Category Archives: Exhibitions

SEDNA

An exhibition of living pictures
A collaboration project between two Estonian artists, Kairi Orgusaar and Erki Kannus, “Sedna” is a 6-part series of images inspired by Arctic mythology, specifically the force known as Sedna. The exhibit combines painting with video projection, resulting in ever-changing, living pictures. A female figure slowly moving in a dark, abstract scenery, evocative of a long winter night, aglow with Aurora Borealis – though the artists have never been in the Far North before, they’ve captured the likeness of what they found it in their mind’s eye.
Sedna, of course, has many names and many guises – some call her Arnaqquassaaq, or Sanna, Arnapkapfaaluk, Sassuma Arnaa, Nerrivik, Nuliajuk, Takánakapsâluk…
Likewise, her story is told differently by various narrators, but some aspects remain constant: that of universal femininity – of the power to give birth. Rebellion, passion, anger and vengeance, oneness with nature, the will to live, dark depths of the ocean – Sedna represents all these things and more.
She was a girl who disobeyed her father. She refused all men and married a monster instead. She gave life to ancestors of nations, and to the creatures of the sea. She perished, drowned, her fingers chopped off by her father, yet survives as a force to be reckoned with. Like Life itself, she endures against all odds, and her strength lies in flexibility.



SENSE

Perception is an echo of objects and phenomena in human consciousness, which interprets sensory stimuli and ties them into a whole. The brain is a centre for interpretation – we never perceive anything directly. The nose picks up a scent, which the brain identifies as rose, cake or corpse. When we look around, our brain makes sense of colours, shapes, dimensions and movement.

Is there a point to perceiving and interpreting, if every category already has its opposite – shadow to light, silence to sound? When everything has a counterpoint, should the world exist at all – wouldn’t it just be entropy where everything is cancelled? Yet, there is a cause for existence; something that doesn’t seem to have a negator – the human being, reaching out of the balance and asking: why an I?

Perceive the world that our painting media have created, let it flow into you.

Participants: Anne Aaspõllu, Maiu Albo, Mikk Allas, Eha Koit, Karin Polluks, Mari Põld, Ave Tislar, Eteri Tõlgo, Krista Urvet, Marge Vonk.

We Are Here. Exhibition of German art

An exhibition by artists from the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern of Germany, focusing on topics related to a sense of place. The works deal with a search for a place of one’s own in a rapidly changing world.
The exhibition also features screenings of films about German modern art.
The exhibition is part of the programme “German Spring 2019” devoted to bringing German culture to the Estonian audience.

Kunstausstellung „Wir sind da“

Teilnehmende KünstlerInnen: Wolfgang Tietze (Gemälde), Daniela Melzig (Glasdruck) und Kristin Meyer (Installation).

Am 5. April um 18 Uhr wird im Raplamaa Kaasaegse Kunsti Keskus eine Kunstausstellung von Künstlern eröffnet, die Teilweise aus Mecklenburg-Vorpommern stammen. Die Werke behandeln durch verschiedene Weise Themen, die mit Orten und Plätzen verbunden sind. In den Werken geht es darum, wie man in der zeitgenössischen und immer schneller werdenden Welt seinen Platz findet.

Movie nights (free entrance) – Filmabends (Eintritt frei)

10. aprill kell 18.00 Gerhard Richter – Painting
16. aprill kell 18.00 Joseph Beuys – Jeder Mensch ist ein Künstler
26. aprill kell 18.00 Paula Modersohn-Beckeri looming

FREEDOM IN THE 20TH CENTURY

An exhibition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of independent Estonia. Every participating artist created one work on the topic of freedom, resulting in an exhibition of twenty-one freedom-inspired works. The creative process was captured on film, along with the artists’ messages.

Participants: Raul Meel, Marko Mäetamm, Kiwa, Laurentsius, Jaak Visnap, Urmas Viik, Navitrolla, Kadri Alesmaa, Jüri Arrak, Leonhard Lapin, Hardi Volmer, Kadri Kangilaski, Evi Tihemets, Peeter Allik, Jaan Toomik, Ivar Kaasik, Liisa Kruusmägi, Tarrvi Laamann, August Künnapu, Maarit Murka, Priit Pärn.

Curator: Jaak Visnap.

I Am the Gardener: Meet the Artists

Mathura / Kaari Saarma
„I am the Gardener“

The joint exhibition of artist Mathura and photographer Kaari Saarma intuitively scans one’s chance to be his or her own gardener. A garden is alive when both the wild and the cultivated get their share. The work is carried by the sense of directing your creation, but being unable to predestine its course. The pictures are like stopping points or gateways, the moments of awaiting the new buds.

The exhibition is on at Raplamaa Kaasaegse Kunsti Keskus from November 17 to December 2, Tuesdays to Sundays 3-6 P.M.

Come and join the artists for a tour of the exhibition and hear their story of it in the evening of December 2, at 18:00. All are welcome.
Photos by Kaari Saarma and Heiko Kruusi

I Am the Gardener. An Exhibition by Mathura and Kaari Saarma.

The joint exhibition of artist Mathura and photographer Kaari Saarma intuitively scans one’s chance to be his or her own gardener. A garden is alive when both the wild and the cultivated get their share. The work is carried by the sense of directing your creation, but being unable to predestine its course. The pictures are like stopping points or gateways, the moments of awaiting the new buds.

Estonia: A Mindscape

“Wishing Well” Varvara Guljajeva ja Mar Canet

We just finished the video of our new art project "Wishing well"Nice work in the video by Jesús María Rodríguez Santos and Varvara Guljajeva

Posted by Mar Canet on Neljapäev, 18. Oktoober 2018

Rapla County Centre For Contemporary Art
Press release
Oct 10, 2018

Artists’ group exhibition redefines Estonia through common key concepts

On Friday, October 12, at 6pm, an exhibition titled Estonia: A Mindscape opens at the Rapla County Centre For Contemporary Art. The opening performance by Alide Zvorovski and Katri Pekri bears the name “Ice Auditorium.”

Curator Kairi Orgusaar says:
“At this exhibition, keywords such as Trust, Word, Light, Freedom, Sound and Sea are expressed in works of art created with them in mind, and directing the viewer to consider the past, as well as the present and the future. Throught truth and humour, this exhibition – part of the Estonia100 anniversary programme – observes Estonia on the human scale.”

Participants include: Mar Canet, Varvara Guljajeva, Erki Kannus, Merle Kannus, Kati Kerstna, Kärt Ojavee, Kairi Orgusaar, Katri Pekri, Alide Zvorovski, Johanna Ulfsak.

WORD: The work “Wishing Wall” by Mar Canet and Varvara Guljajeva revives the magical act of making wishes – creating the future through words – by modern technological means, which give a physical presence to wishes written down by the spectators.

SEA: Kärt Ojavee and Johanna Ulfsak’s project “Live Transmission” conjures a utopian communication session through technological telepathy, where two separate universes converse without visuals or words.

SPACE: an installation by Alide Zvorovski, “Space,” was inspired by a sentence found in a science article: “Every box is empty as long as one looks inside.”

FREEDOM: In her work “Freedom and Slavery: Imavere, Türi, Otepää, Kolkja, Piibe tee, Haapsalu maantee, Suure-Jaani,” author Merle Kannus interprets the greenhouse as a symbol of both extremes.

TRUST: in her similarly-titled installation, Kati Kerstna discusses global awareness, trust, and responsibility.

SOUND and LIGHT: Erki Kannus and Kairi Orgusaar play with lights, sounds and visuals, studying their influence on our existence and our perception of the world.

The exhibition is open Oct 13 – Nov 11, 2018 at the Rapla County Centre For Contemporary Art., Tallinna mnt 3b, Rapla. Opening hours: Tue-Sun 3pm -6pm.


In 2018, th Republic of Estonia celebrates its 100th anniversary. More info on the jubilee programme can be found at  www.EV100.ee.

Studies in Form

Some of the participating authors have abandoned the two-dimensional space of the drawing, and explore depth in the form of tangible objects; others remain on paper, sketching the human being – he who gives names to everything.

The paper, the room, and the silence between us are all separate entities; yet, they are not closed systems. Sculptural objects and sketches bridge the abstract and the real, the singular and the plural. A coin has two faces; a person, many more. How to capture that which disappears upon appearing? What happens to an object when it’s not being observed, and where does vacuum find its place? What does a mirror look like when it decides to wear a human face? Sketching gets its limits set by time; an object – by space. Existence is enabled by a removal of those limitations.

Participants: Anne Aaspõllu, Mikk Allas, Jazmin Karp, Helena Lasner, Karin Polluks, Mari Põld, Kristiina Tali, Eteri Tõlgo, Marge Vonk.

Design: Eteri Tõlgo

SOFT CONTRASTS

You ar cordially invited to the opening of the exhibition
Pehmed kontrastid / Soft Contrasts

This year’s international exhibition comes from France, presenting personal projects of two Parisian artists. “Soft Contrasts” brings together Christian Prunello’s nuanced, classically painterly, large-scale works, and Kaia Kiik’s experimental paintings where the artist collaborates with the forces of Nature – salt, sunlight, pigments, ashes, clay, rain etc.
and resulting in novel moods and spaces, from delicate play of light to 3D sculptures.
While living and building their career in the same city, the artists’ backgrounds are highly divergent: Kaia Kiik comes from Saaremaa, Estonia, Christian Prunello from Argentina, South America.

Kaia Kiik
Born in 1973 in Estonia, on Saaremaa Island, Kaia Kiik lives and works in Paris, France, after spending several years in Los Angeles, USA. She has Master Phil. Degree and is deeply interested in sciences and their links with contemporary art. Since 2003, her innovative artworks have been widely exhibited in Europe, but also in the United States.

Kaia Kiik’s work questions the relationship between nature, culture and man. She uses several organic and mineral materials transforming them through meteorological and other natural forces. In her approach, Kaia Kiik highlights the different forms of coexistence from delightfulness to conflict, drawing inspiration, in particular, from the concept of mimicri.
She is concerned with the dualism of culture and nature, the relationship of wilderness to arts and and sciences, the effect of environment on humans and their creations.

Christian Prunello
Autodidact. He trained in individual workshops at the Ricardo Rojas Cultural Center with Alfredo Londaibere (painting), Alberto Goldestein (photography) and in the living models workshops of Estimulo de Bellas Artes with Fiels and Terribili (drawing), ( 1996-2000). Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Artist statement:
In my paintings, I am looking for an encounter, something unthinkable, which may never happen, so I wander.
From the formal point of view, I am interested in a half-human composition half-landscape, a nature formed by these two elements, the idea is to generate a psychological atmosphere, a vibration of color, an ideal.
Through the technique: oil on canvas, casein, coal, I seek to know the origin or meaning of the pigments / materials and give a metaphorical connotation to my work.
For “The memory of trees” charcoal and casein on wood, I try to write, as if I were a tree, my memories, using wood in three dimensions: 1) the final image (forest landscapes etc), 2) the wood support, 3) the charcoal. Casein as a medium is a fourth dimension since it comes from the milk of animals (we included), a work made of the same material in 3 different states.
Caput mortuum “dead head”: is the name of the pigment used to make “Foreign Land” and “That the fire burns”. This pigment apparently obtained from the ashes of the Egyptian mummies *, inspired me, by its name and by the weight of its history and its alchemical connotation, both “caput” to the backlight.

* Today, there is still a debate as to whether there is a relationship between mom brum and caput mortuum
.

Black & White

Photos and photograms 1985-2017

A photogram is defined as a silhouette photo, taken without a camera. The object or subject is placed in front of photosensitive paper, exposed to light, and then developed similarly to the classical process. I got into this activity 30 years ago and rediscovered it in summer 2017. A push came from a visit to the storage of the Järvakandi Glass Museum. A vision of light passing through inkwells and lab glass was reinforced by the light that reached the rods and cones of my retina through glass objects. My heart couldn’t rest until this play of light was immortalised on paper. Glass, a solidified substance, is playful, but so is man. But, to be put on paper, a person has to solidify – nay, vitrify – too.

Compositions made up of relics offered enough scope for play; yet I chose to occasionally include plants and toys, so as to bring some life into the nature morte (as reflected in the movies A Night at the Museum and Toy Story). My intention wasn’t a pun, rather an ironic reminder of the human condition.

The series LAB LIFE chronicles humanity’s attempts to interfere with Creation through genetic manipulation and testing of live subjects. SAFARI takes us to the battlefields of politicians. EDEN and EXILE recount a biblical story of falling from grace; both of these also have their contemporary, e-versions, on display.

Aurelius Augustinus has said: “Who is Man, any man, if he is but a man? What are men to me? Why should they hear my confessions, as if it were up to them to remedy my errors? That folk who, while curious of the life of others, do nothing to rectify their own? Why do they want to hear who I am, if they don’t want you to tell them who they are? And how do they know if I’m telling the truth about myself, if none but Man’s own spirit knows what’s inside him? I cannot prove my truthfulness to them, bu I will be heard by those whose ears have been opened by love.”

I cannot prove the truthfulness of my images, but hope to be believed by those whose eyes have been opened by love.