Kaisa Maasik’s and Ave Vellesalu’s joint exhibition “Don’t Go Faking My Art” investigates issues relating to copyright and counterfeiting. The two young artists have chosen to copy artists close to them, their coursemates from the Photography Department of the Estonian Academy of Art – Maris Karjatse, Marek Kuvar, Hanna Samoson, Silvia Sosaar. Since these artists all have a recognisable artistic style, Kaisa Maasik and Ave Vellesalu do not exhibit simply copies of specific works, but have created new ones to resemble those of the artists listed above by a thematic and stylistic approach. While creating these works Maasik and Vellesalu studied copyright laws to find out what restrictions these laws impose upon creating/copying/counterfeiting artworks. In addition to legal constraints they also had to face those set in place by social conventions. What effect all of this had on the artists Maasik and Vellesalu copied and how were the two artists themselves affected by it? What is the significance of an interpretation like this to either party?
Graphic design: Anna Kaarma