Category: Faculty of Art and Culture

On November 25th at 5.30 pm, Dan Karlholm from Södertörn University will give a lecture “The Climate of Art History” at the Estonian Academy of Arts (room A-501).

Drawing on Dipesh Chakrabarty’s classic essay “The Climate of History”, where he argues that world history and earth history must be seen as conjoined histories, the lecture discusses art history through the lens of climate change, how our discipline is impacted by the “New Climatic Regime” and how it can contribute to ecologizing the world.

Dan Karlholm is Professor of Art History, Södertörn University. Karlholm is founder (with Charlotte Bydler and Håkan Nilsson as co-founders) of the Art History Department at Södertörn University in 2003. He is also editor of Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History (Taylor & Francis/Routledge) since 2009. Karlholms research interests revolve around historiography, including the history and theory of art history in Sweden, Germany and in general, as well as museum studies, visual culture studies, and the issue of temporality and contemporaneity. Research projects in recent years have dealt with contemporary art from various perspectives.

Lecture will be held in English.
Covid certificates will be checked at the entrance of the lecture hall, masks are obligatory.

Lecture is supported by the ASTRA project of the Estonian Academy of Arts – EKA LOOVKÄRG (European Union, European Regional Development Fund).

Greta Koppel, PhD student of the Estonian Academy of Arts, curriculum of Art History and Visual Culture, will defend her thesis „Farewell to Connoisseurship? The Work of Art in the Focus of Art Historical Research” („Hüvasti, konossöörlus? Kunstiteos kui kunstiajaloolise uurimise kese“) on 10th of December 2021 at 15.00 at Põhja pst 7, room A501.

Limited number of audience can participate on-site, please register HERE
Please provide certificate of vaccination or recovery from COVID-19.

The defense will be held in Estonian.

Supervisor: Prof.  Krista Kodres (Estonian Academy of Arts)
External reviewers: Dr. Anu Mänd (Tallinn University), Dr. Jaanika Anderson (University of Tartu Museum)
Opponent: Dr. Anu Mänd

This dissertation (Farewell to Connoisseurship? The Work of Art in the Focus of Art Historical Research) deals with problems related to the study of the art of the Old Masters. The research paper reflects the author’s experience based on years of researching and curating Early Modern art at the museum. Works of art as musealised objects have played a central role in this work.

The dissertation emphasises that a multifaceted study based on a close study of works of art that takes into account each work as a whole, i.e. its material and intellectual sides, enables us to obtain valuable information for the study of a particular object but also for analysing broader historical and cultural phenomena. In the case of old works of art, connoisseurship is a significant component of such research. The author introduces the concept of connoisseurship, which is almost unknown as a professional term in Estonia, provides a survey of the long history of connoisseurship as a competence of recognising art(ists), discusses the closely intertwined relationship between modern connoisseurship and technical art history, introduces the specifics of the research method, and explains why this skill is irreplaceable in identifying the authors of works of art and why this competence is worth preserving in art history practice even if one has no interest in the question of the author. It also explains how the critical analysis of the connoisseurship method makes it possible to better understand the specifics of art history as a humanistic discipline. The section on connoisseurship is followed by three case studies related to the author’s curatorial practice at the Art Museum of Estonia, which illustrate the importance of connoisseurship as an object-led, multifaceted close study of works of art in art historical research. The first case discusses the problems of reconstructing the oeuvre of Michel Sittow (ca 1469 – 1525), an itinerant painter from Tallinn; in the second, 16th century Netherlandish Boschian art is the focus, and the last case, research on Johannes Mikkel’s (1907–2006) collection, emphasises its value as historical documentation.

Members of the Defence Council: Prof. Virve Sarapik, Dr. Anu Allas, Dr. Anneli Randla, Prof. Juhan Maiste, Prof. Marek Tamm, Prof. Tõnu Viik, Dr. Kadi Polli

Please find the PhD thesis HERE

Online-discussion “Environmentalising Baltic Art Histories: Experience from Research and Curatorship” on 2 November at 5.30-7.30 PM EEST

Participants: Bart Pushaw, Inga Lace, Eda Tuulberg, Nomeda and Gediminas Urbanis, Maja and Reuben Fowkes

Moderators: Ieva Astahovska, Linda Kaljundi

The discussion invites researchers and curators to talk about their experiences of writing and curating Baltic art history from ecocritical and environmental perspectives. How to trace and interpret environmental practices and ideas from Baltic art history in the first place and how to conceptualise these in comparative contexts. How can re-writing and re-curating the Baltic art contribute to reconceptualising global art history in a way that would challenge the Western-orientated model?

More information

The discussion will take place on Facebook

The online discussion will take place as part of the Second Baltic Conference on Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences BALTEHUMS (held online on November 1–2)

BALTEHUMS II programme and registration

This is the fifth discussion of the research and exhibition project “Reflecting Post-Socialism through Post-Colonialism in the Baltics,” organised by the Latvian Center for Contemporary Art in Riga in collaboration with Kumu Art Museum and the research project “Estonian Environmentalism in the 20th Century” (both Tallinn). The project analyses the imprints of post-socialism and post-colonialism in the Baltic region, here exploring them through the prism of environmental history and the current ecological crisis.

On Thursday, October 28th at 4pm, Ruth Sargent Noyes will give an open lecture “Globalizing art histories of North-eastern Europe before modernity: a view from the Baltic” as part of the Open Lectures’ series of the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture of the Estonian Academy of Arts.
Room: A-101

Through a series of queries and micro-historical case studies, Dr. Noyes takes up the questions of issues of globalizing Baltic art before modernity, from the perspective of an art historian focused on connecting Italy and the Baltic over the longue durée. Global approaches have been gaining momentum in recent years across fields dedicated to the study of art, architecture, and visual-material culture. An increasing number of scholars of North-Eastern Europe, including the Baltic sphere, have expanded the purview of research through the integration of comparative and transcultural methods. Elsewhere, the global turn has led to new transgeographical perspectives which have begun to challenge previous national paradigms in various art-historical traditions. This presentation examines these issues from a transregional, transcultural perspective, and also considers how integration of Baltic Europe’s art histories in the discipline’s ongoing explorations of cultural heterogeneity and global circulations of artefacts can be inflected through other fields.

Ruth Sargent Noyes took her BA (Harvard University) and MA and PhD (Johns Hopkins University) in Art History, and is presently Marie Skłodowska-Curie EU Senior Research Fellow at the National Museum of Denmark (Copenhagen). Author of a number of books and articles, her research takes up the intersection of art, religion, and science of the long Counter-Reformation (c. 1550-1800) in its global context, with special interest in cross-cultural perspectives between Italy and North-eastern Europe, including the Nordic-Baltic region. A 2014 Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and recipient of a number of research grants and awards, she currently leads the Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Union Individual Fellowship Project, The art of (re)moving relics and reforming holiness in Europe’s borderlands (TRANSLATIO).

Lecture will be held in English.

Covid certificates will be checked at the entrance of the lecture hall, masks are obligatory.

Online discussion “Working with the Post-Cold War Heritages in the Baltics and Beyond”

The discussion will take place on Facebook

Participants: Eglė Rindzevičiūtė, Hilkka Hiiop, Kati Lindström, Raitis Šmits, Linara Dovydaitytė, Ele Carpenter

Moderators: Ieva Astahovska, Linda Kaljundi

The visible traces of the Soviet period in the Baltic landscapes include diverse and numerous technologically political infrastructures, including remnants of abandoned, collapsed or destroyed military buildings. This online discussion addresses the ways of working with the post-cold war heritages from the perspective of environmental history, technology studies, as well as contemporary heritage conservation and art.

More info 

Facebook

This is the fourth discussion of the research and exhibition project “Reflecting Post-Socialism through Post-Colonialism in the Baltics,” organised by the Latvian Center for Contemporary Art in Riga in collaboration with Kumu Art Museum and the research project “Estonian Environmentalism in the 20th Century” (both Tallinn). The project analyses the imprints of post-socialism and post-colonialism in the Baltic region, here exploring them through the prism of environmental history and the current ecological crisis.

As a part of Tallinn Photomonth The Institute of Art History and Visual Culture’s Research Secretary and lecturer, Annika Toots, is curating the exhibition “Tierras malas”, which examines the representation of landscape in photography, emphasizing two aspects related to the landscape.

Artists: Bleda y Rosa (ES), Aap Tepper (EE), Paco Ulman (EE), Dovilė Dagienė (LT)

First of all, the exhibition focuses on landscape as a way of seeing, examining how landscapes are constructed through the gaze and looking. The exhibited works point out how some parts of the surrounding environment are seen in aesthetic terms, while others are seen as useless. Second, the exhibition looks into the traces of cultural memory hidden in the landscape, focusing on what is not visible or what is left out of the frame.

Tierras malas refers to a type of landscape characterized by a lack of vegetation and the erosion caused by water and wind; it is considered poor, useless or dull. The exhibition takes a look at how such “useless landscapes” are defined in different contexts and how they are represented in photography. The title also refers to invisible traces of gloomy past events that the landscape might conceal.

Opening times: Tue–Fri 12–18, Sat 12–16
Vaal Gallery (Tartu maantee 82, Tallinn)
Accessible by wheelchair

The group exhibition “Pinefulness” will be opened in the City Gallery on September 30, with the participation of Eike Eplik (MA, EKA Sculpture and Installation), the legendary Olimar Kallas, Reet Kasesalu, Jan Lütjohann, EKA graphics alumna Mall Nukke and EKA photography alumni Hanna Samoson and Johannes Säre. The curator is Siim Preiman, an alumnus of the Institute of Art History of EKA.

The exhibition deals with Estonians’ relationship with the environment and is an attempt to raise awareness of the impact of today’s actions on the future of dreams through bitter humor and affordable gestures.

The exhibition is part of Tallinn Art Hall’s ongoing exhibition series, which pays special attention both to the possibility of being good and to ecological responsibility in conditions of certain destruction. The series is an institutional attempt to find an ethically suitable platform for dealing with burning issues. Therefore, we have excluded all single-use materials from the standard ‘toolkit’ of a contemporary art exhibition, using as few materials as possible – and only things found on site.

A curatorial tour with Siim Preiman will take place on October 2 at 12pm. The exhibition will remain open until 28 November.

Pine-fulness is part of the series of events organised by Goethe-Institut, entitled World Wild Wald. 

Tallinn City Gallery (Harju 13) is open from Wednesday to Sunday 11–6 pm, free entry.

On September 29, at 3 pm, a presentation of the EKA study “Historical Interiors and Tourism” will take place in the Office of the Chancellor of Justice.

Tallinn’s Old Town is both a living environment and the most important attraction in Estonia. For the third year in a row, the Estonian Academy of Arts is conducting a study on how to promote the Old Town so that both locals and tourists would be satisfied and at the same time the heritage environment would be well preserved. A recent interim report of the study focuses on interiors.

We will discuss whether and which buildings with historical interiors could be opened to visitors to Tallinn in addition to the usual churches and museums, how it could be useful for entrepreneurs and residents, and how to organize it.

Facebook event

To ensure that the room is sparsely filled, please register no later than 28.09 HERE

Please do not come to the presentation when sick, follow the current regulations and be prepared to prove vaccination or covid negativity.

The research report has been completed within the project “Sustainable Management and Exhibition of Tallinn Old Town” and is available HERE

Open lecture of the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture of the Estonian Academy of Arts, in cooperation with and the Estonian Centre for Environmental History at Tallinn University on September 17 at 4pm.

Five-thousand Parisian farmers grew vegetables for two million Parisians at the turn of the nineteenth century. Black residents of Washington, DC paid down on their homes during the Great Depression by maintaining gardens on their urban lots. Soviet and Cuban urbanites staved off a famine in the 1990s after the collapse of Soviet agriculture by farming urban peripheries. These stories have been missed in plain sight because they do not coincide with ideas of urban progress and neat categorizations dividing urban from rural. Recapturing these stories points to the efficacy of small-holder intensive farming in urban areas which produce a wealth of waste than can be recycled into nutrients. These stories also point to a history of urban commons and mutual aid societies that undermine triumphal or inevitable histories of capitalism.

Kate Brown is a Professor in History of Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose research interests illuminate the point where history, science, technology, and bio-politics converge to create large-scale disasters and modernist wastelands. She is the author of several prize-winning books, including Plutopia: Nuclear Families in Atomic Cities and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (2013), and Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future (2019). Her studies on Chernobyl point to the lasting impact of the nuclear catastrophe, but also to the role of local specialists and communities in coming to terms with its effects, as also explained in this interview. In the framework of her new project on urban gardening Kate Brown does fieldwork also in Estonia. She also discusses the reasons why we should recapture the stories of urban gardening in the article Resurrecting the Soil.

More information: https://sts-program.mit.edu/people/sts-faculty/kate-brown/

The language of the lecture is English.

The lecture is organised in co-operation between the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture of the Estonian Academy of Arts, the Estonian Centre for Environmental History at Tallinn University and the Centre of Excellence for Intercultural Studies at Tallinn University. Kate Brown is the visiting leading researcher at the Centre of Excellence for Intercultural Studies at Tallinn University, funded by the EU Regional Development Funds in the framework of Tallinn University’s ASTRA project (activity A7).

Estonian Academy of Arts is launching a new event series called ROHEKA which promotes green lifestyle and sustainable development topics in EKA. The series consists of one-day events taking place once a month, focussing on important topics like waste management, sustainable learning, community, work environment, energy efficiency, etc.

The first event of ROHEKA series will take place this Wednesday, September 1, when EKA will introduce its sustainability principles and share tips for sorting physical and digital waste.

The day starts at 10am with presentations, continues with a playful online waste-quiz and ends with collective cleaning in EKA building. The first half of the event will take place digitally and will be broadcast on EKA TV. Collective cleaning, starting at 12.30, takes place all over the house. We’ll gather in EKA courtyard.

PROGRAMME

10.00 Introduction of the ROHEKA event series (EKA TV)

10.15 Lecture “Green EKA” (EAA TV)

11.00 Introduction of the RING application (EKA TV)

11.15 PAUSE

11.30 Waste quiz – registration form HERE. EKA merch as a prize! (registered users will be sent a link to the online quiz)

12.00 Lecture “Digital Waste” (EKA TV)

12.30 Collective cleaning of EKA building under the guidance of environmental specialist Johanna Vahtra. (We’ll gather in the courtyard)