Exhibitions

Jane Jacobs
“Behind the Curtain”
Vitriingalerii, Tallinn, Põhja pst 35
Open September 9 through October 5, 2020

There is a pensioner quietly living “Behind the Curtain”. The data of Statistics Estonia shows that 25.1% of the population are pensioners. Sometimes we visit them behind the curtain; however, we do not live there, where you have to make both ends meet it with very limited resources. Estonian pensioners have the highest poverty risk in the EU. Pensioners are not marching the streets after Eurostat published surveys in February 2020 according to which Estonian pensioners are the poorest compared to other pensioners in developed countries. We do not shift the curtain in order to see how the older generation survives. Will we step quietly behind the curtain? What will happen with the pension funds? “Behind the Curtain” is an installation in Vitriingalerii by Jane Jacobs to emphasize this paradoxical normality.

REF: Eurostat, ERR news

Jane Jacobs is an independent collective with the aim of highlighting environmental and community issues. The collective was founded in New York in 2016 by Sandra Nuut. Jane Jacobs uses and chooses mediums that possibly best express and convey problems and questions that need to be addressed.
janejacobs.co

The installation is on view around the clock until October 5, 2020.

Location of Vitriingalerii: On the facade wall of the Estonian Museum of Contemporary Art (EKKM), Põhja pst 35.

The exhibition focuses on printmaking as a process that is cultivated through contacts between forms and counterforms (negative space), and by the tension produced by these interactions. We are not so much interested in specific images, proofs, shapes or manners as in printed matter’s ability to introduce the new space that emerges between matrix and multiplicity. We focus on forms, and their dissemination through various statements and manifestations of printmaking in the post-disciplinary era. We define material as a subject, while the predicate denotes what the material does. We wish to return to the beginning of the functions of imprint and investigate its points of contacts with other disciplines. The exhibition takes its name from Georges Didi-Huberman’s book La ressemblance par contact: archéologie, anachronisme et modernité de l’empreinte, 2008.

The exhibition curated by Liina Siib and Maria Erikson from the Department of Graphic Art at the Estonian Academy of Arts features artists from Europe and the Americas and is accompanied by a film program.

Artists: Ann Pajuväli (EE), Ari Pelkonen (FI), Augustas Serapinas (LT), Cecilia Mandrile (US/UK), Claire Hannicq (FR), Elena Loson (AR), Dénes Kalev Farkas (EE/HU), Inka Bell (FI), Inma Herrera (ES/FI), Liis-Marleen Verilaskja (EE), Lina Nordenström (SE), Maria Erikson (EE/FI), Maria Izabella Lehtsaar (EE), Maria Valkeavuolle (FI), Riin Maide (EE), Tatu Tuominen (FI), Viktor Gurov (EE).

Curators: Liina Siib, Maria Erikson (Department of Graphic Art, EKA)
Exhibition design: Kaire Rannik
Graphic design: Viktor Gurov
Translators: Tiina Randviir, Richard Adang
Risograph printing: Pärtel Eelmere

We thank: Estonian Academy of Arts, Department of Graphic Art and Department of Graphic Design; Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Tartu Art House, EKA Gallery, Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, Tanel Asmer, Pire Sova, Kaido Kruusamets, Mart Saarepuu, Hans-Gunter Lock.

Carl-Robert Kagge
Four-Grain Image
Vitriingalerii, Tallinn, Põhja pst 35
14 August 2020 – 7 September 2020
Curator: Lilian Hiob

Carl-Robert Kagge’s exhibition “Four-Grain Image” is open from August 14 in Vitriingalerii, the showcase gallery of the Photography Department of Estonian Academy of Arts.

Carl-Robert Kagge’s solo exhibition “Four-Grain Image” is a site-specific work inspired by the location of Vitriingalerii, displaying a hauntological image of Instagram’s infinite database. Replacing the glass walls of the gallery with a canvas of bent plastic, Kagge continues developing his original artistic technique.

The title of the show refers to the manual technique the artist uses to apply the motifs onto plastic, silkscreen printing. On the other hand, this marks the process an image uploaded to the internet goes through before reaching the viewer: mutations on the screen used to view the image.

Carl-Robert Kagge is a painter, focusing on images found on social media and their materialisations in physical space. The artist’s original technique consists of silkscreen printing and applying the images on heat-shaped plastic. Gathering his visual material on various online platforms, Kagge creates a subjective archive of past and present that has not much to do with collectively perceived space of reality. Using already existing visual material, the artist composes a unique field of images that do not always comply with straightforward categorisation. Kagge skilfully navigates multiple fields: painting, printing, design, internet culture, technology, and graffiti. Looking at Kagge’s work on a computer screen, it may resemble Photoshop comps, however, exhibited in physical space we see painting-hybrids, blurred photos abstracted until they become unrecognisable. A similar effect occurs when phones fail to load Instagram photos in full resolution due to slow internet connection. All of this leads the viewer to be confronted with hyper-physicality: a mix of virtual and material shaped into something almost haunting. Kagge’s work skilfully reflects a state increasingly taking hold of people – time and space, where technology has become a permanent artificial limb and where it has become almost impossible to distinguish between the real and the simulated.

The exhibition is on view until 7 September and can be viewed on 24 hours basis.

For more info check the event on Facebook.

Contact: Lilian Hiob, lilian.hiob@artun.ee, +3725272556

Resemblance Through Contact. Grammar of Imprint

Film Program
Sunday, 26th of July at 3 pm

At Tartu Elektriteater
University of Tartu Church, Jakobi St 1, Tartu
Free entrance

Films:
– Ari Pelkonen. Remain. 2014. 6’09”
– Maria Valkeavuolle. S E O M / I W N M. 2019. 11’
– Claire Hannicq. L’Étoile dans la caverne. 2017. 16’27”
– Augustas Serapinas. Jõusaal (Gym). 2012. 6’29”
– Ann Pajuväli. Play Sets. 2019. 4’30”
– Riin Maide. There Are Always Some Things That No One Recalls. 2020. 5’45”
– Tatu Tuominen. Standing in the Ruins. 2015. 3’19”
– Inma Herrera. Flaying. 2018. 7’39”

The film program accompanies the exhibition Resemblance Through Contact. Grammar of Imprint at the Tartu Art House that focuses on printmaking as a process that is cultivated through contacts between forms and counterforms (negative space), and by the tension produced by these interactions. Its interest does not lay so much in specific images, proofs, shapes or manners as in printed matter’s ability to introduce the new space that emerges between matrix and multiplicity. By focusing on forms, and their dissemination through various statements and manifestations of printmaking in the post-disciplinary era, the artists define material as a subject, while the predicate denotes what the material does. The exhibition along with the film program wish to return to the beginning of the functions of imprint and investigate its points of contacts with other disciplines. 

The exhibition and the film program are curated by Liina Siib and Maria Erikson from the Department of Graphic Art at the Estonian Academy of Arts, featuring artists from Europe and the Americas. 

Info: Liina Siib, liina.siib@artun.ee

Eliis Laul’s exhibition ”NIVEA FOTODOSE” is opened from the 16th of July, 2020, in Vitriingalerii, the showcase gallery of the Photography Department of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

The title of the exhibition refers to Nivea campaign of the same name currently held in Germany – the legendary Nivea cream can be purchased with the personified appearance and get one’s own photo printed on the top of the lid. This well-known and functional everyday item can thus acquire a certain sentimental value for the owner.

The artist aims at interpreting the borderlines between a piece of art and commodity item. While having the possibility to combine their own ways to shape the result, the piece’s intrinsic value might differ greatly depending on each person’s ideas and backgrounds.

Current artwork was originally exhibited in the exhibition “We all arrived with art” in Zollamt Gallery, Offenbach, February 2020. The artist is now exhibiting the piece in Estonia, accommodating the work for the format of Vitriingalerii.

The exhibition can be viewed 24/7 and it will be open until August 10, 2020.

Location: Facade wall of the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM), Põhja pst. 35.

Graphic design of the Showcase Gallery is done by Mai Bauvald and Ran-Re Reimann.

The event on Facebook.

Resemblance Through Contact. Grammar of Imprint

International exhibition

Tartu Art House
03.07.–26.07.2020
kunstimaja.ee

EKA Gallery
28.08.–30.09.2020
www.artun.ee/eka-naitused/

The opening reception of the exhibition Resemblance Through Contact. Grammar of Imprint will take place at the Tartu Art House on Friday, 3 July at 5 pm. 

The exhibition focuses on printmaking as a process that is cultivated through contacts between forms and counterforms (negative space), and by the tension produced by these interactions. We are not so much interested in specific images, proofs, shapes or manners as in printed matter’s ability to introduce the new space that emerges between matrix and multiplicity. We focus on forms, and their dissemination through various statements and manifestations of printmaking in the post-disciplinary era. We define material as a subject, while the predicate denotes what the material does. We wish to return to the beginning of the functions of imprint and investigate its points of contacts with other disciplines. The exhibition takes its name from Georges Didi-Huberman’s book La ressemblance par contact: archéologie, anachronisme et modernité de l’empreinte, 2008.

The exhibitions which are curated by Liina Siib and Maria Erikson from the Department of Graphic Art at the Estonian Academy of Arts, feature artists from Europe and the Americas, and are accompanied by film programs.

Artists: Ann Pajuväli (EE), Ari Pelkonen (FI), Augustas Serapinas (LT), Cecilia Mandrile (US/UK), Claire Hannicq (FR), Elena Loson (AR), Dénes Kalev Farkas (EE/HU), Inka Bell (FI), Inma Herrera (ES/FI), Liis-Marleen Verilaskja (EE), Lina Nordenström (SE), Maria Erikson (EE/FI), Maria Izabella Lehtsaar (EE), Maria Valkeavuolle (FI), Riin Maide (EE), Tatu Tuominen (FI), Viktor Gurov (EE). 

Curators: Liina Siib, Maria Erikson (Department of Graphic Art, EKA)
Exhibition design: Kaire Rannik
Graphic design: Viktor Gurov
Translators: Tiina Randviir, Richard Adang
Risograph printing: Pärtel Eelmere

We thank: Cultural Endowment of Estonia; Estonian Academy of Arts, Department of Graphic Art and Department of Graphic Design; Tartu Art House, EKA Gallery, Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, Tanel Asmer, Pire Sova, Kaido Kruusamets, Mart Saarepuu, Hans-Gunter Lock, Paul Rannik. 

On 19 June at 6 pm, Estonian Academy of Arts will open the graduation show TASE for the first time as an online exhibition.  The opening will be broadcast on ERR Cultural News portal, on EKA TV at live.artun.ee as well as Facebook Live channel.  Instead of a regular gallery space, the works of the fresh graduating architects, artists, designers, and researchers will be exhibited online at tase.artun.ee

Live TV show will begin here June 19 at 6PM

“The decision to hold the exhibition online stemmed from the special situation of the coronavirus.  The graduates had to adjust to the changes quickly and in many cases rethink their physical works or ideas,” explains the head organiser, gallery manager Pire Sova and adds:

“In a normal situation, most of the fine arts and many graduation works from other specialties are created considering the meeting of the audience and the work in a physical space.  In this case, they have tried to solve the task of how to relay their ideas with immediacy and optimally in the internet space.  Exhibiting works online brings many new questions: what type of documentation media to use, how to combine and support them with text etc?”

TASE’20 online exhibition will show more than two hundred graduation works from the graduates of the architecture, design, fine arts, and art culture faculties.  The exhibition gives a complete overview of master’s theses from all EKA specialties as well as most of the bachelor graduation works and portfolios.

According to the Dean of Fine Arts, Kirke Kangro, the isolation period was an especially big challenge for the graduating young artists:
“There was no access to studios and workshops, the works had to be completed in hallways and kitchens.  I am certain that this year’s graduates carry the footprint of the global moment more than ever before – either knowingly or through the creative process itself.  The audience, who otherwise was able to attend the defences in a physically limited space, are able to hear the young artists via their theses defences through an internet link.

The topics of the 46 diploma works are broad and as custom to artists, both empathetic and critical.  Introspection and the yearning for forest, the connection between local and expat Estonians with Australia – or even Siberia, the reflections of the world of justice, questions of the body and status,” says Kangro.

The largest faculty of EKA, the Design Faculty will bring 87 student works to the TASE web exhibition.

“We are proud of our graduates who despite the difficult situation were able to complete their Bachelor and Master’s works.  The projects in all our specialties are dense, the topics immensely wide: from clay musical instruments to the innovation of structural building, from board games to theoretical research that questions the core principles of design,” rejoices the Dean of Design, Kristjan Mändmaa.

The Faculty of Architecture is represented by 43 architecture Master’s and interior architecture Bachelor students.  The young architects engaged in the most serious and painful aspects of society: the space around the deathbed, prison, rehabilitation for juvenile delinquents, a more effective educational space for high school and so on.

In previous TASE exhibitions, the Art Culture master theses have remained a bit hidden among the creative objects, but the Dean Lilian Hansar hopes that the web exhibition will give a wonderful opportunity to find out more about the written theoretical works from art history, heritage and conservation, as well as art education.  44 graduates present their works at the show.

In August, 45 more graduation works will be added to the exhibition and on 17 August the regular TASE show will open in the EKA gallery and other spaces, but the online TASE will remain open as long as the internet lasts.

This year’s graduates have the advantage, compared to all previous years, to show and share their creations regardless of physical distances – to their relatives in the countryside or outside of the capital city, to the families of international graduates and potential colleagues at the other side of the world.

Come see TASE’20 on tase.artun.ee and join the opening ceremony on 19 June at 6 pm at live.artun.ee !

TASE Team
Head Organiser: Pire Sova
Communications: Solveig Jahnke, Mart Vainre
Graphic Design: Robin Siimann, Elisabeth Juusu, Kersti Heile; adviser Associate Professor Indrek Sirkel
TASE.artun.ee Web: WWW Stuudio

TASE is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia

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The exhibition Cat Show is opened in the Showcase Gallery of the Photography Department of the Estonian Academy of Arts from June 16, 2020. The artist Janne Lias explored in her work the Master Al feature added to her smartphone, which analyzes a scene in real-time, recognizes more than 500 objects and offers 19 different photo modes accordingly. A photo-distant person might find the modes offered to them confusing. Should wet acrylic painting be photographed in the same way as food? Or what is the difference between capturing a cat and a dog that these categories are highlighted separately? If the algorithm makes an error, it is amusing and reassuring – AI will not threaten human existence soon. Or should we be worried about the possibility of something that is at a rudimentary level can take power?

Cat show can be viewed 24/7 and it will be open until July 13, 2020.

Location: facade wall of the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM), Põhja pst. 35.

Graphic design of the Showcase Gallery is done by Mai Bauvald and Ran-Re Reimann.

The exhibition is open on from 22 May until 18 July, Tue-Sat 12–6 PM.

A group show featuring works by Ari King, Linda Spjut, Matilda Tjäder and Nikhil Vettukattil

Curators: Daniel Iinatti and Anna Sagström

Country Music is a collaborative project by Daniel Iinatti and Anna Sagström that is born on the factory floors of the rural rust belts, in the corrosive regress of life and tempo in downgraded de-industrialized wastelands and anti-growth environments, and in the urban steel knit of precarious compositions. An alloy of music and other cultural productions formed out of the potential energy of underused spaces to reimagine the contemporary periphery.

Ari King is a British Finnish photographer based in the French Pyrenees. His photographs depict natural phenomena, rural decline, and the convulsive effects of nature on humans. His work explores our attempts to navigate, synchronise, and make sense of its complex systems, channeling a unique tension between the natural and manufactured.

Linda Spjut is an artist, composer and nature value inventory taker. Starting 2020 she is the new coordinator for the program and artist residency at Sikas Art Center, where she also resides. Spjut’s work has been performed and exhibited worldwide. Recurring collaborations include ones with Trevor Lee Larson and Marcus Ekroth (STARVING/SHARON), Sandra Mujinga (NaEE Roberts/9Djinn), Erika Landström (IMPURE FICTION), Sophie Reinhold, Björn Runge et al.

Matilda Tjäder works with text that is directed, performed, sounded, and sculpted into varying forms of media. Observing the interface between fictional and real scenarios, she often works in collaborative and conversational constellations. She co-runs a speculative fiction writing group based in London. Other recent collaborations include a research project with Asta Meldal Lynge and Nikhil Vettukattil and four-hand piano pieces composed together with Alexander Pierce. Since 2018 she’s been cultivating the Wishing for More cycle; a world-building project with a fictional persona as narrator; a self-acclaimed real estate hero aspiring to build an inter-dimensional theme park with gateways leading to different zones. Each episode in this cycle takes place in a new zone. Recent and forthcoming projects include How To Show Up?, Amsterdam (2020), Speculative Place, Hong Kong (2020), 3236 RLS / Le Bourgeois, London (2020), sink.sexy (2019), LACA, Los Angeles (2019), The Geffen Contemporary, Los Angeles (2019), Damien & The Love Guru, Brussels (2019), and Cell Project Space, London (2018).

Nikhil Vettukattil is an artist and writer based in Oslo. His practice concerns the role of representation and image-making processes in framing and remaking lived experience. Using sound, moving image, sculpture, and text, his work often explores the ways art and cinema can mediate relations between everyday and historical experience. Recent exhibitions and projects include ’The Vapours’, at Kunstverein Bamberg, ‘Housewarming’ at Le Bourgeois, London, ‘An Analog for Listening’ for flatness.eu, ‘Extended Hours’ for Struktura.time, ‘Words Fail Me’ at Auto Italia, London, and ‘Cosmopolitan Universal Cinema’ at Arnolfini, Bristol, and Close-Up, London.

Supported by Nordic Culture Point, Embassy of Sweden in Tallinn, the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and A. Le Coq.

https://www.country-music.co/
https://www.artun.ee/ekagallery/

You are invited to the opening of the exhibition “This is not a labyrinth” on 11 March at 5 PM at the EKA Billboard Gallery. The gallery is located outside on the EKA building on Kotzebue street. The exhibition will remain open until 8 April.

Walking through the cities, they change into something else: it’s impossible to walk along the same street twice, the shadows and light are growing and shrinking on their own. We are lost since morning. Don’t let go. Don’t get lost. This is not anymore the place you came to.
Like in “Invisible Cities” by Italo Calvino, we show one city we visited together, but more so one city, we visited in our imaginations. “This is not a labyrinth” is a photo album about on day in a foggy dreamy place.

Graphic Art 3rd year students: Mark Hiir, Hanneleele Kaldmaa, Brit Kikas, Maria Izabella Lehtsaar, Riin Maide, Liis-Marleen Verilaskja

Supervisor: Liina Siib