ESTONIAN EXHIBITION AT THE 47th VENICE BIENNIAL

 

Artists from Estonia at the international art exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia – for the very first time!

The Estonian exhibition at the 47th Venice Biennial was based upon the actions and objects of three of Estonia’s best known performance artists in the public space of the city of Venice.

11.–16.06.1997

Siim-Tanel Annus “Crescent” (Riva dei Sette Martiri’l),
Raoul Kurvitz “Painting Venice” (Bacino di San Marco’l),
Jaan Toomik “View” (Riva dei Sette Martiri’l).

Commissioner: Tamara Luuk
Curator: Eha Komissarov
The exhibition was organized, coordinated and financed by Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Cultural Ministry of Estonia

Jaan Toomik, "View", installatsioon, 1997

Raoul Kurvitz, "Painting Venice", performance, 1997

Raoul Kurvitz (Painting Venice) and Jaan Toomik (View) represent the fears and hopes of the present in their works. As for the future, the term itself is more vague for the Estonians. The grammatical form of future doesn’t exist in the Estonian language. Therefore it is not surprising that the Estonian art deals with the category of eternity instead, as does Siim-Tanel Annus in his work (Crescent).

“..... Siim-Tanel Annus’s performance art is more related to the biblical symbolism of the birth of the world, catastrophes and destruction. His performances often refer to archetypes of the final judgement day and the resurrection, which are movements in the direction of our potential future, towards the light of the spiritual world as opposed to the shamanistic journeys into the past toward the beginning of human life. For this reason, the apocalypses created by the artist possess, in the final analysis, positive energy containing faith and hope in a better world, and a future free of suffering...” (Prof. Leonhard Lapin).  

“ .....Raoul Kurvitz is a romantic, a convinced romantic, an obdurate romantic, a militant romantic. He does not want to be called a romantic and that is just what betrays him. It turns out that he means all of this seriously. Furthermore, he has dealt with this for fifteen years already in the far north, in Ultima Thule, where water sprayed into the air freezes immediately into history and semiotic ocean is sprinkled about as ice crystals into his paintings, videos, performances and installations. His appearances are mystical, mythical, symbolic and dramatic, only to again retreat to minimalistic objects and analytical observations, in which any type of poetry is renounced.....” (Johannes Saar, art critic).

“....Jaan Toomik has /.../ worked as a performance and installation artist, conjuring up environments and situations which are often extreme or unaccustomed for viewers. Ritual night time mysteries at the banks of a high waterfall, the waterlogged and collapsed tunnels of bastions and forsaken gravestones are cues characterizing the works of Toomik, which balance on the boundaries of human longings...” (Harry Liivrand, art critic).

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