in demand and to some extent this is still the case today. After graduating from the Art Institute, Laanemaa worked as a designer at the workshop called Ars and the Directory of Leisure Parks. In 1992 he became a freelance artist and had to adapt to the new requirements, as traditional vedutas are no longer much cultivated. This inspired him to display his urban views in the Helleman Tower in Tallinn in 2009. In the new century he has been actively exhibiting all across Estonia, involving his students at his drawing and painting studio. Selections of works often depend on the venue. For example at the exhibition in the Narva Museum’s Art Gallery in 2008 he presented large-format sheets about nature in eastern Virumaa county (Here, on the Northern Coast, The Valaste Fir, 2004, drypoint, relief print), and photo prints of the Kreenholm factory (Old Kreenholm Factory, 2007).The latter are the most successful he has done in the increasingly popular technique. On the occasion of his 70th displayed both gravures and drawings at the National Library. Besides teaching at his drawing and painting studio, he draws a lot, especially nudes. The current vigorous expressive manner of drawing brings to mind the earlier drawings from his ANK-period; like with many older artists, he can also be characterised by un retour à la jeunesse – a return to youth. Laanemaa is very fond of French and even writes poems in that language. In June 2012, together with Küllike Pihlap, he organised an exhibition of photographic prints in Triennial in 1977. The triennials had a stimulating impact triennial as well, with two outstanding etchings, Architecture (1980) and Alatskivi Castle titled Estonian and French Castles, thus marking his 75th “A return to youth” is also expressed in recent frequent displays of his paintings. After all, the artist studied painting at the Tartu Art School and showed one painting – Clouds – at his first personal exhibition. The main motif running through his newer paintings (series Timespace, and others) is the female nude, depicted in a poster-like manner, in intensive basic colours. Paintings, just like drawings, reflect the impact of Neo-expressionism and Neo-pop, demonstrating the artist’s ability to welcome modern trends, just as he did in the period of ANK.
Mai Levin