Noah Emanuel Morrison at Vent Space

On Tuesday October 17th at 18:00, Noah Emanuel Morrison opens his first solo exhibition NNNNNNNNNNNN at Vent Space, Vabaduse väljak 6/8.

The exhibition is a part of Tallinn Photomonth’s satellite program.

Within this ongoing, site-specific body of work, he considers how and where racist language becomes camouflaged within the city. The exhibition draws attention to the contemporary phenomenon of the NGR/S/Z series of graffiti, present throughout Tallinn. Walking around as a Black, queer-identified individual, he has been deeply disturbed by these. Reactive and self-reflective, the exhibition veers from research-informed to quotidian in its interventions into Tallinn’s racialized public space.

The show’s central sculpture, Substrate, is a chimera of a fence in Tallinn, on which an early 1990’s graffiti, Neegrid Eestist Välja, was written. Amid the global fascist turn, the piece reflects on the stakes of reaction within the graffiti’s wake.

He will show documentation of his 2022 public performance, Harm’s Way, in which he recites an autobiographical narrative from his time in Tallinn at three sites of the NGR graffiti around his home. At the third of these sites, he attempts to interpret the graffiti’s meaning.

These pieces are accompanied by diaristic and self-reflective analogue image series and video works.

It will be open 12-19 every day through October 24th.

Noah Emanuel Morrison (b. 1995) is a lens-based artist from New York City, currently enrolled in the Masters of Contemporary Art program at the Estonian Academy of Arts and the Masters of Photography program at Aalto University. His practice centers on identity, belonging, and the construction of desire.

Graphic Design: Shubham Aggarwal
Project Assistant: Elias Kuulmann
Supported by: The Cultural Endowment of Estonia

Event on Facebook

English landscape design, landscape art and the Anthropo(s)cenic (1750–1850)

On October 26th, the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture is hosting an open lecture by Frédéric Ogée.

The growing importance of ecological concerns and its transcription into the new discipline of eco-criticism have identified the first half of the 19th century as a possible starting point for the Anthropocene, a period when the profound effects of the two Industrial Revolutions could be felt and seen, when man’s imprint upon Nature became primordial, essential and irreversible.

With their new ‘landscape garden’ and the subsequent rise of picturesque tourism and landscape painting, the British developed a new, empirical exploration of man’s frictional inscription within Nature. The natural world seemed no longer considered as man’s ‘environment’, something peripheral surrounding man’s central presence, in their works Nature IS the center, and is somehow restored as the source of knowledge and truth. Yet this revolution is ambivalent when we know that the main patrons of these English landscapists were also the main actors of the industrial revolution and colonial expansionism, which consisted primarily in commodifying and ‘exploiting’ both nature and man.

Frédéric Ogée is Professor of British Literature and Art History at Université Paris Cité. His main publications include two collections of essays on English artist William Hogarth, as well as ‘Better in France’? The circulation of ideas across the Channel in the 18th century (Lewisburg, 2005), Diderot and European Culture (Oxford, 2006), J.M.W. Turner, Les Paysages absolus (Paris, 2010) and Jardins et Civilisations (Valenciennes, 2019). In 2006-07, he curated the first-ever exhibition of Hogarth for the Louvre. He is currently working on a series of monographs on 18th and 19th-century British artists – Thomas Lawrence, J.M.W. Turner, Thomas Gainsborough and William Hogarth – to be published by Cohen & Cohen (Paris). The first one, Thomas Lawrence – Le génie du portrait anglais came out in December 2022. The next one, on Turner, will be published in the fall of 2024. From 2014 to 2017 he was a member of Tate Britain’s Advisory Council, and since 2014 of the City of Paris Scientific Council. In 2018-19 he was a Kress Fellow in the Literature of Art at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and also a Neilson Professor at Smith College, Massachusetts. Next summer he will be a visiting lecturer in Beijing, at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and the University of International Business and Economics.

The 17th conference from the series Studies in Contemporary Culture, dedicated to one of the key Estonian literary works from the transition era, Emil Tode’s groundbreaking novel Border State, will take place on October 16th, 2023, at the Writers’ House in Tallinn (Harju 1).

The conference is organized by the Research Group of Contemporary Estonian Culture (EKA KVI, TLÜ TÜHI and TÜ) in collaboration with the Estonian Writers’ Union, and funded by Estonian Research Council (grant PRG636), Cultural Endowment of Estonia and EKA’s Research Foundation.

Transform4Europe Open Dual Lecture: “Dissonant Heritage: Re-evaluating the Soviet Legacies”. 

On October 17, the Estonian Academy of Arts will organize an open conversation/ lecture with two speakers, where academic knowledge and practitioner are discussing about the dissonant heritage from the Soviet Legacies

The dual lecture will explore both local and transnational aspects of dissonant heritage in relation to Soviet legacies. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022, Russian political behaviour, both in present and past, has been discussed across Europe and beyond as never before, including scrutinising Soviet and Russian-related heritage as one of the reactions to the aggression. This has resulted in creating new and opening up old conflicts between different communities. On the other hand, the situation gives a much needed opportunity for countries and memory groups to acknowledge their collective suppressed conflicts, provoking discussions that had been put on hold for decades. In this delicate process, transregional exchange of comparative experiences is substantial, paving the way for balanced discussions and cross-disciplinary expertise on heritage protection. 

On behalf of EKA – Anu Soojärv

Her field of research is Estonian monumental art in the Soviet era, focusing on the role of public monuments in identity formation of local communities. In her everyday work she is mapping and documenting public monuments and works of art from the perspective of preservation and data gathering. She is a doctoral student and a junior researcher in EKA at the department of Cultural Heritage and Conservation. 

You are invited to the Summer Hall (Suvesaal) of Maarjamäe Castle, doors open at 4:30 p.m. 

The event will be broadcast live on YouTube, but you can definitely have a more exciting discussion experience when you join us in Tallinn, at Maarjamäe!

NB! The event will be in English.

Within dictionaries, a flag is claimed as being “a piece of cloth with a particular design representing a country, party, association, etc.” From 8 October until 15 October, artist Thomas Sadée is going to challenge this description.

Together with you!

In How about flags we play with the concept of flags. What can a flag be? What can it stand for? When do we identify a thing as a flag? Let’s talk together, brainstorm together, and work together!

From 8 October until 15 October Ventspace will be open from 12:00 until 18:00.

Feel free to stop by to explore the idea of flags together.

On 13 October there will be a free workshop where we will make our own flags, and afterward partake in the unique flag parade from 15:00 until 19:00 – so please bring your own everyday materials to use.

This whole project will come together in a Finissage on 15 October from 15:00 until 20:00.

All activities take place at Vent Space, Vabaduse väljak 6-8.

Born in the USA, Roger Ballen has worked in Johannesburg and its surroundings since the 1970s. Initially, he documented marginalised white South Africans in remote regions near the end of the Apartheid era, conveying their state of mind through stark black and white photography. However, from 1995, Ballen’s aesthetic began to transcend the boundaries of traditional photography. In his unique multimedia ‘Ballenesque’ style, people, figures, and animals inhabit meticulously crafted stage sets adorned with primal, child-like drawings that can be likened to the “Theatre of the Absurd.” This signature style—haunting and beguiling—has captured the imagination of viewers around the world.

After developing an idiosyncratic style which is referred to as “Ballenesque”, Roger Ballen became one of the most prominent artist/photographers of his generation. He achieved international recognition through his unique and powerful use of drawing, painting, and collage alongside various sculptural techniques in elaborate installations, inventing a new, hybrid aesthetics, firmly rooted in the art of photography. From 1995, Ballen’s work evolved into a provocative fusion of reality and imagination. Well-known publications, including “Outland”, “Boarding House”, “Asylum of the Birds”, and “The Theatre of Apparitions”, transcend the confines of traditional documentary photography and incorporate painting, drawing, sculpture and film. His distinctive ‘Ballenesque’ style features ‘outsiders’, animals, found objects, wires, and childlike marks that cultivate a surreal Theatre of the Absurd.

Ballen’s work has been the subject of exhibitions at prestigious institutions for more than thirty years now. His decision to exhibit at the Halle Saint Pierre in Paris on 2019, a museum devoted to art brut and outsider art, is a special event which demonstrates his freedom from artistic genres. Since the exhibition has been successfully exhibited at Jakopic Gallery in Ljubljana, Slovenia; as well as the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, The Hague.

The exhibition “The World according to Roger Ballen” is an unprecedented overview of the artist which presents, along with 90 photographs, drawings, paintings and unseen installations that Roger Ballen has exclusively created for this event.

Wollen opens his personal exhibition “The World According to Roger Ballen” in Fotografiska Tallinn on October 13th – it is a retrospective exhibition that transforms visitors into participants in a living tableau—a gesamtkunstwerk of installations, videos, drawings, and photographic mastery.

Tickets for the opening: https://fienta.com/et/roger-balleni-naituse-avamine

On October 27, we will celebrate the 109th anniversary of the Estonian Academy of Arts and the 100th anniversary of EKA ceramics with a joint big party, where we welcome all our alumni, students, employees and friends! There will be a big reunion – dear gatherings and, of course, also new joyful acquaintances.

For the second time already, a charity auction of the creations of EKA alumni and students will take place, half of the proceeds of which will be collected for the award fund for young artists and designers, the Leo Rollin support fund for the ceramics students, and the other half will go to the authors. Explore the works coming up for auction HERE.

You will see Keithy Kuuspu’s performance, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of EKA’s ceramics studies, an exhibition curated in cooperation with EKA’s museum, and ceramic-themed art by Mihkel Ilus.

We will eat a cake baked and designed by Maria Ader Bailey, an alumna of the painting major of EKA, listen to the beats and tunes of musicians and DJs from EKA’s music fund, sing karaoke with alumna Helina Risti, and of course dance!

There will be a tour of the EKA museum showcasing alumni works and a tour of the EKA building, for which we ask those interested to pre-register separately here.

Tickets for the event can be purchased in advance at a reduced price of €5 for students and €7 for others until October 24th, and supporter tickets for 109€ on Fienta here.  After that, tickets will be 7€/10€ respectively, sold on Fienta and on location. GET TICKETS HERE.

Let’s get together!

PROGRAMME

• 17.30 Doors open. EKA Shop, student bars in the lobby and gallery
• 18.00 Celebrating 100 years of EKA ceramics studies, welcome from the ceramics department, presentation of ceramic instruments: Clelia Piirsoo and Linda Viikant in room A501
• 18.00 EKA museum Metfond art tour, i.e. alumni artworks in the building (Registration link)
• 19.00 Rector’s welcome speech in the EKA gallery and assembly hall
• 19.15 EKA student Keithy Kuuspu’s performance in the lobby and courtyard
• 19.30 EKA Ceramics 100 exhibition opening (2nd floor)
• 19.45 Opening of Mihkel Ilus’ exhibition (3rd floor)
• 20.00–22.30 EKA auction in the Assembly Hall (A101)
• 20.00–21.00 EKA building tour (Registration link)
• 20.30–22.30 Drawing class with the legendary teacher Maiu Rõõmus (rõõm A306)
• 20:00–02:00 Music from the archives of former and current EKA students: DJ Inga Tislar; DJ duo Janek Murd and Erkki Tero aka Eesti Pops; DJ Andres Lõo, in the atrium
• 20.00–00.00 Video game station + weird and interactive music at EKA New Media Arts. Guest performance by Aubery Lis (as Astro The Fox)
• 21:00 to 23:00 Alumna Helina Risti’s karaoke hall (room A202)
• 23.00 CAKE, the work of painting alumnus Maria Ader Bailey, in the Gallery

(the programme may change)

All ERKI, Tallinn University of Arts’, and EKA alumni, students, lecturers, colleagues, and friends are welcome!

GET TICKETS HERE!

AUCTION

Explore the works coming up for auction HERE.

Ceramic artworks will be offered for bidding with a starting price of €100, while the rest will start at €109. The artist will receive 50% of the selling price, and the remaining 50% will be donated to the Young Artist and Young Applied Artist Prize Fund, as well as the Leo Rohlin Foundation, supporting young ceramic artists.

If you wish to participate as a buyer in the auction, please register here: https://forms.gle/3YtnRJUrLgaj3A8XA. (You can also register in person before the start of the auction)

If you cannot attend the auction in person but are interested in bidding on a specific piece, please use the registration form above to indicate the artist’s name of the desired work and the maximum amount you are willing to bid for it. The auction team will place bids on your behalf with the goal of acquiring the artwork at the best possible final price.

For any questions, please contact: eka@artun.ee

On 6 October at 6 pm, Trance, the main exhibition of Tallinn Photomonth’s seventh edition, will open at Tallinn Art Hall’s Lasnamäe Pavilion.

It explores people’s everyday addiction to screens and includes works by 17 artists from eight countries, as well as three artist duos and one artist group. Several artists will present their works in Estonia for the first time. Curated by New York based, Finnish curator, Ilari Laamanen, the exhibition will remain open until 26 November.

“Trance looks into the charm and allure of being engaged with technology on the one hand, and the darker side of these rapid developments on the other. The presence of these objects is so mundane and pervasive, even to the point that not having one could give an individual the feeling of isolation from the social context altogether,” says Ilari Laamanen, curator of the exhibition. The exhibition focuses on technological trance as people’s dependence on screens, and it examines how the transition from photographic images to interactive screens, as well the intimately intertwined relationship between the two, marks one of the most significant and destabilising changes in the way in which humans perceive reality, but also how contemporary art can be a fertile ground for making sense of the relationship between technology and the human experience.

According to Laamanen, an art exhibition offers an environment where alternative ways of communicating and transmitting information can be used: “The artists in the exhibition utilise glitch as a conceptual tool, which offers the viewer an opportunity to take a break, step back from the technological trance, and contemplate on the meanings and significance of art and images.” The presented artworks invite viewers to perceive and analyse various means of (audio)visual presentation and to review their own relationship with watching.

The artists participating in the main exhibition are Sara Bjarland (FI/NL), Zody Burke (US/EE), Patricia Domínguez (CL), Elo-Reet Järv (EE), Karel Koplimets (EE), Diane Severin Nguyen (US), Veli Granö (FI), Laila Majid (AE/UK) and Louis Blue Newby (UK), Norman Orro and Joonas Timmi (EE), Pire Sova and Ando Naulainen (EE), Viktor Timofeev (LV/US), Anu Vahtra (EE), Jessica Wilson (US) and artist group CUSS Group (ZA).

According to Laamanen, Trance has an interdisciplinary and cross-generational focus, and each artist’s work has an unexpected impact at the exhibition: “The process of curatorial work has been strongly influenced by the unusual architecture of Tallinn Art Hall’s Lasnamäe Pavilion. The presented works are in dialogue with the exhibition space, which makes the exhibition an engaging and multi-sensory experience. Estonia-based artists Zody Burke, Karel Koplimets, Anu Vahtra, Pire Sova and Ando Naulainen will create new installations specially for Photo Month. I am very pleased to introduce the works of international artists Patricia Domínguez, Laila Majid and Louis Blue Newby, and the CUSS Group for the first time in Tallinn.”

The exhibition is accompanied by a rich public and educational programme, you can find further information on the Tallinn Art Hall website: https://www.kunstihoone.ee/en/programme/.

Running from 6 October to 26 November the Tallinn Photo Month ’23 main programme, includes international group exhibition Trance at Tallinn Art Hall’s Lasnamäe Pavilion and Artist Film screenings at Sõprus Cinema in collaboration with the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (16 and 17 November; curators Piibe Kolka and Genevieve Yue). The biennial’s Satellite programme includes a continued collaboration with several important partners and exhibition spaces focused on photo-led art in Tallinn. In cooperation with Tallinn City Transport, an urban space installation will be presented in two Tallinn trams. More information about the Tallinn Photomonth contemporary art biennial programme can be found at https://www.fotokuu.ee/en/programm.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Ilari Laamanen
Ilari Laamanen is an independent curator based in New York. He co-curated the ninth edition of the Momentum biennial in Moss, Norway in 2017. As the Director of Programs at the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York (2013–2020), he curated and commissioned projects to the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New Museum’s Ideas City festival, and Brooklyn Bridge Park. At the FCINY he led the MOBIUS Fellowship Program for six years, establishing partnerships with institutions such as Artists Space, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and JUDD Foundation. He has edited the publications Crossroads – New Views on Art and Environment, MOBIUS Manual and Beyond the Pleasure Principle.

Lasnamäe Pavilion of Tallinn Art Hall
The Tallinn Art Hall Foundation is a contemporary art establishment that presents exhibitions in two galleries in 2022–2024 – at Tallinn Art Hall’s Lasnamäe Pavilion and Tallinn City Gallery. The exhibitions of Tallinn Art Hall are installed by Valge Kuup.

Tallinn Photomonth
Tallinn Photomonth is an international biennial of contemporary art which presents works from almost all areas of visual culture and looks more broadly at the development of art and society, increasingly mediated by photographic images, cameras and screens. Tallinn Photo Month was initiated in 2011 by the Estonian Union of Photography Artists (FOKU), which coordinates and supports collaboration between art institutions, galleries and artists.

Now that September has flown by we can finally celebrate the traditional hazing of EKA freshmen – foxes!

All EKA students and lecturers and friends of EKA are invited!

This year’s theme is PROPAGANDA.

Register your course here

20.00 – dj loveknot

21.00 – performances