JANINA MONKUTĖ – MARKS
(1923 – 2010)
A Gift for the Homeland

The Rapla County Centre for Contemporary Art is pleased to announce the opening of renowned Lithuanian-American artist Janina Monkutė-Marks on our premises on April… 2020. The exhibition became a reality thanks to the Janina Monkutė-Marks Museum in Kėdainiai, Lithuania.

Janina Monkutė-Marks was born in Radviliškis, Lithuania, Sept. 21, 1923; her father worked as a railwayman. Escaping Lithuania in 1944, she studiet at the Innsbruck University, Austria, and at École des Arts et Métiers, Freiburg, Germany, with a number of Lithuanian emigrants as professors – Antanas & Anastazija Tamošaitis, Vytautas Kasiulis, Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas, Viktoras Petravičius.

In 1950 Janina resettled in the USA. Since 1956, she actively participated in the Chicago art scene, and was connected to the Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago) and the B.I.G. Arts Center (Sanibel, Florida). Her works have been exhibited by the Chicago Art Institute, The North Shore Art League (Winnetka, Illinois), Dunes Art Foundation (Michigan City, Indiana), Sun Times Gallery (Chicago, Illinois), Old Water Tower Place (Chicago, Illinois) et al; she had more than 20 individual exhibitions. She also participated in the events of Lihuaninan culture & art organizations, e.g. the Balzekase Museum of Lithuanian Culture, the Čiurlionise Gallery and the Museum of Lithuanian Art in Lemont.

Her early paintings and prints were influenced by the so-called Chicago Imagists (Leon Golub, Seymour Rossofsky et al), who stood in opposition to the 1950s mainstream of Abstract Expressionism, but also later opposed Pop Art, considering the primary task of art to be the expression of the artist’s personal experiences and emotions.

Between 1962-1966, Monkutė-Marks created a series of works utilizing the imagery of Pop Art; she later returned to her Lithuanian roots, finding inspiration in folk art motifs. The artist had a sizable collection of folk art from across the globe.

Since the 1970s, textile was Monkutė-Marks’s preferred medium of expression.

In 2000, the artist donated a major part of her creations to her native Lithuania, founding her museum in Kėdainiai, which opened its doors in 2001.
Janina Monkutė-Marks died in Chicago, Nov 13, 2010.

At the current exhibition in Rapla, we bring you a selection of Janina Monkutė-Marks’i linoleum block prints and tapestries.

The motif of road and journey is one of the most significant in the art of Janina Monkutė-Marks. Journey is interpreted as a quest for the meaning of life and soul-searching in the tapestries “Man and His World,” “Longing for Freedom,” “Going Home,” and “My Road.” Existential meaning is imposed even on the tapestries based upon “real” travel, such as “Going to the Wedding” and “Left Behind.” Janina Monkutė-Marks often portrays the feeling of “being on the road” as a labyrinth; one that has no beginning or end, no strictly positive or negative zones. It is as though the artist suggests that there is no chance to predict an upcoming turn of the road or escape the labyrinth. It is only possible to experience it fully.

Some of the artist’s linoleum block prints imitate the compositional scheme of traditional folk art (“My Road”, “Angel”); elsewhere, she combines the rough shaping of individual forms with geometric ornaments – these are substantial and generalized, represented not only by a contour line but also by entire silhouette. The artist fully employs the deep contrast and intensity characteristic of linoleum block printing. Floral and anthropomorphic allusions, geometric abstractions, traditional ornaments and the artist’s original motifs merge into a mysterious, magical world.

Janina Monkutė-Marks’s works are characterized by clarity of shape and exceptional compositional stability, intensity of colour and variability of texture. The subjective point of view and the courage to open up her inner world are not only recurrent but also some of the most valuable features of Janina Marks’s art, where the ironic and the tragic, the religious and the liberal, primitive and modern are elegantly combined.

Õ is a letter unique to the Estonian alphabet. This exhibition celebrates the uniqueness of Estonian culture.

Participants:
Mare Vichmann, Haidi Ratas, Kersti Karu, Maia Noorväli, Kärt Seppel, Kattri Takklaja, Kersti Laanmaa, Eliisa Ehin, Anne Türn, Kadi Hektor, Merike Hallik, Reeli Haamer, Rave Puhm, Helena Tuudelepp, Georg Bogatkin, Eva Berg, Kadri Jäätma, Ann Nurga, Karin Kalman, Külli Kõiv, Urmas Puhkan, Anu Rank – Soans, Rita Randmaa, Pille Kaleviste, Ene Tapfer, Üllo Karro, Tiina Kaljuste, Aigi Orav, Margit Mald, Margit Terasmees, Henriette Nuusberg – Tugi, Marget Tafel – Vahtra, Leena Kuutma, Jarõna Ilo
Designer:  Üla Koppel

 Open 15.11 – 08.12.2019, T – P 15.00 – 18.00

The topic of this exhibition is the creation of identity as part of shaping the social organisation and quality of life in small towns, and the role that art plays in small town life.

Artists usually represent their own ideas and preferences in their exhibitions, while the surrounding settlement forms a dense network of connections, presenting the viewer with meanings and visual identity specific to the location. Residents’ opinions about art events reflect the daily life in the town, while expectations toward artists work towards shaping local identity.

The artist conducted interviews with artists who’ve had their solo exhibitions at the RCCCA and the Rakvere Gallery, videos of which are on display at the exhibition. There are also audio interviews with exhibition visitors. It is notable that, while artists see their work in a wider context, and tend to compare it with metropolitan events, the expectations of the audience retain local connections. Art is seen as a colourful distraction from topics that have real consequences for the lives of residents.

The artist also conducted a performance where he dragged a wheeled box representing future Rail Baltic through the streets of Rapla.

The exhibition is part of the author’s doctoral thesis – more info at www.pragmatist.ee

The title – Dark River – refers to the undercurrents of the subconscious which, while not clearly definable, still exert their influence on us. The imagery of water, and its untameable nature, permeates the exhibition.

Riin Pallon’s (b. 1978) paintings are a symbiosis of conscious and unconscious attempts to reach out and grasp, with the mind and with the paintbrush, a fitting form for the ideas and feelings that matter to the artist. The paintings can be seen as poetic, emotionally loaded landscapes. The paintings are exhibited alongside verses that spontaneously evolved in the process of painting.

Kairi Orgusaar (b. 1969) employs a process of painting that, in itself, is a freeform trip into the subconscious. It begins with a flash of vision, then moves along on a journey where shapes emerge from the fog; finally, the painter arrives at an unpredictable destination. Contrasts and accords of colours, movement of lines, sudden accents work to filter fleeting emotions from the stream of time, giving them permanence; these snapshots then take their place in the subconscious, from where their echo subtly acts on our perceptions and senses. The viewer is invited to join the journey across the strange terrain of symbolic spaces, to dream, to create – to gaze into the dark river.

Artists participating in the Estonian Ceramists’ Association’s anual exhibition Õ meet the audience Nov 30, 2019.

Talk by Pille Kaleviste.

Other participants:
Mare Vichmann, Haidi Ratas, Kersti Karu, Maia Noorväli, Kärt Seppel, Kattri Takklaja, Kersti Laanmaa, Eliisa Ehin, Anne Türn, Kadi Hektor, Merike Hallik, Reeli Haamer, Rave Puhm, Helena Tuudelepp, Georg Bogatkin, Eva Berg, Kadri Jäätma, Ann Nurga, Karin Kalman, Külli Kõiv, Urmas Puhkan, Anu Rank – Soans, Rita Randmaa, Pille Kaleviste, Ene Tapfer, Üllo Karro, Tiina Kaljuste, Aigi Orav, Margit Mald, Margit Terasmees, Henriette Nuusberg – Tugi, Marget Tafel – Vahtra, Leena Kuutma, Jarõna Ilo.

 

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.

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.

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

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

“Wishing Well” Varvara Guljajeva ja Mar Canet
https://www.facebook.com/mar.canet/videos/10156804050003792/UzpfSTI4Nzk1ODc2NDYxOTg3MDoxOTA1MzIxMDEyODgzNjI5/

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.