Category: Faculty of Fine Arts

Open Mon-Sat at 15.00-18.00

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 contemporary art, prints, installation, sculpture and painting curricula will be on display. On each morning of the marathon, a new exhibition will be installed and in the 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.

SCHEDULE

01—02.12 Scenography, supervisor Mark Raidpere

04.12 Photography, supervisor Paul Kuimet

05.12 Drawing, supervisor Eero Alev

06.12 Painting, supervisors Tõnis Saadoja, Karl-Kristjan Nagel

07.12 Painting, supervisors Tõnis Saadoja, Anna Škodenko

08.12 Sculpture, supervisor Taavi Talve, Laura Põld

09.12 Drawing, supervisor Britta Benno

11.12 Graphic Art, supervisors Charlotte Biszewski, Heta Jäälinoja, Viktor Gurov, Katrin Kaev, Caroline Pajusaar, Liina Siib, Taavi Suisalu

12.12 Graphic Art, supervisors Kadi Kurema, Mark Antonius Puhkan, Charlotte Biszewski, Maria Izabella Lehtsaar, Eve Kaaret

13.12 Scenography, supervisor Tomo Stanič

14—15.12 Contemporary Art, supervisors Charlotte Emma Biszewski, Paul Kuimet, Camille Antoine Laurelli, Holger Loodus, Laura Põld, David Ross, Taavi Talve, Jaan Toomik, Anu Vahtra, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo

16.12 Painting, supervisors Sirja-Liisa Eelma, Vladimir Dubossarsky, Mart Vainre

18—19.12 Contemporary Art, supervisors Charlotte Emma Biszewski, Sirja-Liisa Eelma, Maris Karjatse, Camille Antoine Laurelli, Laura Põld, David Ross, Sten Saarits, Liina Siib, Taavi Talve, Jaan Toomik, Anu Vahtra

20.12 Photography, supervisor Anna Mari Liivrand

Critic and film curator Genevieve Yue (USA) will give an open lecture “Girl head: Feminism and Film Materiality” at 17.30 on November 20 in auditorium A-101, EKA.

Genevieve Yue is one of the curators of the artist film programme “Polar Coordinates” by Tallinn Photomonth, screened at PÖFF Expanded 2023 in Tallinn.

Genevieve Yue’s recent book Girl Head: Feminism and Film Materiality (Fordham University Press, 2020) explores how gender and sexual difference have been deeply embedded within film materiality. In rich archival and technical detail, Yue examines three sites of technical film production: the film laboratory, editing practices and the film archive. Within each site, she locates a common motif, the vanishing female body, which is transformed into material to be used in the making of a film. This talk will explore the book’s theory of gender and film materiality through readings of narrative film, early cinema, experimental film and moving image art.

Genevieve Yue is an associate professor of culture and media and director of the Screen Studies program at the New School.
She has programmed films at Anthology Film Archives, Metrograph, MassArt, and other venues.
Her essays and criticism have appeared in Mubi, Film Comment, Film Quarterly, and Reverse Shot, and she is author of Girl Head: Feminism and Film Materiality (Fordham University Press, 2021). She is based in New York City.

The lecture is organised in collaboration of Tallinn Photomonth and Contemporary Art MA program, EKA.

Additional information on Tallinn Photomonth’s film program: https://mailchi.mp/fotokuu/tallinn-photomonth-23-film-programme

On Friday, 17 November at 5:00 p.m. Alice Kask and Neeme Külm will open their joint exhibition “Something Righter in This” in the large gallery of the Tartu Art House. 

The exhibition is seemingly a continuation of the show “In Vanity Alone”, which Alice and Neeme organised in the Tallinn City Gallery a year ago. At the same time, it is also not. While the selection at that time was firmly orchestrated by Neeme, who worked as a demiurge transforming the comprehensible space into an incomprehensible one, today the roles have been switched and Alice has reclaimed the space which she had surrendered to Neeme, filling it with her large paintings. Neeme has handed over the reins saying: “Let grace accompany our actions”.

In the gallery, the artists still work independently and on their own, sometimes in a hectic manner, but mostly very self-confidently. Their work, despite differences in their thinking, actions and choices of media, still, miraculously, function together as a strong whole. The powerful symbolism with which they work does not shatter, but increases this unity.

Neeme sows wedges into the walls like budding flowers, replaces the alarm button with pearls for his sweetheart, opens a cello case like a confession and fills an archaic confessional with texts from his journal. Hidden behind the declarations of love and the hints of reconciliation, he also gently establishes himself and keeps a watchful eye over the whole space. The gaze is casual but still present, because somebody has to gaze.

The unmistakable Alice, who only dares to speak about herself, transforms her paintings into the attributes of femininity, concentrating on a lone figure, on a single item, but full of tension and on a grandiose scale. Ruthlessly precise in what she is trying to show, straightforward in concealing what deserves to be hidden. Only nature is left outside Alice’s penetrating gaze: she looks at it from a distance and sees it as something bigger than herself. The dark and dreary elements can only be captured vaguely, recorded only from a distance. So complicated and, at the same time, also so simple. As sincere as possible.

“A certain uncompromising discomfort for the inevitable corporeality of human consciousness” is present in the “striking spatial-poetic ping-pong” which accompanies the exhibition of Alice Kask and Neeme Külm. These were the words of the art critic Hanno Soans a year ago and, lo and behold, they indeed still hold true.

Alice Kask (b. 1976) graduated in 2002 from the master’s programme in painting of the Estonian Academy of Arts. Since her major solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonian (2016), she has recently shown her works at the Helsinki Art Hall (2018) and Rüki Gallery (2020). In 2008, she had a solo exhibition in the Tartu Art Museum. Among other accolades, in 2003 she received the Konrad Mägi Award.

Neeme Külm (b. 1974) graduated in 1998 from the Department of Sculpture of the Estonian Academy of Arts and studied in 2003–2005 in the master’s programme of interdisciplinary arts at the same school. His most powerful solo exhibitions took place in the first half of the 2010s and his more recent group shows have existed on the border between architecture and visual arts. Külm was one of the founders of the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia.

The artists thank: Tamara Luuk, Kadri Villand, Johann Tanel Möldre, Lepo Külm, Berit Teeäär, Tiit Talvaru, Hilkka Hiiop and Päär Keedus.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

The exhibition is open until 17 December.

*A bus will run from Tallinn to the opening of the exhibition. More information and registration here: https://forms.gle/xmanLQ1YxnixyuKv5

www.kunstimaja.ee

facebook.com/kunstimaja

Tartu Art House (Vanemuise 26, Tartu, Estonia) Wed–Mon 12–18. Exhibitions are free of charge.

The exhibitions of the Tartu Art House are supported by the Tartu town government and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

On Friday, 17 November at 5:00 p.m. Keiu Maasik will open her solo exhibition “Meadows of Change, a Place Called Home” in the monumental gallery of the Tartu Art House. 

The exhibition is about life in virtual reality and reflects on the possibility that human life may move there in the future. It also deals with the fear that this could happen and what we as humans would lose as a result.

For the past few years, the artist buried herself in the world of computer games and spent as much of her free time as possible in the virtual world. It seemed to be an acceptable thought exercise for her that in the future human life would move to the virtual world. One of the games she immersed herself in for several months was Red Dead Redemption 2. She felt like there was no other place she would rather be than in the world of RDR2. The game takes place in 1899 in America. The story follows the ventures of a gang of outlaws at a time when the Wild West is fading and civilization is encroaching. Their time is coming to an end and fear is in the air ahead of inevitable changes.

“I felt similar fear last year when I encountered a herd of wild horses. A rumble could be heard in the distance, and the ground beneath me shook gently. At some point, about twenty horses came into view, galloping at full speed through sea water. The horses and the powerful scenery seen in the game now seemed hollow in comparison. I want the world to move forward, but I don’t want to lose the galloping horses roaming about freely,” the artist explains.

Keiu Maasik (b. 1992) graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a bachelor’s degree in photography and a master’s degree in contemporary art. In 2019, she received the EKA Young Artist Award. In 2018, she received the Wiiralt scholarship and was the laureate of the competition Young Tartu of the Tartu Art Museum. In her work, she discusses the impact of documentation on memory, identity and relationships between people.

Graphic design: Anna Kaarma

The artist’s gratitude to: Madis Kurss and Kaisa Maasik 

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

The exhibition is open until 17 December.

• A bus will run from Tallinn to the opening of the exhibition. More information and registration: https://forms.gle/xmanLQ1YxnixyuKv5

www.kunstimaja.ee

facebook.com/kunstimaja

Tartu Art House (Vanemuise 26, Tartu, Estonia) Wed–Mon 12–18. Exhibitions are free of charge.

The exhibitions of the Tartu Art House are supported by the Tartu town government and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Queering the Bimbo

Recently, we have borne witness to a resurgence of the bimbo archetype within popular culture. Despite its rooting in a non-gendered etymology, the term ‘bimbo’ is understood to be a slur aimed at attractive women who are deemed lascivious; their proclivity inherently paired with stupidity. Visually, the bimbo plays by the rules and expectations of patriarchy; women’s bodies are often the only thing rendered visible among the multitude of their human experience. Contrary to the lack of intelligence implied by the bimbo archetype, however, there are many examples to be seen of cultural figures embodying & using the shortcomings of the archetype to flip the script on contemporary gender discourse. From the failings of neoliberal girlboss feminism to the failings of binary views of womanhood, artists are beginning to utilize the bimbo trope to express a cognitive dissonance underpinning the expectations of femininity (and, by extension, masculinity) in the contemporary sphere.

Within this workshop, we will examine the phenomenon of performing hyperfemininity using cultural case studies and examples in contemporary art. We will discuss hyperfemininity’s capacity-versus-limitations to affect change within uneven hierarchies, and speculate on the bimbo archetype’s potential as a transformative/subversive subject and a conduit for queer/femme empowerment. As the verb form of queer, queering can refer to the act of taking something and looking at it through a lens that makes it strange or troubles it in some way. Can the bimbo be queered? Is this already happening?

Following the presentation and an open discussion, Zody Burke will guide a workshop using epoxy clay, for participants to create personal artworks. The participants will be guided to work with the medium that the artist often uses in her own works. The same materials are used in her installation at the Photo month´s main exhibition, Trance.

The workshop is limited to 12 participants, so we encourage you to register quickly to make sure you get a spot. The registration form can be found here: https://forms.gle/S3PyjvSWyAsAS1CDA

12.11 at 14.00 in Lasnamäe Pavilion

Discussion part at 14:00

Workshop part: 15:30

Artists: Aili Vint (EE), Daria Melnikova (LV), Kristel Saan (EE), Kristina Õllek (EE), Monika Varšavskaja (EE/FR), Morta Jonynaitė (LT), Viktorija Daniliauskaitė (LT)

Curator: Merilin Talumaa (EE)

The exhibition Breathing Through the Eyes at L’Atlas in Paris gathers together different generations of artists from the Baltic countries, most of them presenting their work in Paris for the first time.

The exhibition touches subtly on the ideas of Lithuanian-American archaeologist and anthropologist Marija Gimbutas, whose profound research brought attention to the ancient cultures of the Baltic region and the broader Indo-European world, especially well described in her book The Balts (1963). The exhibition takes its inspiration from Gimbutas’ ideas which have influenced contemporary perspectives on heritage, indigenous identities, and the relationship between humans and nature in the Baltic Sea area.

Research on the cross-disciplines of archaeological artefacts, linguistics, ethnography and folklore led Gimbutas to posit the thesis that prehistoric European culture was female-centred and worshipped a Mother Goddess as the giver of all life. The Goddess’ power was in water and stone, in cave and tomb, in animals and birds, in hills, trees and flowers. A spiritual sense of connectedness was artfully expressed through a sophisticated symbol system and an abundance of ritual objects. Nature and body (especially the female body) were honoured in Europe for tens of thousands of years. Women had an especially strong position in societies across Eastern and Central Europe – a tendency no longer necessarily evident today.

The exhibition Breathing through the eyes poetically comments on the fragile materiality of our being, multiple identities, the process of change and new environmental sensibility. Gimbutas, who having opened the treasure trove of prehistory, inspired a belief in a peaceful existence in our time – to bring back to life suppressed vital elements, such as the earth, the body (health), the feminine, and the subconscious. Participating artists, through imaginative and fictitious narratives, share personal stories and beliefs that also reflect the influence of Gimbutas’ theories on ancient symbolism. Their works echo these concepts through a contemporary lens, incorporating elements such as spirals, circles, and motifs such as snakes and birds – symbols rooted in ancient European matriarchal cultures that continue to resonate in Baltic art and culture.

The exhibition directs us to consider how we might reimagine a world centred around goddess worship, with its emphasis on preserving nature, nurturing existence, and forsaking warfare. Could this theoretical concept transcend into the tangible reality of our future society? Breathing through the eyes seamlessly intertwines historical narratives, cultural myths, and potential scenarios, immersing us in the themes that Marija Gimbutas ignited: the celebration of life’s cycles, the sanctity of the female body and labour, and the spirituality inherent in these concepts. Gimbutas’ exploration of the spiritual dimensions of a harmonious Old Europe and her vision for a New Europe free from dominance and warfare feels remarkably pertinent in our contemporary world.

Gastronomic performance: Monika Varšavskaja (EE/FR)

Exhibition setup: Daria Melnikova (LV)

Communication visuals: Gaile Pranckunaite (LT)

Exhibition stays open until December 22, 2023.

L’Atlas
4 Cour de l’île Louviers, 75004 Paris

Opening hours: Tuesday—Saturday, 12pm—7pm

Free entrance

Marija Gimbutas (1921–1994) was a Lithuanian-American archaeologist and anthropologist. She contributed to what is considered to be one of the most significant academic watershed moments in women’s studies with her archaeological and philosophical work on Neolithic culture and religion. Gimbutas is best known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of “Old Europe,” a term she introduced. Old Europe referred to both the geographical area and social structures that existed before the Indo-European influence. Gimbutas unequivocally established the existence of a Goddess religion who is the most persistent feature in the archaeological record of the ancient world. The Goddess in all her manifestations was a symbol of the unity of all life in nature. ​​Gimbutas’ discoveries took on great symbolic importance for feminists across various disciplines who found, in her vision of a peaceful, nature-revering society, a sense of hope for the future based on this foundation in the distant past.

All the artworks in the exhibition “Total Jellification” are made of the same material – agar, a type of jelly that is made from seaweed. It is a natural material used for making desserts, puddings and custards, it is also used in microbiology for cultivating bacteria.

The exhibition “Total Jellification” is inspired by a phenomenon of jellification of the seas. A paper called “Jellification of Marine Ecosystems as a Likely Consequence of Overfishing Small Pelagic Fishes: Lessons from the Benguela” studies the consequences of overfishing in South Africa. Overfishing small pelagic fishes increases the biomass of jellyfishes. These small fishes can eat parts of jellyfish when they are not yet fully developed, but as they grow bigger, jellyfishes have virtually no predators. Thus the small fishes are important in managing the population of jellyfishes. The marine ecosystem has been completely transformed from the start of commercial fishing. But this isn’t only a problem for South Africa, the same processes have been discovered all around the globe and encounters with jellyfishes have also increased in the Baltic sea.

In this exhibition, jellification has been taken literally. Vent space has been transformed into an experimental space, where the possibilities of agar are explored. Agar jelly has been casted, moulded, dried, cut and for the opening the artist herself will also be jellified. The exhibition is an exploration of a quickly changing future, how to deal with the rapidly jellifying world.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Põhjala and Karksi Brewery.

October 31, 2023 Paul Kuimet’s solo exhibition Crystal Grid will be open in Draakon gallery.

The opening event takes place on November 1 at 18:00.
The project-related artist’s book presentation will take place on November 23 at 18:00 adjacent to the gallery in Kanuti Gildi SAAL.

“… How to give structure to something that itself is lacking one? How to present something like that? This is a question of visibility and making visible. What are the means for making visible something that always remains invisible? More precisely: the thing that remains invisible in real life, but of which we can get a glimpse in Crystal Grid, is the structure of capitalism. But how to display something like that?”

Neeme Lopp Paul Kuimet’s Analytical Photography
Essay from artist’s book Crystal Grid (Lugemik, 2023)

The exhibition features 25 new works from the Crystal Grid series. The series, commenced in 2020, consists of collages composed of photos taken in palm houses of various botanical gardens around the world. The collages are arranged in sets of two, three or four, juxtaposing plant fragments, which in reality are located hundreds or even thousands of kilometers apart.

For the collages, a pattern is used, derived from the structure of the ceiling of the central transept of the Crystal Palace, erected for the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. For each work, a new pattern is designed within the existing framework, based on the internal composition of each photo – part of the image is cut according to the pattern, and part is left uncut.

Paul Kuimet (1984) is an artist who works with photography, 16 mm film, and installation comprising of these media. Although his work is often described by a technological way of seeing, his practice places emphasis on the movement and presence of the beholder in the exhibition space. Since 2013, his work has been interested in modernist forms. In his latest works he has concentrated not so much on the forms of modernism, but on its materials, such as steel and glass, and their relationship to the development of modern capitalism since the mid-nineteenth century. He received an MA degree from the Estonian Academy of Arts (2014). In 2018, he participated in residency programmes at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels, and at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York City. Since 2022, Kuimet is the Associate Professor at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Department of Photography.

The exhibition will remain open until November 25, 2023.

The exhibition is a part of the satellite programme of the contemporary art biennial Tallinn Photomonth (6.10.–26.11.2023). More info: fotokuu.ee

Supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Academy of Arts, Põhjala Brewery
Exhibitions in Draakon gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and AS Liviko.

I LIVE IN TALLINN
Kunstiryhmitus
02.11 – 09.11.2023
Opening: 02.11 at 6 pm

“I Live in Tallinn” is an exhibition that wraps up the collective Kunstiryhmitus’ 48 performances in Tallinn’s urban space. At the opening performance, rooms that were spilled throughout the city will be brought back together to a garage box at the gallery space Garage49 (Kalaranna 42/6). 

The sentence “I live in Tallinn.” should not refer to just the space that is enclosed between four walls. This can only be achieved if the space between buildings in a city does not only act as a transit corridor that takes you from point a to point b. The polarization between public and private space is artificial. When we stop seeing the two as totally separate, public space can be an extension of our home- it becomes common space. By bringing situations that usually take place at home to the streets of Tallinn, we turned it into a part of our homes. 

Kunstiryhmitus is a collective of EKA students from different study fields. The collective focuses on studying the space around them through performance. 

Instagram: @kunstiryhmitus

On Monday, October 30, 18.00, Rotterdam-based curator, writer and artist Isabelle Sully will introduce her practice in room A302.

Working with feminist histories in mind, Isabelle Sully works across curating, writing and art-making, taking the mechanisms and materiality of administration as the main focus within her work to develop conceptual projects that span experimental writing, performance, exhibition-making and publishing. Through drawing on her work as founding editor of the publication series Unbidden Tongues as well as founder and co-curator of the event platform Playbill, Sully will present a series of projects that take writing as a primary mode of thinking. Given that language and its handling are central to her work, she will also focus on the realisation of these projects as they relate to graphic design and techniques of distribution—approaches developed through learning from methods of information circulation used within various feminist movements.

Isabelle Sully (1991, AU) practices across art-making, curating, editing and writing. Originally from Melbourne, she now lives in Rotterdam where she is the founding editor of Unbidden Tongues and co-curator of Playbill. Her involvement with the administrative sphere of institutional practice also plays out in her current role as assistant director-curator at Kunstverein, Amsterdam.

Isabelle Sully’s lecture is co-organized by Graphic Design and Contemporary Art MA programs.

Everyone is welcome to join!