Category: Contemporary Art

You are invited to the opening of Katariin Mudist and Keithy Kuuspu exhibition “Unfortunately You Were Not Selected This Time” on Friday, 31 January at 6 p.m. in the large gallery of the Tartu Art House.

Register for the art bus to the exhibition opening HERE.

Katariin Mudist’s and Keithy Kuuspu’s exhibition at the Tartu Art House explores the multifaceted phenomenon of giving and receiving awards, delving into the dynamics of recognition within the art world and beyond.

Awards serve as social validation, reinforcing the legitimacy and value of individuals or organisations. From gold stars given to children for good behaviour to lifetime achievement honours, these tokens fulfil a fundamental human need: to feel seen, special and acknowledged. However, this recognition often comes with unintended consequences, fostering competition, comparison and a goal-oriented approach to life. Does praise motivate improvement, or does it become a burden, creating expectations and pressure that hinder future efforts?

“Unfortunately You Were Not Selected This Time” examines the cyclical nature of recognition, while wryly remaining entangled in these very dynamics. Keithy and Katariin were selected for this exhibition and received funding to implement it. In turn, they chose artists to create trophies and invited directors to distribute them. Who gets to choose, and who is chosen? What lies behind recognition, and what are its broader political and psychological implications?

The show is divided into three distinct spaces: “The Room of Recognition”, “The Room of Awards” and “The Room of the Commission”. Each room tackles different aspects of recognition, using a variety of media and strategies to engage with the theme. A network of exchanges and collaborations is woven throughout the exhibition. Artists conducted interviews with individuals from various fields, including art, literature and sports,
gathering diverse perspectives on the meaning of recognition. Their process expanded to include volunteers who participated in carving chairs and creating the photo series. Finally,
they invited 25 artists to contribute trophies, each celebrating a unique concept. These trophies will be awarded during a public, ininerant performative Awards Gala on 1 March, when five theatre directors will select the winners and distribute the prizes.

Exhibition team:
Exhibition designer and technical help: Alden Jõgisuu
Texts: Laura Cemin
Graphic design: Katariin Mudist
Videographer: Kai Jürimäe
Performance dramaturgy: Keithy Kuuspu and Katariin Mudist

Interviewees: Anu Vahtra, Elo Vahtrik, Elina Masing, Kaarin Kivirähk, Karli Luik, Kreete Verlin, Tõnu Õnnepalu, Urmas Lüüs and Annely Köster.
Award-making artists:
Ingrid Allik, Arvi Anderson, Yvette Bathgate and Jake Shepherd, Zody Burke, Alexei Gordin, Ulvi Haagensen, Tõnis Jürgens, Edith Karlson, Lauri Kilusk, KIWA, Stina Leek, Kris Lemsalu, Anna Mari Liivrand, Laura Linsi, Johannes Luik, Angela Maasalu, Maarja Mäemets, Eke Ao Nettan, Kärt Ojavee, Pelle Org, Anumai Raska, Sander Raudsepp, Taavi Teevet, Marta Vaarik and Kristina Õllek.

Awards Gala directors:
Sveta Grigorjeva, Henri Hütt, Kertu Moppel, Liisa Saaremäel and Oksana Tralla.

Thank you to all the woodcarvers:
Teresa de Andrade, Markus Andreas Auling, Sylvia Burgess, Lilian Maasik, Kristel Jakobson, Juulia Aleksandra Mikson, Sandra Mirka, Eva Nava, Hendrik Ojaveer, Karl-Hendrik Pallo, Teresa RA, Maria Elise Remme, Kristina Sepp,
Rin Togo, Kristi Vendelin, Elin Viisileht, Marce Garcia Viisileht, Anett Vähi, Ethel Ütsmüts;
Photographers of “Important Rooms”: Liisi Aibel, Iris Areda, Kirke Asandi, Gregor Alaküla, Eliisa Matsalu-Alaküla, Valeriya Ferschel, Indrek Grigor, Saara Liis Jõerand, Kristin Kaasik, Elin Kard, Sander Koit, Paul Kuimet, Janeli Kuusemets, Martin Kuusk, Indrek Köster, Johannes Luik, Magdaleena Maasik, Rene Nõmmik, Liisi Kõuhkna, Kristina Milbach, Ann Mäekivi, Karmen Otu, Erik Peterson, Liina Plaado, Alana Proosa, Maarja Eliisabet Roosalu, Evelin Saul-Rämonen, Kristina Sepp, Maret Tamme, Oksana Tralla, Aleksander Tsapov, Kadi-Ell Tähiste, Kristi Vendelin, Mats ja Maris Viisileht, Helen Västrik and special thanks to Lauri Eltermaa, Måns Fridlizius Lindberg, Chloé Geinoz, Johanna Mudist, Terje Mudist, Eva Nava, Kristiina Tinnu Tang, Taavi Tetlov, Mae Variksoo, Liis-Marleen Verilaskja, Elin Viisileht, Alan Voodla, Mart Vainre, Anett Vähi, Kauss Arhitektuur, Koosseis, Tallinna Kergejõustikuhall, Eesti Kunstiakadeemia, Von Krahli Teater, Kanuti Gildi SAAL, Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava ja Tartu Kunstimaja.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Põhjala Brewery, Punch drinks, Pühaste and Leibur.

The exhibition is open 31 January – 2 March 2025

EKA Contemporary Art MA program invites prospective students to join the online info session on Monday, January 27, 2025 at 16:00 EET (local Estonian time). This will be an opportunity to hear more about the program, to meet and ask questions directly from the faculty.

The online info session will be hosted on Zoom, the link will be e-mailed to all registrants 2 hours before the start of the event.

Register HERE

The Estonian Cloud: Extraneous Tongue, Ulterior Print
January 16^th to 31^st
Monday – Saturday (12h – 18h)
ARS Showroom
Pärnu mnt. 154
Lara Brener

‘I am upside down here, as if looking at my own reflection. I am mirrored, how used I am to flipping myself. My tongue gets twisted all the time and people just do not seem to get it right. My friend told me I was not wrong. Clouds were different at a higher latitude. And suddenly there I was, looking for geographical specificity in a cloudy sky.’

The Estonian Cloud: Extraneous Tongue, Ulterior Print dwells on displacement and translation, presenting narratives taken from the artist’s experience of being a Brazilian immigrant in Estonia, and of communicating outside her mother tongue. Examining the Estonian sky through glycerin base prints and text (in English and Portuguese), her work embraces undefinition, while making analogies between the procedures of casting, printmaking, and translation.

The exhibition constitutes the artist’s thesis project for the Contemporary Art MA, from Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA).

Lara Brener is an artist and educator from São Paulo, Brazil, currently based in Tallinn. She holds a Bachelor’s and a teaching degree in Visual Arts from Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado, São Paulo, and has participated in exhibitions in Brazil, Estonia, Norway, and Lithuania. Lara works through breaches of media, translating and mixing processes, building ambiguous, cavernous images, mostly with printmaking, texts, and photography, and presenting dissolving narratives that are formed with images boiling up, but never being fully uncovered. Recently, she has been exploring translation of language, media, and context through narratives of hybrid, displaced identities.

WHISPERING WITH EYES CLOSED
EKA Gallery 10.01.–02.02.2025
Opening: 9.01.2025 at 6pm
Open Tue–Sat 12–6 pm Sun 12–4 pm, free entry

Artists: Victor Flavell (FR), Minni Havas (FI), Kadri Joala (EE), Tõnis Jürgens (EE), Ats Kruusing (EE), Sanna Nissinen (FI), Marc Sauvageot (EE)

The international group exhibition “Whispering with Eyes Closed” deals with being asleep and dreaming, and the unlimited possibilities experienced during this time. The main characters depicted in the works have suddenly fallen asleep or are already dreaming, embarking on journeys into the unknown. The viewer experiences a foreign world through someone else’s hazy gaze, letting go, giving up control. The boundaries between the imaginary and the real blur and a leap into the void is made, creating sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious images.

Curator: Kaisa Maasik
Exhibition design: Kaisa Maasik
Graphic design: Fatima-Ezzahra Khammas

Technical support: Ats Kruusing

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Sadolin Estonia.
Opening drinks from Põhjala Brewery.

There will be two curatorial tours part of the exhibition:
– on Thursday, January 9 at 5pm, with the artists, in English
– on Wednesday, January 15 at 2pm, in Estonian

See photos of the opening here.

December brings an opportunity to experience, in an exhibition format, works produced by students in the Faculty of Fine Arts as their term projects: every day there will be a fresh crop of university students’ works on display in the gallery.

Works in animation, contemporary art, installation and sculpture, painting, photography, graphic art, scenography curricula will be on display. On each evening of the marathon, a new exhibition will be installed and in the following evening the exhibit will give way to the next one. Hopefully, viewers will be able to keep up with the pace of the young artists.

The assessments will take place in the main building of EKA (2nd & 3rd floor general areas, 2nd floor drawing classes A-205 and A-206, EKA Gallery; Kotzebue 1), in the new EKA building (Kotzebue 10) and at Uus Rada gallery (Raja 11A).

On the assessment day, the exhibitions at EKA gallery and the new EKA building (Kotzebue 10) are open from 3 pm to 6 pm, on Sundays the exhibitions are open from 12 pm to 6 pm.

SCHEDULE
Mon 2.12. Photography, supervisor Krista Mölder (EKA Gallery)
Mon 2.12. Drawing, supervisor Tõnis Saadoja (2nd & 3rd floor general areas)
Tue 3.12. Drawing, supervisor Eero Alev (EKA Gallery)
Wed 4.12. Drawing, supervisor Ulvi Haagensen (EKA Gallery)
Thu 5.12. Anatomical drawing, supervisors Maiu Rõõmus, Matti Pärk (EKA Gallery)
Fri 6.12. Scenography, supervisor Ene-Liis Semper (EKA Gallery)
Sat 7.12. – Sun 8.12. Scenography, supervisor Mark Raidpere (EKA Gallery)

Mon 8.12. New Media, supervisor Sten Saarits (EKA Gallery)
Mon 8.12. Photography, supervisors Marge Monko, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo NB! Uus Rada Gallery, the exhibition will remain open until 15.12.
Tue 10.12. Studio photography, supervisor Tanja Muravskaja (EKA Gallery)
Tue 10.12. Drawing (animation and scenography), supervisor Britta Benno (2nd & 3rd floor general areas, 2nd floor drawing classes A-205 and A-206)
Wed 11.12. Painting, supervisors Tõnis Saadoja, Mihkel Maripuu, Holger Loodus (EKA Gallery)
Thu 12.12. Animation, supervisors Lilli-Krõõt Repnau, Ülo Pikkov, Anu-Laura Tuttelberg (EKA Gallery)
Thu 12.12. Anatomical drawing, supervisors Maiu Rõõmus, Matti Pärk (2nd & 3rd floor general areas, 2nd floor drawing classes A-205 and A-206)
Fri 13.12. Painting, supervisors Karl-Kristjan Nagel, Tõnis Saadoja (EKA Gallery)
Sat 14.12. – Sun 15.12. Painting, supervisors Sirja-Liisa Eelma, Alice Kask, Mart Vainre (EKA Gallery)

Mon 16.12. Graphic Art, supervisors Liisi Grünberg, Viktor Gurov, Liina Siib, Britta Benno, Eve Kask, Eve Kaaret (EKA Gallery)
Mon 16.12. Photography, supervisors Triin Kerge, Annika Haas (Kotzebue 10)
Tue 17.12. Graphic Art, supervisors Lembe Ruben, Mark Antonius Puhkan, Maria Izabella Lehtsaar, Paul Rannik (EKA Gallery)
Wed 18.12. Sculpture, supervisors Taavi Talve, Laura Põld (EKA Gallery)
Wed 18.12. Contemporary Art, supervisors Marge Monko, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo, Liina Siib, Taavi Talve, Anu Vahtra, Maris Karjatse, Laura Põld, Holger Loodus, Kristi Kongi, Sten Saarits, Camille Laurelli, Eve Kask (2nd & 3rd floor general areas of the main building of EKA and the new building, Kotzebue 10)
Thu 19.12. Contemporary Art, supervisors Maris Karjatse, Eve Kask, Kristi Kongi, Camille Laurelli, Holger Loodus, Marge Monko, Laura Põld, Sten Saarits, Liina Siib, Taavi Talve, Anu Vahtra, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo (EKA Gallery & Kotzebue 10)

Minna Henriksson: Archive as artwork. Kiila Feminist Archive and other cases

Artist Minna Henriksson will talk about the crucial role archives have played in her artworks, both as source of information and influence. In addition, Henriksson has built archives, or complemented existing ones, as artworks. During the talk she will introduce several cases, where she has implemented archives and archiving in her artistic practice in different ways, and aims to explain her motivations for working with archives, and history writing in general.

Minna Henriksson (b. 1976, Oulu, Finland, lives in Helsinki) is a visual artist working with a disparate range of tools including text, drawing, painting and linocut. In dealing with historical cases, Henriksson hopes to politicize contemporary events that seem neutral and inevitable. The ideological nature of historiography is a recurring theme in her work.

Contemporary Art and Context is a lecture series hosted by MA Contemporary Art. This lecture is organized in collaboration with Archival Impulse, an elective course taught by Lieven Lahaye that introduces students to the practicalities, considerations and possibilities of using archives and archival material as part of their practice as artists and designers.

The lecture is held in English, everyone is welcome to join!

Karolin Tampere: Curiosity led learning through curating, collaboration and care

Karolin Tampere will show and tell from her ongoing PhD research project Down in the Bog – Thinking with Peatlands. A project led by an ambition to create cross-pollinating meeting grounds for art, natural science, environmental issues and the public. The three chapters project emphasizes the sharing and embodying of knowledge and awareness to create attention towards the need for increased care for peatland areas, locally, nationally and internationally. Practically and conceptually, the topic of peatlands act as a guiding map and compass to learn about historical, cultural and contemporary and geopolitical changes in the environments in Sápmi / Northern Norway, Estonia and selected places internationally.

Throughout the two group exhibitions Down in the Bog: Hibernation (Tromsø Art Center) and Down in the Bog – Sporulation (EKKM, Tallinn) followed by Thinking with Peatlands symposium, artists, natural scientists, environmental activists, NGOs and the public have lent the ecosystem of peatlands as a prism for sharing, learning and collaboration. Together we have dived deep into the bog, listened, smelled, touched it and learnt from it.

Karolin Tampere is an artist and curator currently a PhD Research fellow in Curatorial practice at Tromsø Art Academy, UiT and KMD, Faculty of Fine Art, Bergen, Norway. She has a particular interest in collaborative, cross disciplinary, long term socially engaged art practices, sound, music and listening. Karolin´s curatorial practice has dealt with a wide range of topics fueled by her interests, including gentrification, city development, art in public space, rights of nature, socially engaged art and ecology and the other-than-human.

Since 2004 she has regularly contributed to the “forever lasting” art project Sørfinnset skole/the nord land initiated by artists Geir Tore Holm and Søssa Jørgensen. Together with Åse Løvgren their ongoing collaboration Rakett was initiated in 2003. In 2013 and partly 2014 she was serving as director of Konsthall C in Stockholm and collaboratively transformed the directorship of the institution into a collective named the Work Group/Arbetslaget. In 2017-2022 she served as curator at North Norwegian Art Centre, realizing context specific projects with artists across the whole region of Northern Norway. She co-curated Lofoten Sound Art Symposium (with Svein Ingvoll Pedersen) and LIAF2019 Lofoten International Art Festival (with Hilde Mehti, Torill Østby Håland and Neal Cahoon). Since 2011 she is part of ENSAYOS – a collective research practice that has developed distinct inquiries into extinction, human geography, and coastal and peatland health. The mission of Ensayos is to do eco-cultural conservation work in Tierra del Fuego and other archipelagos through collaborative art, science and community projects in partnership with existing decolonial, ecological, and cultural conservation initiatives. In 2022 ENSAYOS presented «The Gift» as part of «TURBA TOL HOL HOL TOL» – The Chilean Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale.

«Contemporary Art and Context» is a lecture series hosted by MA Contemporary Art.

The lecture will be held in English, everyone is welcome to join! 

From Breaking Illusions to Becoming a Unicorn. Artist talk by Mare Tralla

Mare Tralla’s first public solo performance, Breaking Illusions (1993), and her most recent performative video work, Becoming a Unicorn, exhibited last month in Edinburgh, represent two significant milestones in her artistic journey. In her first performance, Tralla began with a quiet, symbolic action of destroying the perceived notion of a (young) woman / herself. In many ways, Becoming a Unicorn continues this exploration, presenting a self-ironic and humorous act of creating a queer self. Between these two works lies a journey of feminist inquiry, spanning art, activism, and life.

Mare Tralla (b 1967, Tallinn) is queer-feminist artist and activist. Her professional art career started in Estonia in the early 90s, where she was one of the very few conducting a feminist revolution in the field of contemporary art. Drawing from her personal history and everyday experience her practice was in direct critical response to how the transition period of Eastern European societies affected women. In her art practice she employs and combines a variety of media: video, photography, performance, interactive media, painting and various traditional crafts. As an activist she has been involved with Act Up, London, Catwalk4Power, No Pride in War coalition and LGSMigrants. Her recent performative projects deal with queer experiences, gender issues, investigate sustainability and economics. Currently Mare Tralla lives and works in Edinburgh.

Recent exhibitions include: ‘Duck and Cover’, Vabaduse Gallery Tallinn (2024), ‘In the Name of Desire’, Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga (2024); ‘We Don’t Do This. Intimacy, Norms and Fantasies in Baltic Art’, MO Museum, Vilnius (2024);  ‘Same Subject Continued’, Edinburgh Palette, Edinburgh (2023);  ‘Consequences’, Out of A Blue Drill Hall, Edinburgh (2022); ‘Atishoo, A-tishoo, We All Fall Down’, EKKM, Tallinn (2019); ‘Machine Divas’, steirischerherbst’20, Schaumbad, Graz (2019);  ’Woman&Woman’, City Gallery, Pärnu, 2019; ‘The X-Files [Registry of the Nineties]’, Art Museum of Estonia KUMU, Tallinn, (2018-2019); ‘Give Up the Ghost. Baltic Triennial 13’, Kim?, Riga, (2018);  ‘Bastard Voices’, Baltic Triennial 13, evening of performances, South London Gallery, London, (2018); ‘Women’, Threshold Artspace, Perth, UK (2017-2018).

Recent text contributions in books: Feminist Art Activisms and Artivisms, ed. Katy Deepwell, Valiz 2020; Watched! Surveillance, Art and Photography, eds. Louise Wolthers, Dragana Vujanovic, Niclas Östlind, 2016; re.act.feminism a performing archive, eds. Bettina Knaup and Beatrice Ellen Stammer, 2014; quite queer, ed. Claudia Reiche, 2014

www.tralla.net 

The talk will be held in English.

Artist talk by Family Connection

For the exhibition Difficult Pasts. Connected Worlds (curated by Margaret Tali and Ieva Astahovska, until Oct 20 on show at the Tallinn Art Hall Lasnamäe Pavilion) Family Connection has researched Black people present in historic Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian popular cultural and brought them in conversation with each other. From Mauritius, the patron saint of the Blackheads Brotherhood, to Eewar, the Jamaican maroon in Lydia Koidula’s “Juudit or the Last Maroons of the Jamaica Island”. In their artist talk two members from the collective – Rudsel Martinus and Quinsy Gario – will present about their works and discuss the themes present in the collective’s presentation. Martinus will be presenting via zoom from the Caribbean island Curaçao and Gario will be present in Tallinn. As part of their contribution to the exhibition, Gario will also be performing on Saturday, Oct 19, 18.00 at the House of the Blackheads. During the talk he will also speak about that performance titled In the Presence of Blues Part II.

Family Connection is an artist collective founded in 2005 from Curaçao and the Netherlands. The members are part of the Martinus family who were based in the Buena Vista neighborhood on Curaçao. For each presentation the participating artists vary. In Tallinn works are presented from Glenda Martinus, the co-founder of the collective; her brother Rudsel Martinus; and the children of Glenda Martinus – Jörgen Gario and Quinsy Gario. The group has worked together to present an installation consisting of paintings, audio, video and sculpture. Their work is concerned with decoloniality and presenting speculative histories. The subject matter differs per exhibition, but the collective actively relates their positioning in the Caribbean with the local context of their presentations. Previously the collective has presented work in Riga (Latvia), Berlin (Germany), Utrecht (the Netherlands), Eindhoven (the Netherlands) and on Curaçao.

‘Contemporary Art and Context’ is a lecture series hosted by MA Contemporary Art.

The artist talk will be held in English, everyone is welcome to join!

You are warmly invited to “A little bit calmer than before” by Eleftheria Irene Kofidou

Opening and a performance: 18.09 18:00

Exhibition opening times: 19.09-02.10 on the weekdays 14:00-18:00; 21.-22.09 14:00-16:00; 28.09-29.09 closed

A little bit calmer than before, is an additional instructional comment by composer J. Strauss for his musical piece Don Quixote op. 35 variation VII – The Ride through the Air. As ‘a little bit’ is a vaguely countable amount, it becomes very hard to place it inside a spectrum, unless someone has access to the other variables of the equation. In Kofidou’s installation the composer’s directory line lies out of context, as there is no before, nor afterwards to compare the present moment to, but in a quixotic analogy to her homeland’s socio-political situation.

“I will pay off for my everyday victories by losing the war” states the burnt slogan on the gallery wall, a recreation of a graffiti that existed in Aristotle University Campus, during the artist’s teenage years. As Orthodox tradition has it, during Easter, believers mark the sign of the cross on their door frames, using the flame of the holy light from their candles; an act of shielding the household from evil and a wish for good luck. The campus looks very different now, the once messy wall is now white, the legendary punk squat of the Department of Biology is closed down and a new special police unit is established. The slogan, long gone, is recreated again, burnt on the wall as a tribute to the missing particles, the lost fractures of collective memory. But enough with pessimism in politics; Under its surface, it doesn’t wish to become another loaded message in limbo; fights will be given at any cost, even the cost of an already foreseen outcome. In the Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin mentions “There was a wall. It did not look important (…) But the idea was real. It was important. (…) Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on.” There are two walls, one that already exists and another one; fractured and initially horizontal; is it there to dominate or to seal?

The installation becomes a set and the objects act as props for the performance; trying to grasp this certain type of calmness that comes after the strong fumes of anger have evaporated and resides in the process of preparation of oneself; the anticipation for something that is coming and is not calm at all. Is it there to be later broken?

The artist wishes to thank: Anu Vahtra, Ats Kruusing, Eleni Kofidou, Erik Hõim.

Graphic design: Eleni Kofidou

Eleftheria Irene Kofidou (1995) is a Greek artist based in Tallinn, who is mostly working with installations, performance art and text. Her art practice is often interconnected with poetry and focuses on processes of layering meanings, socio political connotations related mostly to her background and exploring ways that language triggers movement.