CURATOR'S DIARY
CURATOR’S DIARY: ESTONIARob Tuffnell Curator at Turner Contemporary, Sarah Mossop Community and Education Manager, myself and Peter Hofer an artist from Ramsgate and University College for the Creative Arts, Canterbury and associated with Turner Contemporary arrived in Tallinn at 12.00 at night on the 16th May.
Wednesday 17th May
The next day we found that the Contemporary Arts Centre, which was to be our base for the next few days was situated on the other side of the square from our hotel. After buzzing us in to the building shared with 15 people we made our way up a dark flight of stairs, which were interspersed with crates of art including Jan Toomik, 2nd Beijing Biennale.
At the art centre we met Johannes Saar the Director and Elin Kard, who was to prove a central person in all aspects of the Estonian art scene. A very professional organisation the centre acts in many ways as a commercial gallery would, holding DVD’s and CV’s of artists work, contemporary magazines and a large meeting table where we were installed. We immediately began a full day of meeting’s with artists starting with Villu Plink and Silja Saarepuu, two young artists whose practice has been based on performance / sculptural work. We then met Neeme Kulm, a very interesting sculptor and video artist who often used his own body in extreme ways. Next we met Jaanus Samma and Pille Juriso, a textile designer and artist who only sometimes work together, their work to date has centred on a project called fountains and balconies, as Pille described “there’s a good opposition between the two elements”.
In the afternoon we met Tiit Sokk, a collaboration between Marili Sokk and Tiit Ului. The two young women have worked on a variety of projects including one focusing on the large number of tourist groups from different countries which come to the city in the summer and a proposal of a work called “Winners” based on democratic diplomas. We then met the more established artist Marco Lamire, later described to us as the bad-boy of the Estonian art-scene, Marco’s work was political in its content and we were later to see other example in the Art Halle exhibition Violence and Propaganda. Finally we met Mark Rapiere, the Estonian artist who represented Estonia at this years Venice Biennale. He showed us a selection of work including the extremely beautiful 10 Men, of ten prisoners in Estonian jails. It seemed that after our first day in Tallinn there were a lot of interesting young artists with a variety of practices, although much of the work we saw seemed to be project based.
That evening we met Rael Artel a young curator who runs an independent space / studio in Tartu the University town in Estonia and a residency in the summer holiday town Parun on the West coast. Rael told us about her projects and gave us a few more tips on interesting artists whom we could arrange meetings with.
Thursday 18th May
Having seen artists all day on Wednesday we went straight to Hobuspea Gallery on Thursday morning to met Elin who also runs the almost entirely artist funded gallery. Elin gave us some more information on the artists we had seen and we saw the work of a few more. It was interesting to get an idea of how the Estonian Contemporary art market works with very few successful commercial galleries to push the art on to the international or European market. Much of the work is funded through a core government fund, awarded four times a year. The artists also have the support of the Contemporary Arts Centre and Hobusepea and Draakoni Galleries (which we visited after Hobusepea) both located in the Old Town of Tallinn on one of the main roads as well as a few independent spaces. Having talked with Elin and seen more work at the galleries we went on to Haus Gallery, also in the old town and one of the only other commercial galleries. Haus is a much more straightforward gallery showing mainstream abstract works by Estonian artists. From there we made our way to the Arts Academy outside the Old Town across new building sites and past traditional wooded houses in various states of disrepair. Passing a building site we were met with a horrible smell which it turned out was a mix of diesel and used domestic oil used as a cheaper version of fuel. We were later told that the new city council were often dictated to by building developers that had led to many older buildings of worth being demolished and a hotchpotch of new skyscrapers and shopping malls being installed. While this might have been inevitable it was still a bit of a shock having spent the previous day in the extremely well preserved but almost entirely Tourist populated Old Town.
At the Art Academy we met Karin Laansoo, a project-coordinator who also works independently. There we had a meeting with the artist Kristina Norman, who showed us two films, one of which dealt with ideas about the Russian community in Estonia (40%) many of whom don’t speak Estonian and as a result often end up in the worst paid manual jobs.
After the meeting we met Marco Maetamm, the director of the Art Academy who showed us round the studios and classrooms (including the typography department which is one of the9ir most popular) he introduced us to the professor of new media and where we saw the departments up to date equipment and interesting work.
We left the Academy and headed for KUMO the brand new Art Museum set in a park a little way out of the city centre. The day we visited was the museum’s free entrance day which meant long queues and a one group in one group out policy. Once inside we saw an exhibition of contemporary sculpture which included work by Marco Maetamn and Neema Kulm and the permanent hang of Estonian art including work from the 18th century, the end of the second world war until the restoration of Estonia’s independence.
We finished off the day by meeting again with Karin Lannsoo and the independent curator Andres Harm for dinner.
Friday 19th May
In the morning we me the artist and curator Andres Loo who told us about an exhibition called Sex he curated at Vael gallery outside the city centre, we then met the young photographer Tanja Muravskaja who had been recommended to us by Rael. In the afternoon Rob and Peter met with August Kunnapu a painter who took them to his house where his mother asked Rob and Peter advise about how to hang the paintings. Sarah and Johanna made a mad dash for Vael Gallery which was set in an old paper making industrial estate, the Sex exhibition was interesting with work by the photographer Tanja and other artists we had met. Speaking to the girls who worked in the gallery we were surprised by the lack of questions they asked us in return, and the fact that they have very few non- Estonian visitors.
Lastly Sarah and Johanna met Raul Keller a sound artist who was experimenting with narrow band radio. The three days had been pretty packed so at the end of the evening we hit the hay early because we had a 5.00am start to catch the flight back to London.