Tarvo Varres will open his solo exhibition The Shadow of Time in Hobusepea gallery at 18:00 on Friday, December 16th, 2022. Exhibition will be open until January 9th, 2023.

How long this lasted I can’t imagine, it wasn’t an imaginary time, it also didn’t belong to the time of things that happen.

Maurice Blanchot

Tarvo Varres’s solo exhibition, Shadow of Time, is a site-specific text-based installation, embodying sentences from Maurice Blanchot as sculptural and conceptual objects. Revolving around the themes of multidimensional ambiguities of both the self and time, the work explores the boundaries of text and emotion, the self and the other, the real and the imaginary, while considering questions of multiplicity, the obscure and the contradictory.

In Varres’s artwork, text and language function as an especially sensitive boundary between the real and the imaginary. Therefore, the act of experiencing and reading the work can be viewed as a limit experience or a borderline case. All phrases and sentences used in the current work have been selected by the artist and removed from their original contexts in three different books by Maurice Blanchot. The issues that Varres has posed with his work are not thought exercises, even if they may first appear so. Upon closer observation the pieces aim at something else, though nothing unimaginable – to put oneself totally in question, to challenge the concept of time, to disappear into thoughts…

The artist’s gratitude goes to: Maria Esko, Marten Esko, Anti Saar, Anna Shkodenko, Kirill Tulin
Press release: Marten Esko

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Maria-Kristiina Ulas will open her personal exhibition Clue whizzing from the Left in Hobusepea gallery at 18:00 on Wednesday, January 11th, 2023. Exhibition will stay open until February 6th, 2023.

“Contingency can be enlightening, a quiet nudging towards the bright side. A fresh opportunity to understand despite the fact that the remains of memory are floating in the void. The vigor of comprehension vividly explodes, clues assist us to take a turn and not to stop, to move on, to change direction, your manner will change with ease and screech, way of life becomes alive, world view will be readjusted. Direct awakening within the flow of clues – a clue from the left, a clue from the right, from the top of one’s head and under the soles of one’s feet. Fresh allusions choose the vibrations of freedom, ripples of light, murmurs of water. Purposeless destiny is constantly being weighed again and again. Why does the devilish suspicion of criminal offence undermine the hollow skulls? Where does the wary fear come from?
Disgusting proliferating foul intolerable reek is belligerently tapping in the left ventricle of one’s mind but the implacable clue is whizzing by from the left and takes you to the awakened fields. Outside political efforts, above, beneath machinations, higher, deeper, there is a silent warm sea rippling inside, and will remain the keeper of all mornings. Clues take us to understandings and every understanding must be confirmed by a trace, otherwise it will disappear into thin air, will be lost in non-existence, will be forgotten and one cannot reach it any more. A human being – an alert beast.”

Maria-Kristiina Ulas

The exhibition is supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Vunder Skizze
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Minis-try of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Solveig Lill and Olev Kuma will open their co-exhibition A Garden Without Borders in Hobusepea gallery at 18:00 on Friday, February 10th, 2023.

A garden is a limited ecosystem in which man is in charge of the development and growth of natural forms. The incentive for creating a garden could be either an aesthetic, experimental or a practical consideration. However wild or maintained a garden may be, its main characteristic is the authority of the gardener and his or her control over everything that takes place there. People set their borders in a garden on many levels while deciding which species to bring together, which to weed out, which to restrain and which to let grow freely.

Thousands of years of human experience has planted the archetype of the garden deep within us. We feel the power of this archetype while being captivated by an amazing view, enchanted by a blooming lily or when spending time in the soothing atmosphere of a garden. As gardeners, we cannot help but keep trying to recreate this primordial garden that exists in our soul but never quite manifests itself in external reality.

According to Carl Gustav Jung, this garden is the product of our collective unconscious. And while following the above-mentioned definition, the precondition for this product is the existence of control. Thus not a single garden, plantation or park exists without the control of people. The idea of a garden sounds beautiful, but it is nevertheless one of the primary features of the colonization of the planet. Is it somehow possible to get rid of this control? To act, to be and to dream without possessing, to express oneself without establishing authority and borders? Painters Solveig Lill and Olev Kuma are both looking for the answers to these questions. Although Lill and Kuma work in different spheres of the same concept, they are both looking for situations that would bring about a continuous re-evaluation of the concept of border—where nothing stands still and is never quite certain.

The watercolour paintings of Solveig Lill take the viewer to the microscopic level of the biological scale—from this perspective, all kinds of man-made borders seem to be immeasurably far, liberating the viewer’s perception from both physical and mental barriers. According to Lill, borders end where our vision, eye or the microscope ends. The rest is up to our imagination.

Olev Kuma approaches the subject of borders through a psychological sense. His abstract yet meticulously structured paintings are as sets of various layers of the unconscious. These refer to our perceptions, elusive changes within them, and the possibility to manipulate with those perceptions on the verge of a sense of danger. Feeling the borders of the collective unconscious is one of the intentionally manifested purposes of Kuma’s artistic practice.

The works by these two artists form a whole, which gives sensitive viewers an opportunity to study their own personal inner garden and the extent of its control. And maybe think about how much to cultivate it or how much to let it grow weeds.

Holger Loodus

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Valeri Vinogradov will open his solo exhibition Selected in Hobusepea gallery at 18:00 on Wednesday, March 8th, 2023. The exhibition will remain open until April 3rd, 2023.

Kadri Liis Rääk will open her solo exhibition Exopoiesis in Hobusepea gallery at 18:00 on Wednesday, April 5th, 2023. Exhibition will be open until April 30th, 2023.

With her current exhibition Exopoiesis, Kadri Liis Rääk reacts to social, ecological and existential crises that we are facing today while looking towards a possible future. The artist seeks answers to questions what an alternative world could be, how would it emerge and disappear and what our role in experiencing this time-space during these processes.

The artist treats her exhibition as a system of relations where transmissions from the imaginary to the physical, from the natural to the synthetic have been imbued with empathy. The borders between the inner and the outer, the natural and the artificial have blurred – the accompanying problems require the imagining of new possibilities. The relations lack recognizable contours; instead, Kadri Liis Rääk exhibits materials that are expressed as the symbiotic clusters of various sizes. This is a mucous co-existence where resources and space are being shared. And from these existences, non-human-centered subjects will arise and one can only imagine the dialogues and political ecologies that might form from their perspective.

There are all kinds of materials – soft and rigid, tough and flexible, viscous and solid, cold and warm – in this hybrid space, such as wool, metal, artificial leather, latex, foam, silicone, plaster, ceramics etc. The exhibition serves as an organic autopoietic process in which materials simultaneously take shapes and tell about themselves. With its entire amorphous body, the exchange of information is carried out by desire and intimacy.

The exhibition will open at 18:00 on April 5th with the durational performance created by choreographer Maarja Tõnisson.

Curator: Marika Agu
Sound design: Mihkel Tomberg
Choreographer: Maarja Tõnisson
Graphic design: Rasmus Einman

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Special thanks to: Raimond Põldmaa, Oskar Praus, Erik Liiv, Sandra Truija, Kerli Praks, Maarja Mikkin, Maarja Tosin, Eva Metspalu, Eesti Kunstiakadeemia.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Anu Vahtra will open her solo exhibition along the wall, down the stairs, outside in Hobusepea gallery at 17:00 on Thursday, May 4th, 2023. Exhibition will be open until May 29, 2023.

The exhibition along the wall, down the stairs, outside is a new installation by Anu Vahtra, consisting of works created since 2020. The process of observing and documenting situations, solutions and decisions in a city that is constantly under construction is reflected in photographs, videos and found objects. These works were originally created for exhibitions in Amsterdam, Athens and Brussels.

The title of the exhibition is borrowed from Anne Carson’s essay Chez l’Oxymoron (1988). The exhibition is accompanied by a text contribution by artist Lieven Lahaye and a film contribution by artist and filmmaker Ingel Vaikla. Graphic design by Elisabeth Klement.

Thank you: Pärtel Eelmere, Maris Karjatse, Madis Kurss, Lieven Lahaye, Tanja Muravskaja, Villem Säre, Ingel Vaikla, Kristina Õllek & Kert Viiart, Johannes Säre & EKKM
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Peeter Laurits will open his solo exhibition Kingfisher in the Underworld. Spectres and Virtual Spaces in Hobusepea gallery at 18:00 on Wednesday, June 14th, 2023. Co-autors of the exhibition are Martin Rästa, Kaiko Lipsmäe & Maido Hollo. Exhibition will be open until July 10, 2023.

Visiting the underworld is like diving into yourself — vascular systems, intestines, streams, divisions, entanglements, clots. Throbbing muscles and blood. Chemical and electrical tremors. Quivers, undulations, eruptions. Strange tastes. It’s weird to sense that there are different lives busying themselves inside you, that you are all those different lives.

In the underworld you understand that there is no such thing as hell. The underground is a fizzy round dance of countless lives. Roots interlink and grow together with mushroom mycelia. Insects and nematodes, countless microscopical creatures of different shapes are breaking down the dying and decomposing into nourishing droplets, new life. Strange communication networks are woven, alliances and hotspots created. Little worms keep stimulating that warm sauna, soil microbes and moulds perform chemical acrobatic feats.

The underworld is a garden of diverging paths, soft, warm and moist. Everything bubbles and decomposes in slow motion, grows into each other, exchanges matter and consciousness. In the underworld, each other’s life juices are absorbed in a never-ending kiss, death is translated into birth and slurped back into the circle of life.

Idea and images – Peeter Laurits
Sound – Martin Rästa
VR – Martin Rästa (Salakäigud), Kaiko Lipsmäe (Salakäigud), Maido Hollo (Habitat)
Graphic design – Martin Rästa
Color tuning – Siim Vahur
Print – ArtProof, Elavad Pildid, Digra
Laser engraving – Laserstuudio
Frames – Ramino Art
Assistants – Aiko Hayashi, Lembit Jürgenson

Thank you to the Estonian Artists’ Association and Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Kingfisher is part of Biotoopia art program.

Exhibitions at Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko AS.

Photos: Anna Mari Liivrand & Peeter Laurits

Gerda Hansen, Jane Muts and Mari Steinberg will open their exhibition Etudes For Blue, Red And Brown in Hobusepea gallery on Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 18.00. The curator of the exhibition is Aleksander Metsamärt. Exhibition will be open until August 7, 2023.

In a good etude form and content are balanced — in the best case, they are harmonious. When the three artists plotted their first co-exhibition, the plan was also balanced and harmonious. The theme was three colors, and in the middle there would be a big collaborative work — the melding of three different artistic languages on one giant canvas, modeled in the artists’ favourite colors: blue, red and brown. But plans are made to fail! Their time together in university ended. Lives grew apart. It turns out that artistic languages also grow apart when practicing in separate studios. The collaboration never bore fruit. But the idea kept on breathing down their necks. And the colors, those rascals, kept on haunting.

Etudes For Blue, Red And Brown ties a knot, made of color and painting formalities, around the professional friendship and love between the three artists. How do embodiments of space and bodies in space share space? How do non-bodies that find themselves in non-places relate to them? Can songs in three different languages sound together if they are connected by a three-bar rhythm: “Blue, red, brown. Blue, red, brown…”?

The co-exhibition of Gerda Hansen, Jane Muts and Mari Steinberg, Etudes For Blue, Red And Brown, is a balance exercise in three artistic languages and on two floors in Hobusepea gallery.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

On Friday, August 11 at 6 p.m. at Hobusepea Gallery we celebrate the opening of a group exhibition Like a Windless Cloud. The exhibition is curated by Mariliis Rebane and includes sculptures by Touristes Tristes (Dylan Ray Arnold & Océane Bruel), series of postcards by Leena Kela, video works by artists Kristoffer Ala-Ketola, and Mika Taanila and a lecture performance by Shubhangi Singh. Like a Windless Cloud remains open until September 4.

The exhibition forms a constellation in which artworks interlace through their shared reflections on the accumulation of time. The curator of the exhibition was interested in searching for possibilities while also acknowledging difficulties associated with emptiness, lingering, and putting up one’s feet. In the company of the artworks, she wanted to welcome rest, slowing down, and taking it easy, as well as watching clouds pass over a clear blue sky. Along the way, came up an inability or unwillingness to succeed in this, but also other expectations related to the fast pace of contemporary life.

During the opening evening on Friday, August 11 at 18:30, you are invited to take part in a lecture performance titled Rest/Unrest: Notes on Loitering by Shubhangi Singh.

As part of the exhibition, a column by journalist Anton Vanha-Majamaa is translated into English and Estonian.

Like a Windless Cloud is supported by Kone Foundation and Arts Promotion Centre Taike. All exhibitions at Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, the Ministry of Culture, and Liviko AS.

The curator is now on holiday!

On Wednesday, September 6 at 18.00, Keiu Maasik’s exhibition Meadows of Change, A Place Called Home will open in Hobusepea gallery. The exhibition will be open until October 2, 2023.

“For the past few years, I had buried myself in the world of computer games and preferred to spend my free time in virtuality. It seemed to be an acceptable thought exercise that in the future human life will move to the virtual world. One of the games I immersed myself in for several months was Red Dead Redemption 2. I felt like there was no other place I’d rather be than in the world of RDR2. The game takes place in 1899 in America. The story follows the ventures of a gang of outlaws at a time when the Wild West is fading and civilization is encroaching. Their time is coming to an end and fear is in the air ahead of changes bound to arrive.

I was very frightened last year when I encountered a herd of wild horses. A rumble could be heard in the distance, and the ground beneath shook gently. At some point, about twenty horses came into view, galloping at full speed through sea water. The horses and the powerful scenery seen in the game now seemed hollow in comparison. I want the world to move forward, but I don’t want to lose the galloping horses roaming about freely.”

Keiu Maasik

The artist’s gratitude to: Madis Kurss, Kaisa Maasik.
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko AS.

Chun Au Yeung will open his solo exhibition You’ve Been in My Mind in Hobusepea gallery at 18:00 on Thursday, October 5th, 2023. Exhibition will be open until October 30, 2023.

“It was a chilly night, so I went home after a long walk at dawn. I was sitting on the couch, covering myself with a blanket and listening to a song. The lyrics kept lingering in my head…”that’s me in the corner, that’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion…” That night, I was not the only one in the spotlight. Suddenly, I heard a big bang noise that came from the corner. It was so dark in the room, all I could see was all of my jackets falling off on the ground. At that moment, I was thinking about someone…”

Chun Au Yeung

You’ve Been In My Mind arises from the innermost state of discrete moments to explore the tension between hope and fear, and to translate into art how the two feelings fall together, are voiced and formed. Chun creates meditative drawings and installations based on his personal experience from a living place, presenting it as an intimate but also alienating situation through fusing together the household objects and elements.

The new series of works in the exhibition develops and enlarges feelings and lived situations from Chun’s own experiences, mostly influenced by his current displacement from his original homeland. “I am bearing my soul, seeking hidden signs of hope and meaning, but the process is holding me back, somehow it makes me feel fear” Chun said. Hellos, Goodbyes (2023), is a work transformed from a cloth hanger stand. By removing all the original hanging hooks, Chun subtly attached an archery to the body of the cloth hanger stand, as if it was shooting by someone from somewhere, vaguely hinting towards something reminiscent of the archery target, revealing a wounded and destroyed relationship.

In You’ve Been In My Mind, Chun continues his exploration of the relationship between domestic elements and human nature, combined with both personal and collective emotions. Specific furniture becomes the medium that allows the artist to construct the complicated feelings of daily experiences, where each object opens a dialogue, which can be both decadent and hopeful at the same time, around the notion of home.

The exhibition is supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

On Wednesday, November 1 at 18:00 the group exhibition of young photography artists What Colour Is the Sky Above the Port Today? will open in Hobusepea gallery. The exhibition will remain open until November 27, 2023

It is an important exhibition in the history of higher education of Estonian photography, where, inspired by the spirit of our time, the current students or recent graduates of the Estonian Academy of Arts and Pallas University of Applied Sciences have their say. The themes of Tallinn Photomonth 2023 are centered around camera-based media, with a focus on photographic representations of our daily information flow.

In the 20th century, photography became a sign-creation machine and developed into a whole system that functions as an effective apparatus for reproducing the simulacrum. The canon of truth in photography is the building block of our public facade in social media, in the shadow of which our psyche sooner or later suffers.

Photography is a paradox — it can tell both truth and lies. The question is always whose narrative is followed at the moment the story is told. In today’s consumer culture, the media tries to maintain an illusion of reality at all costs to keep us shopping and entertained while our personal data or behavioral profiles are sold on a global market. We are no longer the audience of the society of the spectacle, we ourselves are the product, and for the time being everyone seems to be at peace with this.

Participating artists: Siew Ching Ang, Inger-Liis Heinsoo, Erik Hõim, Andra Junalainen, Kenter Kalbri, Birgit Kaleva, Joosep Kivimäe, Elariin Kruusamägi, Kirke Kuiv, Gregor Kulla, Kristina Kuzemko, Britta Mai Martin, Jana Mätas, Agnes Müürsepp, Anna Ovtšinnikova, Andra Rahe, Sille-Riin Rand, Andrea Margó Rotenberg, Laura Ruuder, Triin Sagen, Enlil Sonn, Imbi Sõber, Lauri Trolla, Maarja Tõnisson, Jürgen Vainola.

Curator: Kaisa Eiche

The exhibition is a part of the satellite programme of the 7th Tallinn Photomonth contemporary art biennial (6.10.–26.11.2023). More info: fotokuu.ee

The exhibition is accompanied by a public programme and a publication. More info: www.fotokuu.ee/programm

The exhibition takes place in two venues: in Hobusepea gallery 1.11.–27.11.2023 and in Tartu Art House small gallery 17.11.–17.12.2023 (opening event on November 18 at 14:00).

Exhibition team in Hobusepea gallery:
Madis Liplap (exhibition designer)
Hans-Otto Ojaste (technical manager)
Kulla Laas, Brigit Arop (coordinators)
Kaisa Eiche (publication editor)
Erkki Luuk (language editor)
Ran Re Reimann (graphic designer)

Photos: Ott Kattel

Supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Tallinn Culture & Sports Department, Estonian Union of Photography Artists (FOKU), Tartu city, Estonian Academy of Arts, Pallas University of Applied Sciences, Tartu Artists’ Union, Estonian Artists’ Association, Artproof, Metropol Spa Hotel, Raamikoda (Estframe OÜ), KIU textile printing studio, Neoon Valgus OÜ.

Special gratitude to: starter-KIT editorial board, Tartu Art Museum, Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and AS Liviko.

On Wednesday, November 29 at 18:00 the duo exhibition of Art Allmägi & Katrin Piile Origami will open in Hobusepea gallery. The exhibition will remain open until December 23, 2023

The point of departure for the duo exhibition in Hobusepea gallery is the painting The Sculptor Modelling My Portrait by Katrin Piile. The focus of the painting completed in 2020 is set on the painter’s portrait being modelled. The identity of the sculptor working behind the portrait is concealed, indicated only by a photo of his earlier sculpture hanging on the wall. Self-centeredness, veiled in a shade of irony, is the starting point of the exhibitionn. Despite the self-centered approach, the collaboration between the two authors is built on the principle of correlation. The creative impulse of one author sets in motion the creative work of the other, which, in turn, is put into service for creating the work of the one giving the initial impulse. Due to the interconnectedness of their creative process, the artists are only partially in charge of the work, touching upon the boundaries of authorship.

The artistic activities of the two authors have prepared an excellent surface for this exhibition based on the principle of correlation to flourish: Piile has previously worked with objects that are constructed on the canvas in a hyperrealistic painting style with a framing typical of photodocumentalism; Allmägi’s previous works contain references to different artists and fictitious collaborations with other authors.

The focal point of Piile’s and Allmägi’s work process is to creatively reflect one another’s practice and to document it based on their chosen media. Through this structure, the characteristic aspects of painting and sculpture are explored – what is gained and what is lost as the subjects move from flat surfaces to three-dimensions (or vice versa). The holy trinity of the art world – author, idea, work – is redefined as an object of study. While exploring the principles of creative work as a collaborative project, the authors try to blur the relationship between the work and the author. At the same time, it takes the viewer down a rabbit hole, to a world where believing in the visible leads the visitor to the wrong path.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko AS.

The co-exhibition Present yet-to-be by Lisann Lillever, Johanna Ruukholm and Denisa Štefanigova will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Friday, December 17^th. Curator of the exhibition is Lilian Hiob.

When I was a young person I went to the university and I learned a rational language, to think with the left side of the brain. But in the right side of the brain you have intuition and imagination. Words are not the truth; they indicate the way to go, but you need to go alone, in silence. Symbols have a language that kills the words.

– Alejandro Jodorowsky

We form stories that could have happened and that can possibly happen. We play that today’s social order, existing rules and economic system are dislocated. The time axis is upside down – linearity as well as the growth and profit ideals are neglected. We recall the cultural layers from the past and allow sharpened sensations as well as stimulated imagination. We enjoy the affective charge that raises from the experience of existing as a human being while keeping in mind that human knowledge about the world is limited.

Is it possible to make a way and build ideas for transforming the ethical and political world if we’d take imagination, play and ability to value the unexpected excursions arising from errors next to our five senses and rational approach to living? How to reach ideas and acts that are not yet existing while the knowledge about the better state of things seems to be right here – in literature, art, philosophy.

The people, animals and other beings depicted on the artwork by Czech painter Denisa Štefanigova are intermingled, blended into each other, playful and without explicit plastic form. The artist has removed the dichotomy and opposition between the man and the animal, nature and technology, desire and anger, rational and emotional. Štefanigova has painted beings from various species who interact with each other while referring to possible forms of co-existence where the dominance of a man has been disregarded and cross-species cohabitation and understanding is the new reality. The artist’s work reflects  more consistent functioning where no living being is separated nor untouched from others – everyone is connected and related to each other, and the human being is not an exception. Philospher Donna Haraway has defined the abovementioned as „Chthulucene“ – that has been derived from the spider species Pimoa Cthulhu, a spider with extremely long legs. The eight legs seem to represent different points of view and possibilities yet are connected through their distinction and direction – none of the legs won’t function autonomously.

The sculptural installations and videos of the artist duo Lisann Lillevere and Johanna Ruukholm pursue the worldview of Chthulucene while mixing the cognitive orientation prevailing in contemporary society with archaic beliefs and behaviour. The artists aim at blurring the borders between existing meanings, interpretations, cognitive, personal and universal. In their artwork, Lillevere and Ruukholm refer to deep time and for human reason the length of such time is imperceptible – the artists show that the past and the present are inextricably intertwined and the connections are in constant state of flux. Perdition and recreation build new opportunities for reinterpretation and hope. This is a play with fantasy where existing social and ideological beliefs, linear perception of time as well as targeted growth and profit have been neglected.

The artists take a look at forgotten spaces, envision new corners and openings, navigate on the verge of principles, give a chance to mistakes, pleasures and unusual while flirting and intermingling with the present day, pop culture and current issues.

Sound of the video work by Johanna Ruukholm and Lisann Lillevere: Nathan Tulve, narrator: Hannaliisa Uusma, text: Lisann Lillevere, HU (Hannaliisa Uusma and Leslie Laasner), video effects: Jakob Tulve

Installation Traction has been completed in collaboration with Joonas Timmi.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

The artists express their gratitude to: department of ceramics at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Maie Ruukholm, Allan Aug, Maria Helen Känd, Jaana Kormašov, Martina Gofman, Joonas Timmi, Merili Põllu, Marika Henriksson, Synlab Eesti Ltd., Uku-Kristjan Küttis, Leili Lillevere, Aivar Lillevere, Hannaliisa Uusma, Taavi-Peeter Liiv, Kristiina R.

Exhibition will be open until January 10, 2022.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

The co-exhibition The A. B. C. D. E. F. G of Love by Marge Moko and Maruša Sagadin will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Thursday, January 13th. The exhibition will remain open until February 7 th.

An exhibition is a point on a continuum.

The lives of objects—and artists—precede and follow individual events. That solid-state matter continuously self-chronicles with chemical technology preceding any digital blockchain. Their confluence and your coexistence distinguish this moment. We stand where a collective flow of mortal forms beget flickers of mechanical joys.

The personal and professional dialogue of Marge and Maruša before this moment may be invisible to you. But it’s tangible. What you see, comes from months. What you don’t, comes from years.

Describing one artist’s practice as photographic and the other’s as architectural merely skims the facts. A loose reading of their biographies defaults anyone to this conclusion. Left under-described are emotion and intent. Both artists embody honesty, sincerity, and empathy as individuals and through their chosen profession. In their first collaboration in a long relationship, their work synthesizes this extant energy.

You are amongst an assembly of characters. Marge and Maruša gave them names, but these characters invited you in. Juliana asks you to sit, Saša beckons you nearer. Lucy grants power, Marička elicits introspection.

Their names represent a catalogue of personalities. They preside over an alphabet of love. Every letter standing for a gift of self you’ll be proud to stand behind. And this is only the beginning.

Text by JL Murtaugh

JL Murtaugh founded the contemporary art platform Syndicate and is the director of Autarkia (Vilnius LT). He was born in Chicago and lives in Vilnius.

Graphic design by Kersti Heile and Indrek Sirkel.

The artist’s gratitude goes to: Raivo Plado (Plado Art Tranport), Anne-Liis Hunt (Overall), Marko Usler (Artsmart), Villem Säre.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Austrian Federal Council.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

The co-exhibition A Visitor by Eero Alev, Marleen Suvi and Brenda Purtsak will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Thursday, February 10, 2022. Exhibition will stay open until March 7, 2022.

I don’t know what it feels to be dead, said a six-year-old girl to her father once. Her father listened, pondered, and remembered – neither did he know, but he yearned to. First, these twenty something thousand days given to us seem to last forever, but the more one moves along the axis, the days grow considerably shorter. We have a beginning and we have an end. Our visiting hours are limited and at some point, even without knowing it, we will leave all this behind. What did we find? Were we searching for something at all? How much did we ask and what did we give?

We arrive from somewhere we remember nothing about, and we are going somewhere we know nothing about.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Põhjala Brewery.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Jass Kaselaan‘s personal exhibition Monster Follows the Sheep Carrier will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Thursday, March 10, 2022. Exhibition will stay open until April 4, 2022.

Jass Kaselaan: „Monster following the sheep carrier (the good shepherd) is an inevitability, a logical chain of cause and effect, natural and inescapable course of events. Current exhibition focuses on modeling of the resonation of pray-predator system and on creating a simulation. An important aspect here is both qualitative and quantitative analysis, evaluation and mapping of animated worlds as well as optimizing/organizing of these maps. Filtrating, designing and transforming of imported data. An attempt to make the unfathomable perceivable at least to some extent – to mark the indication about the deceptive state of free will.

Two mosaic murals and five sculptural objects are exhibited in Hobusepea gallery.“

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Tanel Rander‘s personal exhibition Angelus Novus will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Exhibition will stay open until May 2, 2022.

Tanel Rander: “Angelus Novus means that storm is blowing and the angel of history cannot close her wings. We are all watching her fading into the unknown future, with her eyes still nailed to the past.

This exhibition is an insight to my creative sources that I used to suppress and neglect, while being focused on the outside world and its conventions. In the same time these sources were always supporting me, carrying me.

We have built a pump house on our sources. And seen from that house every source is a resource. An instrument for something. Last year I wrote an article about this: “When Turbines Rotate, while Water Stands Still”. The article opens the context a bit and is available here: https://sirp.ee/s1-artiklid/c6-kunst/kui-turbiinid-poorlevad-aga-vesi-seisab/

Not all the exhibited artworks come from my personal creative process. There are also some from my work with people with special needs that I have occasionally done during the recent years. So, this exhibition also includes contributions from Sirli, who I worked with in last winter. Her drawings hold a lot of radiating energy. Oil pastels quickly run short in her hands and drawing is a highly intensive process for her. It heals her mood and seems to protect her from something. My work with her was simply about drawing together. Neither of us had never studied drawing or painting. But we were drawing and we were painting. And it had good influence on us.

The central point of this exhibition is a personal symbol of my own. It was waiting for more than 10 years until I decided to show it in public. But then a heavy storm started to blow and my works that were mere abstractions, something that I had used mostly for myself, got exposed to it. Such storms can also be seen as teeth of time that crack all meanings that have been nailed to temporality and eat everything that is up to date. I will see what will be left of these works. The only sail in this storm that I have consciously hoisted is Angelus Novus – the fading angel of history, carried away by the wind.

I thank everyone who has supported me on my journey. Regarding this exhibition, Jelena Jokic Grobler played a very important role in helping me with means of psychodrama and art therapy. In latest times I was also influenced by Borut Holland, with who I shared some wonderous coincidences. I also thank people from Kärdla social centre, I thank Estonian Cultural Endowment and MTÜ Sada Paplit for supporting this exhibition and I also thank the people of Art Smart for being dedicated to their work.”

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Tim Høibjerg, Siiri Jüris and Triin Marts will open their exhibition Then the Edge Asserts Itself in Hobusepea gallery on Thursday, May 5, 2022 at 18.00. Curator of the exhibition is Anne Vigeland. Exhibition will stay open until May 30, 2022.

Then the Edge Asserts Itself, which takes its title from Anne Carson’s book Eros the Bittersweet (1986), is a group exhibition that looks towards the complexities of human desire and emotional interaction. The exhibited artists share a common interest in corporal experiences – in the body as archive, material, landscape, haven. Through painting, sculpture, video, and installation, they explore what it means to be alone and together in a distressed and desolate world, with a particular attention towards the powers of touch, memory, and intimacy. In dialogue with each other and the materials and traditions that govern their work, they address how desire forms selfhood, how it makes and breaks us, and the abiding struggle to soften the edges of doubt.

The exhibition is supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Nordic Council of Ministers / Nordic Culture Point and Galleri Duerr.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Riin Maide will open her personal exhibition It’s Like I Barely See in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, June 1st, 2022. Exhibition will be open until June 27, 2022.

Windows covered by transparent plastic and scaffolding are normally the signs of something new or fresh arriving soon in an urban environment. Similarly to curtains, these elements denote certain anticipation and will be forgotten when they open up new views.

It’s Like I Barely See is pays homage to forgotten architecture. While depicting fragile phenomena in urban space, such as framework and construction, the artist attempts to stretch the temporary into something endless.

The artist expresses her gratitude to: Rain Kilkson, Cristo Madissoo, EKA graafika osakond.
Photos: Anna MAri Liivrand ja Roman-Sten Tõnissoo

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Towards Atmosperic Care, a research collaborative between Hanna Husberg and Agata Marzecova, will open their exhibition From Aurora to Geospace in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Thursday, June 30, 2022. Exhibition will be open until July 24, 2022.

How do we depict something? Not only in artistic contexts but also in more scientific, more enlightening context? How do we agree on what is aurora and what is not?

From Aurora to Geospace explores how historical interest in visible atmospheric phenomena, notably the aurora borealis or northern lights, has contributed to the uncovering of invisible processes and regions of near-Earth space (also called geospace) that are made perceptible only with the help of science. Rather than observing atmospheric phenomena as such, the installation looks at the instruments, historical circumstances, events and ideas that make atmospheric processes visible and thereby contribute to the construction of novel atmospheric imaginaries and sensibilities. Scientifically, the auroral phenomenon can be described as the coming together of forces from the Earth’s magnetosphere, the ionosphere (the region 70 km and above the Earth’s surface) and the sun’s particles. Irregularities in the ionosphere, also known as space weather, produce auroras and similarly affect radio, communication and navigation systems.

Due to low solar activity there were very little auroral events during the medieval period, and in 1707, after an absence of more than a hundred years, great spectacles of auroras reappeared. Auroral displays were visible as far south as France and Italy, at latitudes where no-one had seen aurora before. It was the beginning of the Enlightenment, and auroras were in the spotlight of knowledge production. This also drew attention to the arctic Fennoscandian territories, which during the last centuries have became one of the most important natural laboratories for conducting scientific research on the functioning of the atmosphere as well as the whole geosphere, and therefore also as a place where global atmospheric imaginaries are shaped. Today, the region hosts the ionospheric radar EISCAT infrastructure (the second largest European research project after the Hadron Collider) which studies the ionosphere as well as auroral phenomena by transmitting and receiving signals between large antennas and facilities located in Sodankylä, Kiruna, Tromsö and Kilpisjärvi.

Thanks to the conceptual tools of ionospheric science (to which facilities and places such as EISCAT contribute), planet Earth is no longer an isolated Blue Marble in the dark vacuum of outer space. Instead, it can be understood as energetically and materially interconnected with its galactic environment. However, such planetary sensibility is not simply accessible through human senses and embodied experience. Rather, it is dependent on technoscientific infrastructures and expertise only made possible through the entanglements of science, militarisation, commercialisation and the datafication of nature. In this light, we ask how to meaningfully consider, and care for, the representational, yet material sphere between what is perceptible and imaginable, and the outer space that, while difficult to comprehend, is permeated with satellites, and other technologies and environmental processes that condition our lives?
Combining photography, historical and scientific imagery, drawing, sound and text, From Aurora to Geospace approaches auroras as an access point to the upper atmosphere. It draws on conversations with scientists and researchers encountered during field trips to the ionospheric radar EISCAT infrastructures and their surroundings, and uses academic and historical sources as well as scientific materials brought up by the people we met, such as the prevalence of diagrams for shaping how we imagine vast, yet invisible, environments out of reach for the human senses. Situated and embodied understandings of science as always historically grounded, partial and never perfectly objective do not trivialize nor diminish the importance of scientific evidence, instead they create opportunity for engagement. In line with this, the different elements of the installation are organized as a fragmentary vocabulary, or clavis, providing some keys for interpretation without presupposing hierarchical relations between the scientific, aesthetic, historical and political.

Towards Atmospheric Care is a long-term research collaborative between Stockholm-based visual artist Hanna Husberg and Tallinn-based interdisciplinary researcher Agata Marzecova which explores air as a naturalcultural phenomenon situated in the nexus of media, science and technological mediation. Using installation, performance, writing and critical analysis, the project examines the overlapping boundaries between the aesthetic, science and politics of air and atmosphere. In addition to artistic and academic outcomes, the duo advances interdisciplinary pedagogic approaches, including joint teaching at the Estonian Academy of Arts as well as co-learning workshops (Heavens Field_Notes, 2019; Fantasies of Seamless Interoperability, 2021; How to care for air? Thinking lab, 2022). Their collaboration has been supported by the Technosphere Campus (HKW Berlin, 2016), The Seed Box (Mistra-Formas Collaboratory, 2017), the Bernadotte Fellowship (Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, 2019-20), Kone Foundation (2020-22), and several residencies.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Kone Foundation
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Andres Koort will open his personal exhibition Chaos and Order in Hobusepea gallery at 18:00 on Wednesday, July 27th, 2022. Exhibition will be open until August 22nd, 2022.

The title Chaos and Order refers to the two opposite forces and the motion between these two states. Etymologically, the word „chaos“ is related to Greek verb „χαίνω“ that denoted the yawning emptiness, void, gap. This is the initial existence of non-existence of things; a state consisting of a potential, a yearning for getting structured. This is the commencement phase of things charged with pure energy, the birth moment of all things. Also, exact sciences study the essence of „chaos“. According to the theory of chaos, there are a systematic ground structure, constant feedback, repetitions, self-resemblance, fractals and self-organization behind the seemingly random behaviour of chaotic complex system.

Andres Koort focuses on chaos and order in his artwork, whilst working with repetitions, self-resemblance, self-organization and the metaphor of butterfly effect according to which a tiny change in one state can result in large differences in a later state.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Kai Kaljo will open her personal exhibition Pile of Dirty Rags in Hobusepea gallery at 18:00 on Wednesday, August 24, 2022. Exhibition will be open until September 19, 2022.

„In February 2022, I created a folder Explosions and volcanoes in my computer. Actually, I had had it already for a year since I added there my first image.

After a few weeks, they suddenly started to kill people in the next room.
And then I realized that actually there has always been a war, peace is just a break between wars. These are the rules of life. And you know nothing of these.
My eyes were opening, I suddenly started to look at my home with a completely different gaze. I was amazed how many items I have that bear recollections about killing and war: drawings by Andrus Johan, silver jewellery from Afghanistan, a Kuznetsov porcelain plate that my grandmother brought with her when she left St. Petersburg in 1918, a book signed by Gustav Suits. Even my house has been rebuild on the very spot it was once bombed.

In April I took the first pictures as well, even if this first seemed an impossible effort.

Two flowers: the first one reminding of a burnt corpse that has still some blood in the biggest blood vessel. I once worked at a forensic medical lab and the acquired skills suddenly started to reappear. The other flower has a window behind it, with the view of an exploding atomic bomb.

Pictures I never took but that were inside and around me all the time: a dog eating a man. A man eating a dog. Pieces of human bodies, corpses packed in plastic bags, fields covered with graves, the only thing that will be left of you is a pile of dirty rags …”.

Kai Kaljo

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Väino Tanner Foundation.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Kert Viiart will open his solo exhibition As It Came Out of The Earth, It Returns in Hobusepea gallery at 17:00 on Friday, September 23rd, 2022. The exhibition will be open until October 17th, 2022.

According to the artist, one can presume that the future in plastic ruins will arrive unexpectedly; however, the dystopian narrative has become almost an inevitable part of the future of our planet; creating unimaginable landscapes. Nondegradable plastic waste will be unavoidable part of the history of humankind. Perhaps instead of the achievements of certain civilizations, the future archaeology will tell about the dystopian results of civilization and humankind.
Through daily consumption and comfort habits, humankind creates new geological strata and future artifacts. Every year, almost 300 million tons of plastic waste is produced all around the world – but in order to handle all this, there is a lack of the necessary infrastructure as well as the economical and political will. The fact that plastic won’t degrade but “travels” through hundreds of years is intriguing me to treat the material from the archaeological perspective, as a part of the practice of future archaeology. At the current moment, plastic already has a huge role in the field of archaeology. In museums, plastic is used for presenting and preserving archaeological objects. A visit to the museum of archaeology may have the effect of a foretelling from the future. Plastic as a material is used in several different forms in order to narrate and present the history of ancient civilizations. We can only speculate what kind of afterlife the remains will have in case something drastic happened with the collections. One of the appalling examples is the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro. On September 2nd, 2018 the oldest and most important museum of archaeology and science in Brazil was ruined in fire. It is estimated that 92,5% of the 20 million objects in the museum collection were destroyed. Numerous forest and landscape fires that took place in 2019 and that have increased during the past years, make me think about the dystopian future scenarios. What kind of landscape is being created by these fires when the plastic things and construction materials will melt into one with the ground while forming new landscapes and leaving the surface made of plastiglomerate rocks for the future generations?

While studying and speculating around these themes, Kert Viiart has created the installation As It Came Out of The Earth, It Returns (2019–2022) that includes sculptural forms and video work with sound (5’46’’). Through the installation, the artist observes contemporary archaeological expositions, plastic-based support structures, and construction materials while doubting the choices made when selecting the materials. These hybrid objects are joint images including both imagination as well as the material reality that create a speculative view to the future archaeology. The objects have “traveled” through time and deformed, while becoming a part of the ground and acquiring value and archaeological meaning.
The installation combines various materials, including glay, epoxy resin, found plastic construction materials, leftover plexiglass, found plastic waste and soil.

Dialoguepartner and technical help: Kristina Õllek
Thanks: Hanna Laura Kaljo, Mijke van der Drift, Ruben Pater, Linda van Deursen, Federico Campagna, Niels Schrader, Roosje Klap, Tiiu Saadoja, Art Museum of Estonia and KABK master’s program Non Linear Narratives.

Photos: Kristina Õllek

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

TASE’21 and EAA (Estonian Academy of Arts) Young Artist’s Award winner Karolin Poska will open her solo exhibition Pressure of the Gaze in Hobusepea gallery at 18:00 on Wednesday, October 19th, 2022. Exhibition will be open until November 14, 2022.

Karolin Poska: “Do you know the feeling when someone else has fixed their gaze on you? You can simply tell that someone is controlling you, stalking you with the gaze, measuring you or trying to create a visual contact. You feel it even if it is outside the field of vision, or you may realize this from the corner of your eye.

People assure that they literally feel how the eyes of “Mona Lisa” painted by Leonardo da Vinci are following them, irrespective of the physical location of the spectator. This phenomenon – when the eyes of an artwork observe the spectator in the room – is called the Mona Lisa effect. However, researchers have found that this phenonenon won’t apply to Mona Lisa since the gaze of the painted figure has been directed too much to the right.

Creating a direct eye contact is perhaps the most frequent and powerful non-verbal signal exchanged between human beings; it is also a means of intimacy, frightening and social influence. Eye contact is such a primeval way of communication common to all animal species: predators intensely keep their eye on their prey before the moment of dashing towards it; babies become intimate with their parent through visual contact; fish turn their eyes black during an aggressive act.

The oldest found fossil’s eyes are 540 million years old, the first Homo habilis or the achaic human dates back to approximately 2 million years ago. Now I feel different when looking out of the window, knowing that I am using eyes of the precedecessors being 538 million years older than a human being.

It is easier to catch human gazes than those of other species since human eyeball has a special construction – we have more sclera (the white layer of an eye). That, in turn, makes it much easier to identify the movement of the iris of an eye that has darker colour as well as determining the direction of the gaze due to constrasty colours. Surprisingly, human eyes have the closest similarity with the ones of an octopus and a squid who both have big eyes consisting of the lens, the iris and one big vitreous body.

According to my calculations, the old town of Tallinn has 77 street cameras, so you were probably looked at already when you were on your way to the gallery. You probably did not perceive this because the surveillance cameras have less constrasty eyes and different construction. Also, the sculpture in the old town that you probably passed did not follow you with its eyes since it wears glasses and unfortunately has no sclerae. And yet, lots of people say that it is namely the eyes of an artwork that make you feel something.

While preparing for the current exhibition, I went to galleries and streets and looked at art; and also looked at others looking at art and let the artworks look at me and my act of looking. I really hope that you will find something worth looking at!”

Thank you for the dialogue and technical assistance: Theodore Parker and Maret Tamme.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Kaisa Eiche and Kadi Estland will open their exhibition Village Without Women in Hobusepea gallery at 18:00 on Wednesday, November 16, 2022. Exhibition will be open until December 12, 2022.

“Dear mother, what will happen when we gone. will the world be an uglier, nicer place, a wet patch, the website of used cars that one cannot escape. a burnt ground where there is no stream, asks my little son. there is always a stream, there is always Light, there is always the beginning of a new world. remember this, then you know. but now sleep, my dead son, I read you a bed-time story how all this happened, how important racial hygiene became
someone blew the car horn for the first time, someone painted, no one got out any more. all of them starved. slaves who won’t pick berries, won’t get used to it, everyone is picking berries. bean pods are growing in sauna. men confronted each other, did legitimately evil things, killed children, rape. jesus did not have children, how many were killed in his name. incapable in a history book, well, aren’t these books. you must read, you must know
it is morning, one can hear the news, running water, abdominal rumbling. we will win this war then then the stream will come
you sleep, you rest, we spread the ash”

Kadi Estland

Village Without Women is the first collaborational project in a gallery for Kaisa Eiche and Kadi Estland. Concept and photo installation have been created by Kaisa Eiche. Kadi Estland’s poetry “Birthmarks” have been written especially for the present exhibition. Whereas the ideas for the exhibition started to grow out from the military invasion of the Russian Federation to Ukraine in February 2022, the artists have mainly focused on the perceptible aspects in women’s roles, influenced by the (fear of) war. Today’s fears and reactions of the residents of Estonia as a border country are directly connected to the past – only 30 years ago, Estonia was an occupied territory by the Soviet authorities for more than half a century. On the other hand, there are doubts and turning one’s back to culture that is covertly contributing to the increasing social stratification though militarising and conservative national politics.

The artists express their gratitude to: Aet Kuusik, Brit Pavelson, Evi Eiche, Gabriela Urm, Hanna Näkk, Helmi and Inge, Kaisa Maasik, Kristina, Kunileid, Lauri Trolla, Marje Eelma, Nele Tammeaid, Triinu Pungits, Rainer Kattel, Kanuti Guild Hall and PallasFoto.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Mall Paris‘s personal exhibition Infinity will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Wednesday, December 16, 2020. Exhibition will stay open until January 11, 2021.

Word —- image —- imagination. Either every word separately or together as a line. The space fades into a complete idea or single images …

Words compose an image or an attempt appearing in time.
Infinity is far
or close
Infinity is close
or
far …

Sympathy for certain arrangement yet infinity that is letting go, drifting away …

Infinity is far
or close
Infinity is close
or
far …

following as a shadow …

Mall Paris

According to the artist, her current exhibition is a conceptual continuation to her previous exhibition Word held in Vabaduse gallery in 2019. Art historian Juta Kivimäe has stated that Mall Paris is one of the purest practitioners of abstract and minimalist painting in Estonian art. Paris’s painted imagery is close to a geometric approach but also including almost always something else, something undefinable. Her artwork has traces of minimalism and poetical arte povera. In her emphatic way, Paris poeticizes way of living and art that has grown out of the most scarce means; and yet, her paintings express the most exquisite features of the art of painting. Tamara Luuk, curator of the Tallinn Art Hall, has characterized Mall Paris as a silent and consistent artist who is always present; and who in her creative practice is steadfast and uniquely elegant. Paris’s work has been led by the seriality of minimalist paintings where the recurrence of an image has simultaneously a maddening effect as well as caressing the viewer’s eye with its pulsating multitude of nuances.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Joint exhibition Parasitic Symbiosis by Pille-Riin Jaik and Miriam Esther Meyer will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Thursday, February 4, 2021. Exhibition will stay open until February 22, 2021.

With Parasitic Symbiosis Pille-Riin Jaik (EE) and Miriam Esther Meyer (DK/MX) try to investigate expected collaborative behavioral patterns, rivalry, modernistic thought models as well as frames and materials, while considering both what would benefit themselves and the exhibition as a whole. The terms parasitic and symbiosis may appear paradoxical, but were chosen consciously to include both the give and take of the overall process and outcome. Did they successfully create a balance between seeking harmony and maintaining two autonomous viewpoints? That remains an open-ended question.

For Meyer Parasitic Symbiosis presented an opportunity to free herself from restrictive working conditions and develop an awareness of what she can compromise on before the result becomes stifling. “For me, this journey has not been a straight-forward trajectory. The plan was to challenge the conditions of my performative drawing concept Dependency Action Documentation – a concept that I realized was less of a co-dependency and more a self-destructive reliance on my part as well as one with limited creative possibilities – in the hope of developing a healthier process and outcome. That happened in phases – five to be exact – each of them involving having to overcome new obstacles that presented themselves along the way. Some of those obstacles were specifically related to the collaborative nature of this exhibition and some would have arisen, regardless of context. The result is Dependency Action Liberation, which includes the presentation of my original hypothesis and premise, a description of the different development stages and a conclusion, reflecting the overall take-away, as well as three paintings, sealed in latex. I think the works can be approached in different ways, but for me, the personal impact has been greater than expected. Somehow the conscious choices I had to make have made me more aware, and I hope that that is somehow conveyed in the works – if nothing else, in an abstract way,” she says.

For Jaik it means questioning how radical transparency would look like in the artworld: “We all have stolen something from someone, even if it’s from history. There can be such a thing as ethical stealing though, in my opinion. A kind of stealing that can make things grow. Subconscious stealing, for example, when you admire someone’s work or are exposed to it frequently. It could also be ideas that are close to your heart that you feel need to be elaborated on. Parasitical Symbiosis is made from such thoughts and attempts; questioning the myth of single-minded genius and its habitat, the White Cube. In my installations I try to show how I am never able to fully work alone. Each of my artworks depend on someone else’s talent and in some cases, someone else’s work may be the reason for their formation in the first place. For example, in the double installation “So, I weed” and “So, I weed & I weed” I dug into an archive at the art academy of Vienna and translated the findings into vegetation – oppressive weeds, boring bureaucratic grass and a hidden, nonexistent rose (women’s letters to demand right for education that were excluded from the archive). I try to question the ground I stand on, my own soil and with what limitations and preset patterns one is allowed to grow.”

In 2018, she and Pille-Riin Jaik collaborated on the work Moving Body in Aggressive Motion, which was shortlisted for the Jury Award and streamed at Frauen Filmfestival 2018 in Vienna, Austria. Parasitic Symbiosis will be the second collaborative effort between Jaik and Meyer.

The artist’s gratitude goes to: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Austrian Embassy in Tallinn, Gerda Nurk, Irmeli Terras, Martti Toivar, Mari-Liis Jaik.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Joint exhibition Spring Express by Ann Pajuväli and Misa Asanuma will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Thursday, February 25, 2021. Exhibition will stay open until March 15, 2021.

By weaving together drawing, ceramic, concrete products and found objects, the exposition constructs a wandering narrative about the longing to be elsewhere and creating fictional worlds into your everyday. The exhibition invites you to a swift sensory journey, in which a comforting familiarity that comes with previously perceived objects and phenomena is mixed with playful scenes of imagination.

☆

Where do you go when days blend into one, when nostrils are longing for spring?
Where do you go when slipping into reverie?
cutting through bushes
sticking to the path
going by curves and angles
muddy diagonals on sprouting grass

Ann Pajuväli

The Exhibition is supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Urmas Lüüs‘s personal exhibition Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Thursday, May 20th, 2021. Exhibition will be open until June 7th, 2021.

Urmas Lüüs: „After my grandmother’s death I started to empty her apartment before the renovation works – 83 years of life piled up in front of me. In three summer months, I was able to dig through hardly half of the layers imbued by a human spirit. The pile included a coat hanger secured by a wooden stick and a band aid; a dress made of a curtain; mended socks; a patched oilcloth. There were some kind of knowledge and presence in all of these things. I gathered that I was able to read this knowledge more and more every day. When I discovered a shelf full of crocheted and embroidered doilies, I got the feeling that I was the one who had to continue with the tools I also found there. So I learned from what was there in front of me and gradually my skills improved. Soon I was able to read the stitches and tracing patterns just like a musician reading sheet music. It seems that the gap between two worlds was not an obstacle for communication.

A few words about myself – my name is Urmas Lüüs (b. 1987) and I have obtained BA and MA degrees in blacksmithing at the Estonian Academy of Arts. In my artistic practice I combine various media such as video, performance, conceptually charged everyday objects, photography, sculpture and sound. I work in my studio at 2 Hobusepea Str, Tallinn; supervise students at the Estonian Academy of Arts and in Gothenburg University; write about culture for different publications; and participate in a sound art group Postinstrumentum.“

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Academy of Arts.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Margit Säde will open her personal exhibition Zone d’attente in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, June 9th, 2021. Exhibition will be open until July 5th, 2021.

Margit Säde: “Due to my work, I have commuted between Tallinn and Zürich for the last ten years. During the past three years, I have been flying on 65 days, taken off and landed 138 times in total. My flights have been delayed, cancelled, changed, overbooked. I have been flying in an almost empty airplane, with bad weather, with good weather, during the pandemic.

Flying is more sterile and more effective than daily life – and all services are within a short walk or a touch away. And yet, flying is always accompanied by a controversial feeling – there is a desire to both ignore and celebrate the control. I am flying into the sky while being safely chained to my seat. Where some people see an open sky, others witness a framed view of sea with the dimensions of a standard airplane window. While pushing my nose to the tightly closed, cold window I activate the airplane mode on my smartphone and enter the time-free zone of flying. The zone of anticipation is just like a closed circle where there is no past and the future has not started yet – there is only a present in a vacuum. It is similar to the phase in depression when the worst is over but the person has not recovered yet. This is a vague indication about the state where you happen to be at the moment and where you are going to be soon – the moment when your life and everything you desire to do is put on hold. Just like the airplanes circling above the airport, waiting for the moment to land.”

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

The artist’s gratitude to: Urs and August Säde Lehni, Anna Škodenko, Eleonore de Montesquiou, Lightmaker, Tuul and Tallinn Secondary School of Science.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Hedi Jaansoo will open her personal exhibition Sweet Peas, Snapdragons and Forget Me Not in Hobusepea gallery at 5pm on Thursday, July 8th, 2021. Exhibition will be open until August 2nd, 2021.

Hedi Jaansoo: “I have photographed half-dried cut flowers. I have depicted these with myself, with the wall, with my granny. I have glued the pieces of pictures together and photographed these with more or less fresh flowers, notes, walls and vases. I have pressed wrinkles into the clay. I have braided scarves. I’d like to be like a snapdragon, symbolizing the strength of women. I’d like to polish my nails again, but afterwards I have to take it off, and I have no time, and then these remain longer in a half-polished state. Like flowers in a vase, lasting much longer when half-dried than fresh. I’d like to say there’s no need to press yourself together, because it won’t help.

The beautiful nymph Paeonia once caught the eye of Apollo. However, Paeonia turned self-conscious and blushed as she noticed that Aphrodite had observed their flirtation. Aphrodite got angry and turned Paeonia into a red peony.

During the Victorian era, people sent each other little flower arrangements to express feelings that was considered a social taboo. Flower dictionaries were used in order to decode the talking bouquets. One of the most popular dictionaries of this kind is “Language of Flowers” (Routledge, 1884, illustrated by Kate Greenaway, a book with numerous reprints). So, during the Victorian era, one had to speak literally through flowers about things that were prohibited.

And they say you should not let peonies wither, because it will bring bad luck.

I’d like to be like a snapdragon.”

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
The exhibitions in Hobusepea Gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

The exhibition Tactilite: Stone that Tickles the Gaze by jewellery artist Darja Popolitova will open in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on August 5th Hobusepea gallery. The solo show incorporates five video works, jewellery and installations that will create a fictional world where witch Seraphita helps to cope with the frustrations of everyday life.

“Seraphita is a fictional character who helps me to expand the usual functions of jewellery. For example, to shoot jewellery so that the viewer would be much more interested in watching a video clip rather than a stand-alone artifact attached to the stand,” says the author.

The video tutorials and jewellery tools in the exhibition are tailored to the specific needs of people – either for becoming more self-confident for some, bringing lost intimacy into life or coping with aggression for others.

The artist considers materiality not only as a physical component but also as a digital one. The action performed by witch Seraphita on the screen becomes a “ritual” involving corporeality. Without such powerful wearable symbols as jewellery, human life would not have sentimental values — gift-giving rituals, tactile moments, personal memories.

Darja’s works have been published in local and international media. Kelly Riggs, a contemporary critic and curator, writes about Darja’s work in the Dutch art magazine Current Obsession:
“Though the physical jewellery objects are the crux of what Popolitova creates, they are also just a part of the total picture, or the collective persona she presents when she shares that jewellery online.”

The exhibition can be visited from 4th to 30th of August 2021, every day (except Tuesday) 11:00-18:00.
Gallery address: Hobusepea 2, Tallinn.

The exhibition has been completed in collaboration with Jakob Tulve (VFX) and Andres Nõlvak (sound).

Artists’s gratude goes to: Aleksandr Popolitov ja Nadežda Popolitova, Ando Naulainen, Anastasia Dratšova, Eesti Kunstiakadeemia doktorikool, Eesti Kunstiakadeemia ehte- ja sepakunstiosakond, Eesti Kunstnikeliit, Elnara Taidre, Karl Kivinurm, Norman Orro, Kadi Veesaar, Kadri Mälk, Karmo Järv, Keiu Krikmann, Kristo Pachel, Miikael Danieljants, Pire Sova, Raivo Kelomees.

Sponsors: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Academy of Arts, Moe OÜ, Õllenaut OÜ, Hobusepea gallery, Orbital Vox Studios.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Laivi‘s personal exhibition Collecting and Preserving will be opened in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Thursday, September 2nd, 2021. Exhibition will be open until September 20th, 2021.

Collecting and Preserving is a fashion exhibition about business and art, posing the question whether the only solution for helping the society suffering from crises would be a political one?

The basis for the coping mechanism in our society is petroleum that has emerged from the organic substance deposited either in the seabed or underground 300 million years ago. What kind of material for the future we are creating with today’s sediments?

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Katrin Koskaru‘s personal exhibition Engine Noise from the Sun will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Friday, September 24th, 2021. Exhibition will be open until October 11, 2021.

„The sky above Annelinn district was thick with noise. Especially at night. The daytime sky was cheerful, full of colourful parachutes. Sports in the sky involves military objectives, and that is a well-known fact. Tu-16K, followed by Tu-22M3, Tu-4D and the colourful, bright Il-76MD. Some of the Il-76MD models were in Aeroflot’s colours and armed with automatic guns, and in Aeroflot’s colours, but armed with automatic guns and equipped against the ground-to-air and ground-to-air rockets. Helena? An arm’s length to the right from the gray cloud! Diligent exercises for observing airplanes, considerations, considerations, diligent exercises may vastly decrease the time spent on searching for an airplane. An airplane can appear in upper layers. A thumb’s length to the right from the church tower. Only silence can be heard. To understand, to understand that you have to run. Riddle me, riddle me! It is neither fast nor slow, it is loud but one can hear it only in silence, in one’s body, inside one’s head. First in one ear – a phantom; then in the other ear – deception, a whistle, battle scenes. From somewhere inside, from the head. Sound waves that keep gathering and gathering, until the body escapes the sound waves, the body starts to move faster, the speed should be at least 343 metres per second, 343 seconds through sound waves, diligent exercises take the body quickly through with a blast. There won’t be a blast without the movement of the body of one’s individual type. The body escapes the sound waves and the spiders started to weave a huge fabric for the body, a robe stronger than steel, but too slowly, so that goats were taken to help out, but even they turned out to be too slow and did not achieve the desired results. Helena was found in her room at home, weaving a purple carpet, enormously big, consisting two wide parts where battles have been beautifully knitted inside.“

Katrin Koskaru

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Kristen Rästas‘s personal exhibition The Caretaker will be opened in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Thursday, October 14, 2021. Exhibition will be open until November 1^st, 2021.

At his present exhibition, Kristen Rästas presents a VR artwork The Caretaker and sculptural landscapes which have been inspired by the visual forms of the main artwork. The fictional character, the Caretaker, has been named after its figurative position as the creator of the environment. The virtual, eternal landscape is something that the Caretaker tries to design according to the memories of the real world. The empirical journey tells about the desire to preserve and improve the surrounding, increasingly fragile and perceptible environments, while creating artificial visual out of the same environments. And sometimes, these may seem much more ideal and inviting than the real environment. The monologue that is made of the Caretaker’s memories, is slightly nostalgic and related to the surrounding landscape. The repetitiousness of audio clips, motionlessness of the environment and the interactive flying ability of the artwork viewer create an uncanny medium as a primary emotion through recognition of natural environment. One cannot be quite sure whether the viewer has been put in the Caretaker’s role or has the viewer been taken to a virtual-archeological exposition in the memories of someone unknown that at the same time have the effect of a collective memory while depicting universal natural forms and textures. Through his artwork, Kristen Rästas presents his vision about creating completely new artificial environments and contemporary landscape image as well as the various ways to experience and interpret these environments.

In order to achieve the maximum experience, the interactive virtual artwork needs to be viewed with VR headset and the viewer has to use the remote control. There is a 3D-world that the viewer can discover while hauntingly flying around on his or her own. It is a free platform without a linear beginning and an end. Every viewer continues where the last viewer has left his or her experience.

Artist’s gratitude to: Kelli Gedvil, Kennet Lekko, Simon Dalzell, Ian-Simon Märjama.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Uno Roosvalt‘s anniversary exhibition My Studio will be opened in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, November 3^rd, 2021. Exhibition will be open until November 22, 2021.

Uno Roosvalt turned 80 in August this year. Current exhibition comprising Roosvalt’s drawings is one way to celebrate this important landmark in the artist’s life. Uno tends to lead his life with a modest flow – and his loving gaze accompanies the various subjects of his artwork, whether it be Nordic nature, coastal landscapes, evergreen bushes or cats and dogs. And there have always been cats and dogs in the Roosvalt family’s home.

Artist’s studio is an artist’s home. It is the birthplace of the artist’s artwork. Even when the works leave the studio, there will be a memory of the space in the artworks as the space in the artist’s head where the creative ideas were born. Yearning for one’s studio is a part of every artwork’s charm. An artist needs a studio – it is a place where artists keep their tools, a place they can leave and return. Uno Roosvalt’s studio is located in Maarjamäe district, Tallinn. It is on the first floor of his home. A narrow staircase leads upstairs, and there are many artworks hanging on the walls (including those by Estonian art classics Eerik Haamer, Johannes Võerahansu, Evald Okas; and Uno Roosvalt’s contemporaries Marju Mutsu and Naima Neidre), including the artist’s own works from the earlier years of his artist’s practice.

The studio is old, Uno Roosvalt has worked here for many years. Despite its small size, the studio has no suffocating effect. All the paintings and drawings surrounding you in the studio seem to be like openings to the worlds that offer more space and expanse for being: coastal landscapes, views to the cliffs and from the cliffs in Iceland, Gotland, Åland; Estonian coasts with junipers, megaliths, boat wrecks, heaps of fishing nets, glass buoys. Even if the artist depicts people or an animal, there is always some open view in the background, whether some kind of landscape or a window overlooking the garden. Uno Roosvalt’s studio is like a space with numerous windows.

His newest series of drawings „My Studio“ has been completed in 2021 and has inspired the artist to give the exhibition the same title. The series depicts views of Roosvalt’s studio, including the things surrounding him every day, drawings and paintings. With his new series, the artist takes a retrospective approach while referring and quoting his own earlier artwork. Roosvalt has used similar quoting method before – for instance, in his drawing series exhibited in Draakon gallery in 2018 where the artist entertained himself with the familiar images known from Eduard Wiiralt’s graphic prints.

The warm humour on these drawings has been replaced by silent contemplation. One can see much more depicted than the artworks in Roosvalt’s studio. The studio is an artist’s real home and therefore Roosvalt has been also attracted by the themes of Jesus Christ, stories of his sufferings and the messages of joy. Uno Roosvalt’s father, church minister Albert Roosvalt, served in St. Lawrence Church in Kuusalu; and Uno Roosvalt’s mother (maiden name Liidia Volmer) graduated from the Tallinn Industrial Art School. The intellectual environment in his home has influenced Uno Roosvalt when growing up and becoming an artist, on a somewhat very elementary, essential level.

Uno Roosvalt’s studio is located on the upper floor of his home; the series „My Studio“ is exhibited on the main floor of Hobusepea gallery. When going downstairs to the lower ground of the gallery – a space that could refer to subconsciousness and the hidden – one can see heaps of nails. The series of drawings „Coast of Nails“ has been completed in 2012–2013. Nails follow the shapes appearing in nature – views to the sea horizon or meadows that have been always characteristic to Roosvalt’s work. Nails penetrate the entire earthly existence  and our surroundings, whether from the crucifix or the firewood burnt to ash in the oven. These are the parts of Uno Roosvalt’s artist’s world, designiting both the earthly and the mental plane.

Sirja-Liisa Eelma

Curator of the exhibition: Sirja-Liisa Eelma.

Design: Kaarel Eelma.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Kaisa Maasik‘s personal exhibition Blow Hot and Cold will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Wednesday, November 24. Exhibition will be open until December 13, 2021.

The saying „blow hot and cold“ expresses ambivalence, alternating between two states. In her artwork presented at the current exhibition, Kaisa Maasik examines depicting of (alternation of) emotions.

When it comes to languages, expressions about moods tend to involve opposite colours: for instance the saying „see red“ means the same as „turn blue with anger“ in Estonian, and yet, in both languages, one becomes „green with envy“. Various studies have also proved that human face is changing undertones depending on a specific emotion (Benitez-Quiroz, F., Srinivasan, R., Martinez, A. M. (2018) Facial color is an efficient mechanism to visually transmit emotion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.) When the mood swins, the blood circulation in facial skin subconsciously helps to express how we feel, while receiving mutually gentle signals from our communication partners.

At the current exhibition, a scheduled spectacle opens up in the form of vessels changing colours. Also, the subject of emoticons with similar pattern is brought up – specific colours are attributed to certain facial expressions. The kinetic cycle starts with water heaters while inviting the viewer to slow down and observe alternating shades. These static beings, frequently changing moods, become hot and cool down just like hinting at something.

The artist expresses her gratitude to : Andra Jõgi, Anne Eelmere, Astra Aavik, Benedikte Bjerre, Chih Tung Lin, Estonian Artists’ Association, Eve Koha, Fabrikken for Kunst og Design, Indrek Köster, Karel Koplimets, Merike Estna, Otto Varjust, the Maasik family, proloogkool, Tiiu Saadoja, Tõnu Narro.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Helena Keskküla will open her personal exhibition Blossoms and Boogeymen, Telenovelas are Stupid in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, December 18, 2019. Exhibition will be open until January 13, 2020.

In her earlier artist practice, Helena Keskküla has repeatedly played with sentimentality combined with text and music, therefore having reached the genre of musical as a logical result. The artist is continuously interested in what happens when using songs, humour and plain language in order to speak about one’s fears. A musical film Choral Reeds, also called as a horror-musical, is the centerpiece of the present exhibition. The piece is about a creative person who is diagnosed with an unusual yet harmless physiological anomaly. Facing the symptoms creates psychological stress manifesting both in personal and professional spheres.

The artist expresses her gratitude to the filming team and actors: Judith Boeschoten, Lidewei Egbers, Clara Langlois, Renée van Zadelhoff, Kaspar Sellin, Pascalle Olthof, Juri de Wolf, Jan Koks, Chris Houle, Lin Hou Oei, Jaap Mar Diemel, Merlijn Willemsen, Camiel Povel, Jurriaan Kruithof, Freija Hogenboom, Willem Sluyterman van Loo, Clemens Stumpf, Mayra Soares, Jesse van den Broek, Jelle Haen, Jessica Matheson, Seoyoung Lee, Henrik Rakitin, Bo Kamphues, Franka Wisselink, Kate-Lyn Kendell Meistré, Villem Rootalu, Mirthe Bron, Joost Koster, Tatyana Shpadi, Asia Skupinska, Paul Schauenburg, Beatriz Lerer Ferreira, Lucien Easton, Juni Mun, Liis Rannamäe, Ketlin Virumäe, Helle Rimm, Liis Lulla, Anne Karu, Priit Veia, David Gibbs, Johanna Földesi.

Supporters: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Tungsten Studio, Oud Katholieke Kerk Haarlem, Car Casting Holland, friends and family.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Liina Siib will open her personal exhibition Huldufólk / Hidden People in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, January 15th, 2019. Exhibition will be open until February 3rd, 2020.

The highlight of Liina Siib’s installation „Huldufólk“, located on both floors of the gallery, lies in the silent tragicomical piece composed by photographs, a tragicomedy with derived words, a silent film and a comic strip.

The tragicomic strip is set in winter, in the surroundings of the back door of a 24-hour food store in Reykjavik. The geographical location does not really matter here much more than perhaps recognizing larger fish crates, longer lasting nights, rapid change of weather and temperatures; depicted activities and related attributes can be found anywhere in the world. One can see single or several store workers smoking in front of the open back door either during the day or in the evenings while now and then re-organizing the towering heaps of crates in their limited territory.

At the end of the month, the scene will be changed by the crowd consisting people from Eastern European countries and other non-local individuals entering the “stage”, performing various cleaning work. Just like the store is open 24 hours a day, so the backyard of the store is never empty while those interested in the contents of the garbage bins keep coming and going. Everyone in this crowd seems to have his or her own role in the exchange and movement of the goods.

„Huldufolk“ means “hidden people” in Icelandic – these are supernatural beings who look and behave like normal people but have their own activities in their own parallel world. They can make themselves visible for humans who can see them through a colourful glass.

The photographic and film material has been collected in 2018 when the artist worked in the residency at The Steina and Woody Vasulka Archive at the National Gallery of Iceland.

The artist’s gratitude goes to: Vasulka Chamber at the National Gallery of Iceland, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Academy of Arts, Kristin Schewing, Ragnheidur Vignisdottir, Sandra Fritz, Terry Gunnell, Mark Fisher, Mánudjass, 10-11 food store in Reykjavik, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo, Corina Apostol, Rait Miltorp, Fred Reeds, Kaire Rannik, Maria Izabella Lehtsaar and Liis-Marleen Verilaskja.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Kirke Kangro and Sheri Wills will open their exhibition The Solemn Admonition of Your Breathing in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Thursday, February 6th, 2020. Exhibition will be open until February 23rd, 2020.

Today as then I turn to stone
in your presence, sea,
but no longer feel worthy
of the solemn admonition of your breathing

Eugenio Montale

You look at the sea, and your substance begins to change. You look at it to look at something that’s not you. To implode and collapse. To be boundless, diverse and present. This view you could mount on a wall. To go back, to return in microscopic particles. Accelerating gaze, looking at the evading view.

The exhibition is carried by human imagination of an ancient, lasting, uninterrupted existence. Force of nature that is captivating in its wild independence. The title is a line from Eugenio Montale’s poem that presents a nostalgic view of an uncontrolled and curing nature. It’s an idea of a powerful agency that surrounds us, yet stays untouched by us, being able to cleanse itself. In the poem, the sea casts out all the “useless rubble”, inutili macerie. But our traces are everywhere. You need to measure the heartbeats of a mussel to recognize the unexpected impact of your rubble.

The installations deal with the pleasures of looking and the way they may evolve.
The gallery environment presents a view that the artists are trying to control.
Or are they trying to show something uncontrollable?

The artist’s gratitude goes to: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, TalTech Department of Marine Systems Basseinikatted Ltd, Riisipere Puit, Estonian Environment Agency, Rhode Island School of Design, Estonian Academy of Arts, Kai Künnis-Beres, Ivan Kuprijanov, Toivo Lehtmets, Ain Kilk, Tatiana Kuznetsova, Anastasiia Kovtun-Kante, Tanel Tätte, Hans Otto Ojaste, Maarja Kangro, Anna Magdaleena Kangro, Neeme Külm, Andrus Lauringson, Margit Säde, Madis Luik, Tarvo Varres

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Cloe Jancis and Maris Karjatse will open their first co-exhibition Meanwhile at 6pm on Wednesday, February 26th, 2020. Exhibition will be open until March 16.

With their first collaboration project, artists Maris Karjatse and Cloe Jancis focus on objects related to human body as well as on the dynamics and tension developing between public and intimate space.
Through activating objects and materials as well as interpreting the communication of their inner and outer characteristics, the artists create artifacts with new meanings. The working process of Cloe Jancis and Maris Karjatse includes constant, if not continuous becoming something; endless transformation of form and representation; delay of the result; or even return to the beginning in order to proceed.

Maris Karjatse has been inspired by the principle of singularity and multiplicity while completing artworks for the current exposition. The artist’s theoretical source is Gilles Deleuze’s idea about losing the limitations between objects and thoughts as both are inseparable and without each other both would lose their transformative identity. The series of photographic objects “Sub Rosa” refers to process, unfinishedness, deterritorialization of an object, resistance of material and working with form. Her textual piece “Tekkst” compares text to a blanket and vice versa ‒ everything that a text / a blanket covers is most exposed and vulnerable. Both a text and a blanket are made of vibrant matter, including both suffocating danger and softening solace.

Cloe Jancis with her two-part work “Befitting Flesh” focuses on nude objects widely used in today’s make-up and fashion industry; objects that aim at matching one’s skin tone, at emphasizing the selected body parts as well as hiding the unwanted. The artist is intrigued by the phenomenon where the objects, that should blend in with the body and remain invisible, will boost as an artificial shell while conquering the body as an object. The piece “Befitting Flesh I” highlights items of clothing as a material in anticipation of filling and fulfilling ‒ a body and desiring gaze ‒ in order to realize. Video installation “Befitting Flesh II” rehearses fitting process through repetition while nullifying achieving the desired form.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

The artists give their gratitude to: Tõnu and Marie Karjatse, Kiki, Aksel Haagensen, Liina Siib, Marco Laimre, Sirja-Liisa Eelma, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo and the department of photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Madis Kaasik (Prototyping Lab at the Estonian Academy of Arts), Tarmo Rämmi (Digifoto), Pille Kraas (UBS Repro), Veiko Illiste (Deviis), Carl-Robert Kagge, Martin Buschmann, Aadu and Maara Lambot, Laura Cemin, Marge Monko, Kulla Laas, Kaupo Reisenbuk (Datel), Järsi LLC, Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Manfred Dubov‘s personal exhibition Revellers in the Dark will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Wednesday, May 20th, 2020 and will stay open until June 29th. With his current exhibition, the artist asks whether it is possible to be happy during the difficult times, in the middle of a catastrophe?

Catastrophes and happiness may happen both on a personal and global level. One way of being joyful is not having to worry about the essentials. A catastrophe can be defined as a larger amount of problems and lack of resources for coping with the situation. Self-realization is possible only when basic needs are guaranteed. Thus, we can call ourselves happy when we don’t have to be concerned about the essentials. Even during the pandemic-free period our basic needs can be perceived – what is vital and what’s not. At first glance, the theme of the exhibition may seem dead serious, but the paintings on display are rather humorous and introspective in nature.

Revellers in the Dark places the characters in a darkened space where they seem to be glowing. The character of The Arriver seems to be burnt – the surrounding blotches of paint or flashes of light as well as the distorted space refer to flames. The Descender/Ascender is smiling despite the hellish surroundings and the physical deterioration of the character’s body, while being able to exit the space. The sky above the character is bright and full of sunshine, and there is a future perspective even in death. I Come from Several Places at Once refers to a group of exhausted characters who have gathered in difficult conditions and who will move on together. The Traveller is a vague character, searching for an anchor in a wasteland while probably being also the one providing support.

Manfred Dubov

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

The annual exhibition From the Roots of the Estonian Fashion Designers’ Union will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Wednesday, July 1st 2020. Exhibition will be open until August 3rd.

At the present exhibition former clothing culture meets contemporary fashion design. Through innovative working methods and modern solutions, fashion designers express respect towards their origin, beauty ideals of various generations as well as the phenomenon of continuity.

In their creative process, the participating artists have been most inspired by a clothing item or an everyday object that has belonged to the artist’s close family member. The artists have been influenced by the activities, rituals and clothing of their relatives dating back to the artists’ childhood – while now analyzing the aspects connecting or disconnecting them to the individuals related to their memories. Participating artists have chosen the old photographs, letters and everyday items that have deeply influenced them and these are now on display for the exhibition viewers who can thus test the strength of their so-called genetic code and contemplate on the inevitability of one’s roots. Every exhibited piece is equipped with an explanatory text and the portraits of both the artists and the close relatives who have inspired them.

Participating artists: Ainikki Eiskop, Anu Hint, Anu Ling, Anne Metsis, Astri Müül, Diana Denissova, Eve Tiidolepp, Ilona Tamm, Joan Hint, Kai Saar, Katre Arula, Kärt Karjatse, Küllike Tuvikene, Külli Kerttu Siplane, Liivika Põvat-Straus, Merle Lõhmus, Piret Kuresaar, Thea Pilvet Martinson, Tiia Orgna.

Organizer of the exhibition: Estonian Fashion Designers’ Union
Exhibition design: Anu Hint
Supporters: Estonian Artists’ Association
Publications: MinuPrint

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Lylian Meister‘s personal exhibition Treasure Island will be opened in Hobusepea gallery at 5pm on Wednesday, August 5, 2020. Exhibition will be open until August 31st, 2020.

Lylian Meister comments on her present exhibition as follows:
Treasure Island is an exhibition about restlessness, yearning, searching, journeys and in a way meaningless desires. Eclectic and colourful, composed with lightness.
I was working on the exhibition as an amateur anthropologist, researching myself. I simply took paintings off the walls of my bedroom and brought these together with my other domestic things to my gallery for one month. I contemplated on my personal Odyssey and Penelopeia. I stitched and glued roses in order to share my secrets below these. I drew a new continent on the globe with borrowed pencils. I did what I wanted.

I went to the sea in the island of Muhu,
The blacksmith of Sõrve peninsula offered me sauna,
And I wove fabric in Kerala.

I floated as a Great Mother on water. The salty sea was around me and instead of blood there was sugar floating in my veins. I wept and sugar crystals sank to the ground as pearls. Life like a shipwreck! The pirates of Suuremõisa Castle threw me a lifebuoy, gave me the keys to the treasury and caused me nightmares at night. Their castle has double ceiling and the whole island is not real. Hiiumaa is a continent that rises from water on a full-moon night once a century. On my birthday. I receive as many presents as I can carry, yet nothing belongs to me … not even my lover … . I am living a double life with double standards.

Medusa’s snakes are reborn while guarding my great treasure on the continent. When is the moment when another person’s artwork is reborn and becomes mine? Is it enought when I have added a third eye to a cross-stitched cat and decorated every spot with my initials? I am a sugar-blooded thief. I want to obtain and win! Every evening I gamble myself away in order to win. When does one become a property of another? My lover says: „You cannot appreciate your game partners.“ He has not decided yet for what he wants to trade me.

Residents of Hiiumaa island buy me off. They know all the winds and they have a boat in every harbour. The wind turns, I’ve got navigational charts, my father’s compass and my grandpa’s pocket watch. Treasure hunt is but a pretext; what I want is a journey that would hit and amaze me. I will get myself back in a hundred years if I can carry the present ashore. In Hiiu Shoal, human years start to go backwards.

According to poet Ilmar Laaban, „the end of an anchor chain is a beginning of a song …“.

Present exhibition involves collaborators: Katarina Meister – paintings, Father Imanta (Imanta Lember from Sõru parish, Hiiumaa island) – ironworks; Kristel Kaerma – details, crocheted snake; Aet Randorg – patchwork quilt; and many unknown authors.

I wish to express my gratitude to: Tarmo Rajangu, resident of Hiiumaa island, who allowed me to explore his shed full of treasures; Kaido Lember, resident of Sõru parish, Hiiumaa island, and his wife Velda Lainoja who borrowed me Father Imanta’s creative heritage; Mall Tamberg who completed most of the needleworks; Vasudevan and Tasara Art Centre in India where threads were dyed and cotton textiles were woven according to my designs; Marko Nautras who helped to complete the photographs; Mika Orav who allowed me to use his personal estate; Hiiumaa Vocational School and Suuremõisa Castle non-profit association for their extensive support; Kristel Kaerma, Einar Keskpaik and Volli Lainoja for their assistance and inspiration.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Ulvi Haagensen’s solo exhibition Thea Koristaja Museum at Hobusepea Gallery opens on Wednesday, 2 September 2020 at 6pm. The exhibition is open until 21 September, 2020.

“Welcome to our place”, says Thea Koristaja, as she opens the door and indicates for us to enter an exhibition that explores the connections between art and everyday life. Thea Koristaja is an imaginary person, an artist, and a cleaner and this is her museum. Together with two other imaginary artists, known as Olive Puuvill and Loome Uurija, she works with Ulvi Haagensen, who is quite real, to explore how art and life can meet, converge, overlap and sometimes clash.

The exhibition uses the upstairs and downstairs of the gallery to present two different contexts – the exhibition space and the studio. Upstairs is clean and tidy, not dissimilar to a living room or hallway in a home – after all, we want to make a good impression, don’t we? But the real action of everyday life may in fact take place somewhere else, in the kitchen, the laundry, in front of the telly, in the everyday, when the visitors aren’t visiting. Downstairs is the cluttered, untidy workspace. This is where Haagensen and her imaginary team discover the unexpected as they push the familiar into new territory. A discarded greeny-blue Värska mineral water bottle, new and recycled timber, a length of rusted steel, wool and cotton yarns in a myriad of colours – all start to find a persona or a potential they never knew they had. Is it possible, here in the studio, to see the most exciting part, the magic of making, the moment when the thing emerges as a thing? Or is that something that takes place in the artist’s mind and can’t be shared?

Exhibitions at Hobusepea Gallery are supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment, the Ministry of Culture and Liviko AS.

Angela Soop‘s personal exhibition War and Peace I will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Thursday, September 24th, 2020. Exhibition will be open until October 12, 2020.

There is no war, yet someone hurts my heart every day.
Madis Kõiv

Angela Soop: “Current exhibition serves as the first one from the cycle consisting of four parts. The cycle arises and changes according to the surrounding and inner state. The meanings of the words “war” and “peace” depend on the ways of interpretation and the context. While preparing for this exhibition I was unable to foresee the situation today. Concepts have become more reverse, yet the lights seem to have turned down a bit. Borders become vague, volumes coincide and transform. The exhibition is based on perceiving the states and observing various influencing factors. In one case the focus lies on status and the other case concentrates on activity.
Strong contrasts and soft lights, sharp corners and round reflections, great words or silence – the connection will be made in any case. While navigating inside oneself and solving the areas of conflict, it is possible to win time and space in order to survive. The exhibition is not a statement but an opportunity for being.”

The artist expresses her gratitude to: Hans-Otto Ojaste, Maiu Mooses, ARS Art Factory, Vaba Lava, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Siim Soop, Lea Tammik, Ra Sun.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

August Sai‘s personal exhibition Paint Story will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Wednesday, October 14, 2020. Exhibition will stay open until November 2nd, 2020.

Once upon a time, chunks of ice lived on a faraway planet. On a hot and sunny day, they started to crack and melt. Five chunks of ice saw the opportunity for an adventure during the changes. They drifted apart from others in the sea of ice and headed for the seven seas to search for happiness.

However, halfway during their trip the chunks of ice started to crack. One of the chunks got frightened and turned around. Four chunks fearlessly continued their journey and melted. But it turned out that nothing terrible happened. The chunks became a part of the sea and this gave them new powers. They started to discover the expanse of the sea while diving deep to the sea floor and rising as foamy waves on the shore. All this was exhausting for them so they took a peaceful nap under the sun.

When waking up, they realized with terror that they were floating in the air and rising in the form of vapour above the sea. One of the chunks did not dare to take off and remained in the sea. Three chunks went up to the sky and became a cloud. After all, it was quite fine to be a cloud and to be flown around by the wind. They flew above mountains, deserts and forests. But before they grew tired of being a cloud, a sudden rumble could be heard. The cloud started to shake and grew thicker and thicker. A lightning struck. The chunks hidden in the cloud were startled and began shivering even more. One chunk of ice did not dare to let go of the cloud and squeezed it so that two chunks became rain and poured down from the sky at an enormous speed, followed by the orchestra of an echoing rumble and the bright lightnings. They dashed down until they crashed something immense and unknown. Everything all around was filled with silence and darkness.

At the same time, the situation at the sea of ice was heated up since the chunks of ice that had remained were quarreling with each other. Some of them were looking for the reasons behind their trouble in the seagulls flying by and in the waves arriving from the faraway countries. The chunks evil-mindedly terrorized other chunks with the flocks of seagulls and tsunamis. Despite the fact that seagulls prefer to gather on dumping grounds. And tsunamis normally won’t arise without a reason but due to the earthquakes taking place in the deep sea. It is so deep down that no chunk of ice wouldn’t bother taking a look at it, since the chunks are already filled with water because of staying put and hiding their cracks.

When the chunks of ice that rained down from the cloud finally recovered, they found themselves floating above the ground between trees. They had turned into fog. One of the chunks didn’t want to be fog and vaporized back to a cloud. The last existing chunk of ice was floating as fog in a shady forest. It hugged the tree trunks and moistened the moss until it arrived at a sunny clearing and fell down as drops to the ground. The earth swallowed the chunk that had turned into water. There was silence and peace in the deep inside of its dark bosom. Suddenly everything the ground started to shake around the chunk. A rapid stream grabbed hold of the chunk and dragged it along. The chunk was surrounded by the babbling and deafening sound. The stream twirled and squeezed the chunk while pushing it up and down, to the right and left and throwing it out to bright light from total darkness. Now the chunk had become a fierce river on the ground. Having flown with foam for quite some time, the river’s flow grew slower – it had reached the sea.

It noticed the chunk of ice in the sea that had left behind from others, but the chunk didn’t recognize the river. Then the chunk in the river saw the chunk of ice floating in the sky as a cloud and the fog that thought it was a cloud – and together they held tight to each other while squeezing tears out of the cloud. But they didn’t recognize the river as well. The chunk in the river realized that even those chunks who had left behind in the sea of ice remained strangers. They won’t know that all of them are everything at the same time – the sea, the clouds, the rain and the fog, the rivers and the lakes, and also the characters of a fairy tale. That’s the end of the story. If you wish to continue the adventure then choose to GO TO THE EXHIBITION!

Paint Story is an exhibition about paint that cannot stand still. While searching for the new ways of self-expression for the painting, paint is changing its form and testing the limits of its abilities. The fairy tale ends and the adventure continues.

August Sai

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Exhibition His Dreams were Nothing Remarkable by Art Allmägi and Keiu Virro will be open in Hobusepea gallery since Wednesday, November 4th, 2020. Exhibition will be open until November 23rd, 2020.

Early this year, Art Allmägi made an inventory of his artwork. Different exhibitions have included numerous sculptures and installations which have no extra function, unlike the artwork produced for public space. Among them are the sculptures exhibited in his personal exhibition “I Had a Dream Last Night” in Hobusepea gallery in 2012. Actually, these sculptures should have been stayed in a storage. Not because of damage by mice nor the battered beds but because of the controversial content of the dreams that Art has described beside the sculptures.

Hence, if there is something under question that perhaps it should not exist, Art’s artistic vision is mainly as follows: it should! If someone says that men with guns in art should be already left behind as history, Art makes six of them (“Paint it Black”) and shows the pieces several times.

The exhibition “I Had a Dream Last Night” included insane descriptions about dreams where several men approach Art with indecent proposals. Alas, these texts have started to remind of the fear of homosexuality, the topic that our government members seriously tend to discuss these days. Now it felt necessary to overview these texts. However, how to stay away from the situation that these won’t become a part of bulk of texts recreating negative approach? What if Art would sincerely rewrite these dreams, would these have the same impact on the spectator? It is not only the question of being, but also of seeming. Classics.

So it happened that Art Allmägi called someone who seemed trustworthy enough and seems to be the opposite of the meaning of his original texts. Journalists (as “social influencers”, thought Art by himself) think and write on these subjects. Art called Keiu Virro asking her to rewrite his texts. While being skeptical about influence, optimistic about Art’s ideas and having not seen the devastation by mice yet, Keiu said “yes”.

Thanks to: Anette Parksepp, Mari-Liis Vind, Alo Allmägi, Taivo Timmusk, Kristi Kongi, Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

The exhibitions in Hobusepea Gallery are supported by Estonian Clutural Endowment, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Britta Benno‘s personal exhibition Ruinenlust in Lasnamäe will be open in Hobusepea gallery since Wednesday, November 25th, 2020. Exhibition will be open until December 14, 2020.

When waking up from a lunch-time nap, it had transformed to a gigantic future dinosaur that no one had ever seen before. One can imagine the soaked bulks of houses thrown on a hillocky landscape behind the fog. These are the ruins of concrete panel houses that have luckily survived in a spot that once was called Lasnamäe.

The cuboids had no windows nor doors, darkness smirked its toothless grin behind the cavities. And yet, there was no emptiness there – new life had moved in Lasnamäe. Creatures like the dinosaur were living there – huge, miraculous animals whose ancestors originated from the Anthropocene.

Ruinenlust in Lasnamäe is a science fictional prospective to post-human urban landscape where jungle and mountaneous terrain with the future creatures have taken over the ruins of a former bedroom community. Pleasure of looking at the ruins, Ruinenlust, is projected to the district of Lasnamäe that has lost the heavy burden of meanings. The message has been expressed through the models of houses characteristic to Lasnamäe have been used in puppet animation as well as the etching drawings that look like findings from an ancient civilisation.

Marginal and old-time arts, printmaking and stereoscopic puppet animation accompanied by harpsichord music form a staged installation. Concern about the dystopian state of our environment motivates to imagine the post-human future. Hybrid art and layered combination becomes the tool of such imagination and depiction.

Current exhibition also serves as Britta Benno’s second peer-reviewed creative output of her studies in the Doctoral School at the Estonian Academy of Arts. In her artistic research, Benno concentrates on depicting science fictional landscape in the extended field of drawing and printmaking.

Benno’s last pop-up exhibition Of Becoming a Shape of a Land(Scape) was completed during a residency in Iceland and was opened for a few days in Outver gallery, Iceland. In Tallinn the same exhibition project, titled as Once I Had, was held together with Heather Beardsley in Kraam Project Room in the autumn of 2019. The most prominent personal exhibition Dystopic Tallinn was open in Tallinn Art Hall gallery in the summer of 2019.

The artist expresses her gratitude to: Ragnar Neljandi (cameraman, animator, post-production), Heigo Eeriksoo (puppet master), Mait Eerik (prop master), Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Nukufilm LLC.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Madis Kurss (1985) will open his personal exhibition Chassis in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Thursday, December 20th, 2018. Exhibition will be open until January 14th, 2019.

„The high wore away, the chromed skeleton corroding hourly, flesh growing solid, the drug-flesh replaced with the meat of his life. He couldn’t think. He liked that very much, to be conscious and unable to think. He seemed to become each thing he saw: a park bench, a cloud of white moths around an antique streetlight, a robot gardener striped diagonally with black and yellow. ”

William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)

Roomba was one of the first mass-produced autonomous robots that was initially designed for cleaning floors but that soon connected itself to the Web, mapped living spaces and recorded habits while becoming more and more effective. The data had no restrictions; yet, it had to be processed. Consciousness extending within digital space enabled this, in the beginning. For a few days. Then, everything biological got in the way. The body left the impression of serving as a seat heater for the next driver. Monuments cumulated under the sand for the recollections of form, evolution became introvert.

Through the works of his current exhibition, Madis Kurss contemplates the desires of perfect technology and the paradox accompanying it – technology’s ability to solve various problems equals to its ability to destroy everything that surrounds us.
Madis Kurss has studied information technology in Tallinn Polytechnic School, photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts and currently obtains MA degree in contemporary arts at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
The artist uses his artwork as an opportunity to describe the undescribable while guiding the viewer closer to a solid experience through his work. According to the artist, the synthesized visual or sound facilitates to create better contact between the original idea and the completed artwork whereas the dimension of humanity decreases in the synthesis – which is why the importance lies in seemingly random details in Kurss’s work.

Thanks to: Keiu Maasik, Tõnis Kurss, Viktor Gurov, department of photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts, department of printmaking at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Eventech.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by Estonian Ministry of Culture and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Liisa Kruusmägi (1988) will open her personal exhibition Soda Pop on Asphalt in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, January 16th 2019.

As a part of the exhibition, the gallery hour will take place at 5pm on Friday on January 18th, held by Marjam Tamm and Laura Linna, MA students of art teacher programme at Tallinn University and Estonian Academy of Arts.

The bohemian aesthetics of disorder and the cozy irregularity are expressed in Kruusmägi’s work. Among the motifs the artist has used there are plants, books, musical instruments, mirrors, wine glasses, other miscellaneous objects, cats, dogs and snakes. Chaotic heaps of clothes in her homes where the the artist has been living during the different phases of her life. An observant viewer can also detect autobiographical references on the depicted walls in Kruusmägi’s work. On closer inspection it turns out that the artist has painted her earlier work in her paintings. The motif of constructing a home is important for Kruusmägi namely for the intimacy of atmosphere where the dense text of objects and people are formed.

Exhibited paintings can be divided into two categories of existence. First, there is the lazy girl syndrome expressed through the self-observation and contemplations of melancholy, dreaming young women. These characters are introvert model consumers and neoliberal paragon-hipsters of the „bloom boy and young girl“ era. Secondly, there are two-dimensional surfaces of details and miniature objects that lack spatiality. This raises the question whether the result reminds more of textile design or materialized elements of disordered thoughts. In other words, this looks like a blend of the popular theme of lifestyle bloggers „What’s in my bag?“ and the semiotic concept of umwelt by biologist Jakob von Uexküll.

Kruusmägi’s working method can be described by fast drawing, depiction of impulsive emotions and mood as well as painting large motifs while emphasizing the influence of colour in her work. Liisa Kruusmägi is definitely an artist with an established individual style, characterized by the rapidly propagating line that extends to various images: sneakers, wall and computer screens, thus referring to the various modalities of art consumption. The cognitive naivety of the artist is expressed rather in the emotional act of participation than conceptually.

Liisa Kruusmägi’s work comprises thematic contradictions – her visual language is cartoon-like and two-dimensional, yet idealistic and enchanting. On one hand we can see something idyllic and cozy, on the other hand her work conveys escapism and melancholy. Such chaotic inner landscapes characterize not only Kruusmägi but the whole generation where she belongs.

Madli Ehasalu

Thank you: Eva-Erle Lillead.

Exhibition will be open until February 4th, 2019.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and fritz-cola.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

From February 7th the exhibition Mortal Kombat 2: afterglow by Urmas Lüüs will be open at the Hobusepea gallery and will remain until 25 February.
You are invited to the opening of the exhibition on February 14 from 5pm to 7pm in Hobusepea gallery and from 5pm to 6pm in the Cellar Hall of Kanuti Gildi SAAL. Performative installation in Kanuti Gildi SAAL (entrance from Pühavaimu Str. 5) is open just for one night.

Urmas Lüüs: “When my exhibition Mortal Kombat: LOVE (2016, HOP gallery) dealt with the more tempestuous parts of the emotional experience of ending a relationship, then Mortal Kombat 2: afterglow is a reflection on those ripples that still occasionally disturb the calmed surface after years gone by. Arguably, the sound wave from the Big Bang is still reverberating somewhere in the universe.

Through my creative practice I seek answers to various questions. Does an object have an inherent ability to be performative? How do people experience the same artwork in different and oppositional settings (the white cube and the black box) and how do these contrasting settings affect the reception of the piece with similar logic? How to design an exhibition space that focuses on the sole thing that is not exhibited? What are the possibilities and potentials of the traditional material-oriented skills in the field of conceptual art? Why has love, faith and the common ground that we share with 7.7 billion people become a greater taboo than sexuality, religion and politics? How to forget common knowledge to rethink the quotidian? How to convey the human condition by rendering everyday objects celibate and placing them in a poetic frame of reference? How can a physical object speak to us about the nonmaterial more effectively than words?”

Urmas Lüüs is an Estonian artist who combines installation, performance, craft, sound art, video, tools of visual theatre, text, photography and sculpture. His main topics of interest include object-space relations and the performative quality of an object. He likes to explore the grey areas between the black box and the white cube.

Homepage: urmasluus.com
Instagram: byurmaslyys

Exhibition is supported by: Kanuti Gildi SAAL, Eesti KultuurkapitalTechnical solutions: Taavi Suisalu, Sigrid Kuusk, Valdek Laur, Hans-Otto Ojaste

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Lilli-Krõõt Repnau and Helen Tago will open their co-exhibition Dark Matter in Hobusepea gallery at 6om on Wednesday, February 27th, 2019.

Current exhibition by Lilli-Krõõt Repnau and Helen Tago focuses on a specific space-time in a gallery environment. This is a three-dimensional site-specific graphic installation that through the concept of dark matter analyzes the constantly changing, irrational world. Present exposition serves as a dialogue between two artists, primarily made by fragile and ephemeral objects. In order to perceive an environment, one has to create a world of one’s own and to contemplate these initial elements through simplified schemes of perception in a specific gallery space.

Ernst Öpik has stated: „Material objects come into being, disappear and arise again. This is the rhythm of the physical world that controls everything that cannot be measured, weighed or timed. Yet, there is something inside of us that has no measure nor weight: our consciousness, that „self” that is similar to all other „selves” and yet different in each individual. Isn’t this the drop of the Consciousness of the Big Space or an atom? The only existence of our knowledge, the primary reality that we never have doubts for; our only gate and window through which we perceive the world.”.

Exhibition will be open until March 18, 2019.

Thank you for your support: graafika.ee, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, department of printmaking at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Zelluloos paper shop, Toomas Tago, Janno Mullaste, Ülle Repnau, Kaija Kesa, Marily Piirsalu.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Marco Laimre will open his personal exhibition A.S.T.A. blind playthrough in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, March 20th, 2019.

A.S.T.A. blind playthrough is Marco Laimre’s durational performance where the artist will complete an on-site playing of the computer game Desolate during 140 hours. With his present exhibition, the artist is involved in an analytical form of gaming while studying the relationship between a gamer and a game. The audience has the opportunity to observe the artist’s activity via video projections. According to Marco Laimre, current exhibition is the way to deal with the frustration caused by the recent parliamentary election held in Estonia.

A.S.T.A. blind playthrough is Laimre’s 23rd personal exhibition. Marco Laimre has represented the Republic of Estonia in Venice Biennale in 2001, as a curator in 2009; he has worked as a professor in the department of photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts for twelve years; he was the co-founder of the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM) (with Neeme Külm) and founder of Köler Prize.

Recently he held an extensive personal exhibition Motor in Tallinn Art Hall in early 2018. Laimre is currently studying in a PhD programme of art and design at the Estonian Academy of Arts, the subject of his doctoral thesis being „Postapocalyptic RPG/FPS computer games and contemporary art“.

Attention! Due to the visual violence exposed at the present exhibition it is inappopriate for children and the faint-hearted.

Exhibition will be open until April 8, 2019.

Thanks to: adviser Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, department of photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Eve Kiiler will open her personal exhibition The Old and New Neighbours in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, April 10th, 2019.

As a photo artist, Kiiler studies the subject of public space while observing changes in an urban environment or visitors in museums and art institutions.
The photography series The Old and New Neighbours juxtaposes residential districts in Tallinn and Riga – districts that have symbolized new ideals when these were built. However, these are not commercial representative portraits of architectural photography. The artist has searched for characteristic details in everyday living environments that are away from the historical buildings; thus, these are usually left unnoticed and considered not enough attractive for recording. Objective imagery has met subjective selection of frames. Kiiler’s photography series guides the viewer through the details that reflect the changing of neighbourhoods during habitation, resulting in forming the appearance of public urban space. Next to the seemingly tranquil state we can notice layers of different eras, creating more or less intense surrealistic contrasts.

Exhibition will be open until April 29, 2019.

Thanks to: Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School of Tallinn University; Margot Kask.

Supported by: the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA).

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Mihkel MAripuu will open his personal exhibition Ex Nihilo in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Friday, May 3rd 2019.

With the current exhibition Ex Nihilo, the artist observes how technology adapts to everyday consciousness (or vice versa) while influencing the development of contemporary visual language. The exhibition challenges the principles that are expected and valid on today’s society and emphasizes important issues about the interrelations between technology and man, the developmental potentials, originality, anonymity and related existential essence. Maripuu brings attention to digitally generated images while decelerating their usual chaotic flow in the field of perception and analyzes their meaning and influence in the field of contemporary art. Present exhibition serves as a continuation to Maripuu’s earlier projects where the artist has studied the essence of post-internet in contemporary art, neo-materialism, various subcultural phenomena and manifestations of digital era that all have had impact on the development of visual language.

Ex nihilo (Latin phrase meaning „out of nothing”) manifests a creative act where „something” is born „out of nothing”. Frames have been caught from the chaotic, endless flood of information at high speed and chained into a static form. This presents a magic act about the abstract, unexpectedly glimmering information, about its registration, crystallization and materialization in a physical environment. The artist is hindering the modern way of processing information that is mediated to us at the speed of the fraction of a second – he is creating the buffer between the virtual and the material. The digitally generated virtual image meets the organic manual one, analyzing the forms and possibilities of manifestation of contemporary visual aesthetics.

Exhibition will be open until May 20, 2019.

Artist’s website: www.mihkelmaripuu.com

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Lipuvabrik LLC and Pühaste Brewery.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Anna Kaarma will open her personal exhibition On the Threshold in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Thursday, May 23rd, 2019.

With the current exhibition, the artist is observing the borders of the personal and the public, dreams and waking, the permanent and the changing. Anna Kaarma focuses on the living environment of the district of Lasnamäe in Tallinn – the architectural and social superstructure is being unravelled to fragments charged with personal meanings and experiences.

Lasnamäe has the characteristic features of a metropolis. It is easy to remain anonymous for individuals between and inside the housing blocks that have been mathematically positioned – the intimate views into the neighbours’ lives that one gets through the windows and walls has rather the effect of a background noise than a human contact. The exhibition emphasizes the microcosm of an individual resident belonging to the so-called anonymous crowd. Everyday objects are interwoven with a personal perception of space, playful childhood memories, stories and a dreamlike logic of space.

Anna Kaarma: „In the mid-1990s, a bullet was shot into the kitchen window of my 8th floor apartment in the Lasnamäe district. The bullet probably bounced off of the wall in ricochet, only penetrating the outer glass of the window. The pane was therefore left as it was for several years. In the context of the criminal events of the last decade of 20th century, the bullet hole has no special value; it is more meaningful for me as a strange image from the past. It is intriguing how an element from the outer environment had intruded into the personal space, got stuck between the two spaces while creating a new field – a certain wormhole that makes it possible to go back to the space in the past. The window as the connecting link between the private and public sphere became an entry point to the third sphere, the one of memories.”

Exhibition will be open until June 10th, 2019.

The artist would like to thank: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Marge Monko, Jan Kaus, Sebastian Saaremäe, Anu Vahtra, Angela Ramires, Lee Kelomees, department of installation and sculpture of Estonian Academy of Arts, Jaana Jüris, Neeme Külm, Ingvar Heamägi, department of glass art of Estonian Academy of Arts and Eve Koha, Virko Kuusk, Kaisa Maasik, Kulla Laas, Gregor Taul, Saara Bergström.
Installation of the panel block: Valge Kuup LLC.
Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the Department of Photography of the Estonian Academy of Arts.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Current exhibition belongs to the programme of TASE – the annual spring graduation show of Estonian Academy of Arts. The main TASE exhibition includes all MA graduation projects and selected BA projects in the new academy building on Põhja pst. 7 from May 31st to June 16th, 2019. The Young Artist Award and the Young Applied Artist Award will be announced at the opening of TASE’19 in collaboration with the Estonian Artists’ Association. The extensive satellite programme of the festival presents students films in TASE FILM, offers presentations of selected graduation works in TASE Elevator Talks, provides feedback to your artwork from international experts in Portfolio Cafe and opens several diverse personal and group exhibitions by students. Additional info: artun.ee/tase

Jaan Elken‘s personal exhibition Heaven and Earth will be opened in Hobusepea gallery at 5pm on Tuesday, June 11, 2019. Current exposition is exhibited in Hobusepea gallery in June 11-July 8, 2019 and in Draakon gallery in June 10-July 6, 2019.
During the exhibition, both galleries will be open Mon-Fri 11am-6pm, Sat 11am-5pm, Sun closed.

According to the artist, current exhibition forms a vigorous sketch about the entire universe while shifting the viewpoint back in time, to the beginning of times.

Jaan Elken: „Using such meaningful, Biblical words in a title is risky yet safe – I believe in the advantages of meditative solutions instead of aggressive activism.
As for painting, I have divided the artwork into three conceptual themes. In the light of our prior knowledge, water is the most important element – it reaches both the sky and the earth, not to mention that it also gives the fluidity to acryclic paint. The artwork exhibited in Draakon gallery expresses atmospherical qualities; and yet, I try to avoid photorealism characteristic to new age phenomena and monotonous minimalism. It is rather about searching for visual equivalents to the inner states of mind – the search being based on the knowledge about consciousness as the so-called inner space acquired throughout the years. During the trips to Iceland and Norway I have experienced the feeling of déjà vu, found similarities with melting glaciers or steep cliffs that have been represented as archetypes in my subconsciousness since the beginning of the times. Some artworks might be as well as inspired by the yellowish-gray heaps of dirty, polluted snow and ice piled up by roads in winter. I see values and meanings in everything that is surrounding us.
The series exhibited in Hobusepea gallery, reminding of sediments of water and mud, could tune the viewer to the wavelength of finiteness and infinity. At the current exhibition, I have tried to avoid the signs of urbanism and have rather seeked for answers that are often kept from people. The keywords to characterize my work would be: forces of nature, peace of the kingdom of heaven, eternal silence, existence / non-existence, beginning and end.“

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Kristina Paabus will open her personal exhibition Meanwhile in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, July 10th, 2019.

In her solo exhibition Kristina Paabus uses drawing, printmaking, and installation to create speculative and spatial renderings that explore personal and cultural narratives. As a first-generation Estonian-American, Paabus has been influenced by growing up in between these two cultures, histories, and locations. Her artwork examines the systems that we use to control our surroundings – or in turn the strategies and structures that try to control us. She observes, interprets, and responds to experiences of attempted containment such as architecture, religion, language, and government. Meanwhile translates visual remnants that describe the lasting impact of occupation on both tangible and invisible spaces. Through abstraction and metaphor, Paabus investigates the operations, failures, fractures, superstitions, and perceptions of these systems to uncover underlying common codes within our shared experiences.

Artist’s website: http://kristinapaabus.com/

Exhibition will be open until August 5th, 2019.

Supported by: Oberlin College and Ohio Arts Council.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Co-exhibition Idiots by Madlen Hirtentreu, Jenny Grönholm and Eva Mustonen will be opened in Hobusepea gallery on Wednesday at 6pm on August 7, 2019. Exhibition opening will be accompanied by performance The Joys of Fermentation: Guests from South-Korea.

I understood completely what these women were talking about around the table. They didn´t have to complete each other´s sentences to reach an agreement. They were fucked up, a lifelong achievement, as somehow they had become artists and now, it seemed, there was no relief to their situation. By themselves, with their own hands, they had separated the world from their creations, and without noticing what such a theoretical turn might bring, they found themselves, quite suddenly, in a bitter-tasting and a very personal hell.

The exhibits on the show pose creativity as learned helplessness. Attempts to combine personal life with creative process take tragicomical turns. All three artists seem to lack common sense to tackle normal situations. Job hunting becomes a detailed roleplay, fermenting cabbages – an oral history, and an everyday attempt of being productive ends up, more often than not, scrolling through adverts about chihuahua puppies. Something is always amiss, either the numbers on the bank account or the worldview. The prestigious, but underwhelming position of an artist in nowadays society makes one feel useless. How to tell nothingness to fuck off? How to put apple back into one´s eye?

Three friends and colleagues, Jenny, Madlen and Eva, have thrown themselves into Don Quixotesque fight against invisible enemies, and though idiots can get their ass kicked even in church, it might just be that the next day their pounding heads are woken by the bright sun. Let’s dream together.

Exhibition will be open until September 2, 2019.

Artists would like to thank the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Alissa Šnaider, the team of Hobusepea gallery and Jenny’s brother, „tosi kiva” Emili.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Co-exhibition Burrows. Flights by Laura Põld and Katrin Väli in Hobusepea gallery will be open from September 5, 2019. Exhibition will be open until September 22nd. Finissage of the exhibition will take place at 3pm on September 22nd.

Laura Põld and Katrin Väli’s artworks – sculptures, objects and texts – express the attitude that the world full of diverse life is valuable and important; and it is not us, the people, who provide value to life but the value lies already within itself. Having been involved in birdwatching for many years, Katrin Väli and Laura Põld were observing the nest making craft of the local swallows in Kunda last summer while learning the various techniques of plastering with the clay originating from the clay pit of Kunda cement factory and using similar blends of clay as the birds.

According to the cognitive assumption of an artist, the forms considered to be natural for human hand have been widely spread among other species long before any human being or hand. This very pragmatical recognition introduced the authors to a new field. Being known for her sensitivity towards materials and her work being influenced by the history and techniques of applied art, then this time Laura Põld has shifted her focus on even more timeless formal orientations – the construction acitivities in the living nature, including birds, animals and plants. Both authors consider the topics of preserving biodiversity in today’s Estonia extremely important since the natural habitats are being destroyed under the so-called production of biological or alternative fuel.

Within this project, Katrin Väli has written poetry, characterized by the restless style typical of the author, that expresses the intriguing and mystical essence of living organisms. Väli’s effort lies in an emphatic approach towards the living (birds, trees, animals). Not that much to look for the moments when the living acquire a human face, but instead to try to look like them in order to understand something that would be difficult to understand in some other way; yet, such understanding is necessary.

The first part of Laura Põld’s and Katrin Väli’s collaboration was completed for the exhibition „Beings With“ at the Fiskars Art & Design Biennale (curated by Jenni Nurmenniemi). Whereas in Fiskars their installation was located in two dimly lit grain bins of a historical granary and the artwork took advantage of the mysterious atmosphere of the space, then current exposition is made of completely new pieces and abundant choice of texts by Väli – all of these exhibited accordingly to the characteristics of Hobusepea gallery.

whichever path I choose
as a way to get in this burrow
it’s always empty
I have chosen the wrong path

for I always carry a mirror with me

to choose a path to the burrow
I begin to move from afar
begin to get ready
begin to deny all the things that the mirror doesn’t show
I start to pick words and sacrify

the hungry mirror bites my finger

on the way to the burrow I take a detour to my childhood

I put the pencil next to the bed

I crawl through the stone through the blood vessels
but as I get to the burrow
the burrow is empty every time
there is no one left there

Exhibition production: Tehniline Direktor
Graphic design: Aadam Kaarma and Sandra Kosorotova
Photos: Sten Saarits

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the department of sculptural conceptions and ceramics at the University of Art and Design Linz.

We would like to thank: Jaakko-Priidik Hallas, Lukas Eggerth, April Fowlow, Kelli-Carolin Parkja, Kaisa Sööt.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Maarja Nurk will open her personal exhibition Death by Structure in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, September 25, 2019. The exhibition will be accompanied by the evening of performances and talks held by Katrin Essenson, Jaanus Sooväli, Hannah Harkes, Roomet Jakapi, Kaspar Aus and Tanel Rander starting at 5pm on Thursday, October 10th. Exhibition will be open until October 14, 2019.

According to the artist, her current exhibition presents artwork completed during the past few years, referring to the recurrent themes of talking, various modes of talking, positioning power through talking and perceiving language as an abstract stucture. These images tie language and death together and place the active side of talking into some kind of passive state. In a way, it is searching for alternatives to self-canceling instead of continuous self-validation.

The lectern for the exhibition was constructed by Valge Kuup LLC.

Thanks to: Pille Lumiste, Kristjan Raidna, Tuuliki Avango, Paul Vahtra, Villu Villmann.
Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Kulturkontakt Austria and Federal Chancellery Republic of Austria.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Whether, how and why to do things with our bodies? As the philosopher Pierre Bourdieu has said, there are many things that we understand only through our bodies without fully acknowledging them and unable to put their experience into words. More often than not, we can only say: Look, do as I do!

From October 17 the gallery environment will offer workouts inspired by gym circuit training (Silvia) and kick-boxing (Hanno) every evening (except Tuesdays) at 5.30pm–6.30pm. A games hour with elastics and a climbing frame (Silvia) on Sundays 12.30–1.30pm. Let’s overcome our embarrassment together! See you at the Academy Sport Club, where everyone will become a living sculpture! The workouts are free! Bring a change of suitable shoes.

Pre-conditioning: The disciplined body plays the game, the mechanical body in rhythmic movement plays the game. Stretch-strain, push-pull. And the circle is complete. Again. And repeat. We are moving, but only on the spot. Quickened breathing seeks its rhythm. When that’s set, the contractions have no end. Training music? Yes! But internally, the only soundtrack is the rush of blood in the head and the sound of breathing, which marks the reality, which is experienced as unique in the moment. The sound which is neither a sign, which leans towards the signifier, nor a mask, which obscures it. Breathing is not a question of decision – it is an obligatory level of one’s earthly self. One must keep an eye on exhaling, we breath in ourselves. When our lungs speak, it is pure presence! The repetitions that free us of meanings dictate the serotonin levels in the brain and the lactic acid levels in the muscles, cognition tends to slide on the plane of reality and searches for a substitute for the pain and monotony. This is a way to be here, to exist, to be included. It is a way to lose one’s self: into the aerobic process of the running machine, the cycles of intensity in the circuit training, the body discipline that mimics kick-boxing.

Consulting trainer Kadi Hunt, musical designer Kiwa, graphic designer Martin Rästa.
In collaboration with G-floors, Omatsirkus, Valge Kuup, KRK Jõusaalid.
Thanks to Andre Joosep Arming, Pierre Bourdieu, Dmitri Gerasimov, Aksel Haagensen, Tõnu Narro, Kati Ots, Olesja Semenkova, Mauno Saari, Jaak Soans, Silva and Aare Sosaar, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo.

Academy Sport Club will be open until November 4, 2019. During the exhibition gallery will be open Wed-Mon 12pm–7pm.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Angela Maasalu will open her personal exhibition Cave for Forgotten Dreams in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesay, November 6, 2019. Exhibition will be open until November 25, 2019.

Things are
 changing; things are starting to
  spin, snap, fly off into
   the blue sleeve of the long
    afternoon. Oh and ooh
come whistling out of the perished mouth
   of the grass, as things
  turns soft, boil back
   into substance and hue. As everything,
    forgetting its own enchantment, whispers:
     I too love oblivion why not it is full
      of second chances. Now,
hiss the bright curls of the leaves. Now!
 booms the muscle of the wind.

Mary Oliver „Twelve Monos”, 1979

The exhibition lends its title from Werner Herzog’s film Cave of forgotten dreams (2010). While the film tells a story about the Chauvet Cave in southern France, which contains the oldest human-painted images yet discovered, this show aims to form a narrative around something like a personal cave – somewhere deep down where we leave our memories and dreams – both filled and unfulfilled, true and also vain and unworthy, bitter, beautiful – from adulthood back to childhood. Angela Maasalu’s artwork can be characterized by rich narratives, elaborate metaphors and fabulousness. The artist’s bold imagination enables the simultaneous use of horror and beauty in her work. Titles of her paintings such as Memory palace, You must want to live! and I am sorry we never made it fishing express Maasalu’s interest and ability to use both visual and textual language.

She grew up in a very small town. All she ever wanted was to be loved by everyone. Later she just wanted to be famous and have a lot of money and a very nice big house she could fit a swing in, and have a dog of course. Money is more certain and concrete than people and love she forgot all in all.
Her house where she used to live was surrounded by so many trees, that once her classmate said “ I thought no one has lived in this house for a long time – or if they have, it must be a witch.’’ But for her the garden was a secret – a magical and dark kingdom – as well as a prison – she wanted no one else to see.
All throughout her life she has felt she can remember absolutely everything that has ever happened to her. Every memory – sweet or sad. The burden of memories – unbearable nostalgia. She inherited such a wistful state of mind from her father perhaps. He was thinking about the past a lot and was so scared of death he never really dared to live.

Angela Maasalu

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Johannes Luik and LAURi will open their co-exhibition Twilight Zone in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, November 27th, 2019.

The title of the exhibition refers to a state existing between two values, without being neither of these. The way the status physically manifests itself in space is something that is being endlessly created and re-created through daily activities that relate to the space. Both artists are exhibiting one artwork through which they study the story of a personal space and related associations.

The Fly by LAURi:
/—/ Anyway, it was terribly cold in there that morning. When I had climbed up the stairs the floor boards were blackened. My half-ready room had become a graveyard of flies. Drowsy buzz could be still heard on the windows; the floor was filled with black, shitty, dead flies. I was surprised since I had never seen so many flies before. It was actually quite nasty. Think of it, I have to start living in that room while these annoying things will shit into my mouth. After some time, the sun began to shine in and the room temperature rose considerably. I had an idea that if I cleaned the mess then the temperature should be just right for working. I started to vacuum the dead motherfuckers when suddenly discovering that these were moving. When raising my head I realized that also the buzz had become louder in the room. A race against time began. I desperately sucked the flies into the vacuum cleaner since it was quite complicated to catch those flying around in the room /—/

The House by Johannes Luik:
1926 Johannes Luik was born
1988 grandson named Johannes Luik was born
In 1988–1993 Johannes Luik built a playhouse for his grandchildren
1993 Johannes Luik senior died
2019 Johannes Luik built the copy of his childhood playhouse

Thanks to: Liina Siib, Jaan Luik, Jaan-Joosep Luik, Enno-Mihkel Jürima, Cloe Jancis, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo, Kristi Kongi, Riin Maide, Nele-Marie Tiidelepp, Taavi Piibemann, Taavi Talve.

Exhibition will be open until December 16, 2019.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.

Kadri Toom (1984) will open her personal exhibition screen dream in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, December 20, 2017.

Kadri Toom: „Presence in screen reality is becoming more important and believable compared to the presence in a physically existing space. Ostensibility surrounds reality in the form of various fragments of ever-changing and abundant information. Transmissiveness, filtratedness and fragmentedness of images allow the rhizomic divergence of the stories. The dimension of presence flashes past with the high speed of pixels. Surface structures have been suspended; what will be left is fascination and absence. Floating along such asymmetric pattern reminds of a dream where images randomly alternate and where everything is possible.
The works at the current exhibition have been inspired by the intense colours, high-resolution images resembling landscapes, reflections, undulating lights, structures underneath and above the surfaces appearing on the screens.“

Exhibition will be open until January 20, 2018.

Thanks to: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Artists’ Association, Altia Eesti Ltd., Taavi Suisalu, Anne Toom, Lilli-Krõõt Repnau, Silver Soorsk.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Ede Raadik‘s (1989) personal exhibition Ede-dear don’t you know we don’t talk about these things will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Wednesday, January 24th, 2018.

In her previous exhibition Raadik focused on her working experience as a merchandiser as she analyzed the principles and ethics of a work space with the help of her dry humour and scarce visual language. This time, Raadik has concentrated on the relations in a working environment; either a fictional event or a real situation that has occurred between an employer and an employee. Johannes Saar writes in his article „The rise of slavery in Estonia. The case of Ede Raadik“ (published in magazine „Vikerkaar“, December 2017) as follows: „One of the protagonists of Ede’s work is the employee No. RP3458 who is hopelessly in love with his boss and she has made up her mind to work herself to death in order to catch his attention. She is extraordinarily inventive and creative while doing it – she will even reach the board of the Employee of the Month, she is ready to struggle to the bitter end, even thinking of quitting the job. That, of course, is a total suicide. Because the unlimited utopia of exploitation where Ede Raadik has been born into equalises unemployment with the status of total deprivation, missing out on something. Walking away from paid employment in this utopia won’t leave one bright-eyed. Leaving the stage is the same than failure in love, the end of affect, emptiness, destruction.“

Ede Raadik’s work can be characterized by intellectual, emphatically dry yet poetic approach to the selected subjects. The artist works with series and her work often depicts schemes and charts presenting statistics about various systems. These, in turn, always include the unknown, referring both to absurdity and the possibility to distrust the presented material. Ede Raadik is able to embody either a calculating statistician or a subjective beholder.

Exhibition will be open until February 5th, 2018.

The artist’s gratitude to: Johannes Saar, Karoliina Kagovere, department of printmaking at the Estonian Academy of Arts, and everyone who has been supporting the artist.

Exhibition supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Jan Lütjohann (1987) and Uku Sepsivart (1988) will open their co-exhibition a little bit, every day in Hobusepea gallery at 5.30pm on Wednesday, February 7, 2018.

A shared element in the exhibition is our affection towards working by hand. Together they are thinking about making as a process somewhere between wearing out a benchtop and spontaneous accumulation of material.

I
How rare it is to wake up in the morning and not know what to do.
Working and working are not the same.

II
Every time a tool is used it becomes immeasurably smaller.
Every time it rains the cracks in a mountain become immeasurably larger.

III
Craving for carving.
Is it some force that is similar to the one that slowly makes the mountains rise or gently lets the continents drift?

IV
Who is allowed to make noise or a mess in their apartment?
Without a garden, backyard, shed, garage or basement, the fingers grow restless.

Exhibition will be opened until February 26, 2018.

Thank you: Tours n Cars OÜ, Paulon Säätio, Liina Siib, Evelyn Müürsepp-Grzinich, John Grzinich, Nils-Naatan Kaivo, Henna Jula, Marko Sepsivart, Hanna Piksarv.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Ella Bertilsson (1982) and Ulla Juske (1986) will open their co-exhibition 11,9 km Northwest of the City Centre in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Thursday, March 1, 2018. Exhibition will be open until March 19, 2018.

There are palm trees everywhere in this country.

Ella Bertilsson and Ulla Juske will present a glimpse into Rainy Days in Blanch, a family sitcom recorded in the iconic Blanchardstown Centre (Dublin) in the weeks before its official opening in 1996. Original video recordings and a replica studio set will be showcased in Hobusepea Galerii Tallinn in an exhibition titled ‘11.9km Northwest of the City Centre’.

Starring an all-female cast, Rainy Days in Blanch portrays a multigenerational family and their family friend. Each character shares directly with the audience an account of a memory, dream or nightmare. These previously unaired stories speak about house, home, family, and migration, as well as fear, paranoia, displacement and territory.

The exhibition is the product of research and practice undertaken by the artist-duo (SWE/IRE & EST/IE) during their recent residencies in Draíocht Arts Centre (Ireland) and Nordic Artists’ Centre Dale (Norway) and has been kindly funded by Culture Ireland and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

The artist would like to thank: Draíocht Arts Centre, Nordic Artists’ Centre Dale (NKD), the Irish Embassy of Estonia, The Theatre Department of United World College Nordic Flekke, Hartstown Community School, Institution of Technology Blanchardstown, Draíocht Arts, Centre Youth Theatre Group, Corduff Community Centre, Phoenix FM’s podcast ‘Africans in Ireland’, Reet Varblane, Annelie Gardell, Sharon Murphy, Catherine O’Keeffe, George Brennan, Austin Hearne and Michelle Hall.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Kai Kaljo (1959) will open her personal exhibition Flowers in Hobusepea gallery at 5pm on Wednesday, March 21st, 2018.

Kai Kaljo is an internationally acknowledged artist whose video „Loser“ (1997) is one of the most distinguished artworks in 1990s Estonian art. Kai Kaljo is an artist with a sharp approach, her work has been considered emotional and poetical. Art critic Mari Laaniste has stated that Kai Kaljo has been nontraditionally social and socializing in art. Kaljo’s video works can be characterized by an expansive and human dimension that has been more recognized in the international art scene than in Kaljo’s homeland.

Kai Kaljo has graduated from the department of painting at the Estonian Academy of Arts; at her recent exhibitions the artist has shown paintings again, including her personal exhibitions „old age&freedom“ in Vabaduse gallery where a painting installation consisting of 56 clouds was exhibited. At her present exhibition the viewer can see Kaljo’s newest paintings and video work. The artist comments on her exposition as follows:

„I got a new studio a year ago. It felt so good to be there. It was as if the energy of all these talented artists who had worked there years before me was still there and I could take it in. Even the view from the window seemed somehow familiar. I let the studio influence me in order to remind myself why I ever wanted to become an artist.
I remembered when I was young and discussing with my mother in which department at the Estonian State Art Institute I should study. I was wondering whether I could also become as talented artist as Adamson-Eric. Back then, this was obviously an outrageous statement and my mother told me that I definitely was not Adamson-Eric.
To be completely honest here, I wanted to become an artist because I liked to draw. And for some reason I preferred drawing flowers, withered flowers. At first, the idea made me laugh, but nevertheless it never left me. This reminded me of what my father had told me about his mother, my grandmother whom I had never met – that she had also liked flowers and she also became an artist who worked as a wreath decorator in a wreath factory. When growing older I have began to understand the importance of growing older.“

Kai Kaljo

Exhibition will be open until April 9, 2018.

Supported by Priit Press & Lilled and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Ivar Veermäe and Xiaopeng Zhou will open their exhibition The Heat in Hobusepea gallery on Wednesday at 6pm on April 11, 2018. Exhibition will be open until April 30, 2018.

About 450 million years ago blue-green algae was massively growing in low waters. About 10 years ago Satochi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin white paper. For the moment, part of the algae has turned into oil shale consisting lots of carbon, locally found in Ida-Virumaa county, Estonia. The value of Bitcoin has increased 150 000 times and a bit later decreased again 2,5 times. Furthermore, it has laid the foundation for a great amount of other cryptocurrencies and the whole system is connected with an immense system of machinery called „mines“.

Present exhibition concentrates on oil shale – using this mineral resource enables both mining the cryptocurrency as well as producing this exhibition. The fragmentary collection originates from the territories of mining industry in Ida-Virumaa, the archives of the Museum of Oil Shale, Instagram posts, various cryptomines, internet forums, Jordan and numerous people related to the industry. The exhibition sums up an unique dead end – on the top of energy that is the basis for all systems all the following interdependent layers have been built. Processing oil shale is harmful for both the local and global environment, however the industry provides employment for numerous people in Ida-Virumaa county as well as enables Estonia to retain independence from energy production by other countries. At the same time, producing renewable energy is not only depending on the sun or the wind but also requires massive mining of rare earth metals.
One should not forget about the attempts to withdraw from earlier systems; for instance the Bitcoin’s idea about money as an agreement and the objective to release its production from the central bank’s control. Every attractive idea is inevitably accompanied by the risk that new centers or „bubbles“ will arise. Small mines are replaced by increasingly bigger ones. Some options of cost-effectiveness are still open and even in Estonia there are several different types of mines, some of which are located in the territories of power stations. There is also a vast demand of energy by the cryptocurrency mines, for instance the annual energy consumption can be compared with the one consumed by Ireland. And yet, the „right“ financial system is probably consuming even more resources.

The artists express their gratitude to: Laura Jamsa; Jelena Derbneva; Andre Lüüde; Viktor Mikhaylov; Sergei Jegorov; Vladimir Sergejenkov from Eesti Energia; Viru Chemistry Group; Kalle Pirk and Annely Oone from Oil Shale Competence Center; Tarmo Kiipli, Ursula Toom and Erik Väli from the Division of Mining at Tallinn University of Technology; Ainar Varinurm from the Museum of Oil Shale; Marko Kohv; Maido Mõttus; Keir Raag; Igor Podoljan from Dreamline; Kristjan Kalm; Priit Padar; Otto de Voogt; Nordcoin Mining; Äripäev; Kiviõli Chemistry Industry LLC; Peter Saraskin; Maris Toomel with Kiviõli folk dance group; Andry Sill; Anna-Liisa Šavrak; Eleri Murru; Evelyn Jäer; Geili Tulits; Kaie Koit; Kaili Djomina; Maryliis Moorbach; Mikk Paju; Nastja Fomina; Oksana Teider; Rauno Kangur; Sirle Seisonen; Susanna Linginen; Tauri Laur; Ville Martinson; Maria Uuetoa; Kalev-Kristjan Tamm; Toomas Täht, Anja Dreissig; Han Tang; Elle, Kadri and Tiit Veermäe.

Poster design: TIAN-DESIGN LAB (Tian Bo, Wang Man)

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Urmas Pedanik (1949) will open his personal exhibition Simulated Worlds in Draakon gallery at 5pm on Monday, April 30th, 2018. Exhibition will be open until May 19th, 2018.

Urmas Pedanik first emerged to the local art world during the second half of 1970s with his innovative hyperrealistic approach to painting. His electronics-related oil paintings, for instance „Printed Scheme I“ (1977) and „Light on a Electrical Cabinet“ (1978), belong to the hyperrealistic top of Estonian art history, today being a part of the permanent collections of Tallinn Art Hall and Tartu Art Museum.

Pedanik studied in the department of design in the former Estonian State Art Institute (currently the Estonian Academy of Arts) in 1974-1980. Similarly to other innovative painters of that era, Pedanik never graduated from the department of painting but emerged to the local painting scene from another field of art. His work experience in the department of exhibitions in the Art Fund of the Artists’ Association of Estonian SSR in early 1970s equipped him with valuable knowledge and skills.

The artist held his first personal exhibition in Tallinn Art Hall gallery in 1981. In 1984 Pedanik became a member of the Estonian Artists’ Association. Paradoxically there was almost a 25-year-long break in his artistic career, from 1986 to 2010. So the present exhibition in Draakon gallery is Pedanik’s fifth personal exhibition.

The phenomenon of the artist’s electronics-related paintings can be shortly explained by the paradox that Pedanik’s hyperrealistic way of depiction, his so-called aesthetic source code has basically not changed. What has significantly changed is the world itself. When his series „Printed Scheme I-II“ was completed in 1977, the artist focused on the segment of reality about the era of analogue electronics – i.e. the golden age of radio and television. However, the „Printed Scheme III“ that Pedanik completed in 2010 was dealing with today’s digital electronics era: analogue signals have been replaced by the digital ones, the sequences of discrete values.
In 2017-2018 Urmas Pedanik with his hyperrealistic still lifes has delved into the development of technology on a much broader historical scale. The artist has basically reduced the history of communication technology into three paradigmatic stages or visual metaphors: a vacuum tube, a transistor and a digital printing plate. In the beginning there was a vacuum tube radio. Then transistor radios and cathode ray tube television sets were invented. Now we have entered the digital era when programmes are being broadcasted yet they can be watched or listened later online. The development of information technology and telecommunication has been significantly rapid during the last century; it is even difficult to foresee where the current media industry will reach, where the conglomerates will intersect and how the signal networks will spread out in the future.
Exhibition will be accompanied by the artist’s catalogue.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Artists’ Association.
Exhibitions in Draakon gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Mari-Liis Rebane (1988) will open her personal exhibition Earwitness in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Friday, May 4th, 2018.

Earwitness is a project collecting and observing sound recordings while regarding environmental sound as a research material. Besides audio material the artist presents everyday objects and visual material as artefacts supporting her sound-based study. The word „earwitness“ refers to an event and its witness. Mari-Liis Rebane focuses on sound-related material as a possible source of narrative building where the sound itself becomes a subject of study and a piece of evidence.

The central work of the exhibition is the sound piece „Earstream“ that the gallery viewers can experience while identifying themselves with the artist or following her activities. The artist’s movements in a changing sound environment are live broadcasted to the gallery space. This piece is simulaneously documentary and accidental yet staged as the directions, places and spaces where to move around the outer environment are controlled by the artist herself. „Earstream“ that is using data transmission and field recording provides an opportunity to relate oneself to various sound environments, situations and timings while using the potential hidden in continuous transmission and movement. Thus, Mari-Liis rebane refers to the ephemeral and occurrent qualities of sound that is ever changing in space and time. She examines the ways how various evidence, hints and indexes influence formation of a narrative and how one can use these while manipulating our auditory attention.

Current exhibition as a whole won’t create a separate narrative – the artist is contemplating and studying the ways the construction of a narrative is being created with the help of information that is auditorily perceptable yet visually associative. The audience can episodically partake in the exhibition’s sound events, depending on the moment of their stepping into the gallery. The exhibition also includes textual and visual references.

Thanks to: Silver Liiberg, Raul Keller, Marek Jarkovoi, Aimi Etverk, Robin Pilk, Krõõt Mõttus, Maret Mara Aranovich, Märt-Matis Lill, Eerika Mark, Kärt Hammer, Henry Kasch, Rain Lõhmus the artist’s family.

Photos: Karel Koplimets

Exhibition will be open until May 21st, 2018.

Supported by the Estonian National Culture Foundation and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Matthias Sildnik (1987) will open his personal exhibition Midplane in Hobusepea gallery at 6.30pm on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2018.

At the current exhibition the artist continues working on the concept of Robert Oppenheimer Non-Profit Idea Bank that was also the basis for his personal exhibition Happy Space held in Draakon gallery in 2016.

Matthias Sildnik: „In 2015-2016, Robert Oppenheimer Non-Profit Idea Bank held a collective spatial design project with the aim of describing people’s idea of an ideal working environment in conditions of neoliberal economical system. Present exhibition Midplane is based on the results of the idea bank and studies the unforeseeable movement occuring in people’s choices.
Communities change during time and are always accompanied by their history. Past choices demand requirements for the situations to come. Decision-making takes place in a midplane where all experiences make a whole. In the collection of important and unimportant choices future is gradually developing. Is this the control society based on private equity of cryptoanarchism founded on human rights? In the near future our subjectivity may acquire the form of a discursive drone consciousness that adjusts itself to the citizen index; however, it may also be an unforeseeable consciousness that cannot be controlled by any discursive formation. Society is a product of collective creation and Robert Oppenheimer Non-Profit Idea Bank keeps finding new opportunities in order to enrich the process with new influences.“

Exhibition will be open until June 11, 2018.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Liisi Eelma (1982) will open her personal exhibition Gently in the Air in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, June 13th, 2018.

Gently in the Air continues the series Photo + Painting = Copy + Original that was exhibited at TASE’17, the graduation show of the Estonian Academy of Arts in Noblessner Shipyard. With both series the artists contemplates three phenomena through the abstract image: matter, form and imagination.

Liisi Eelmaa: “The paint on the desk is still a vague mass of colourant, pigment, binder and filler soon to be transformed into an image. I am intrigued by the moment the transformation is happening. Paint may still seem arbitrary without having the status of an image; however, what already exists is the decision and attempt to do something with it. The beginning of any painting is abstract if looking at the first patch of colour. My purpose is emphasizing the endeavour to make something out of a paint blotch that in itself is abstract – it can be viewed as abstract art. This, in turn, provides a chance to enter a free figural space where the viewer as an active receiver equalizes the artist as an image-maker – both of them thus contributing while using their imagination.

Since the times of cave paintings people have depicted better life – better than the one at hand. Creating an image was supposed to fulfill a wish. While observing the timeline between the cave era and today’s world, we can see imagination coming to life to the fullest. Everything that we have now has been gained thanks to the imagination of our ancestors. What will come in the future is created right now.”

Exhibition will be open until July 9, 2018.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Gudrun Koppel (1989) will open her personal exhibition Even though the stars’ motion is an illusion caused by our own motion, it looks perfectly real – Kummastused (Kummastus is a manner used in art through which the object is taken out of the perception routine. Things are disconnected from the habitual connections, resulting in a special perception of the object, not recognition) in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, July 11, 2018.

This series consist of lithographs from the compositions of objects that reflect the destruction of modern times. Time changes, displacements occur, arbitrary manipulations. My interpretations of time play archeology and geology. This exhibition continues on the previous theme “All that is now land was once the sky”. The old Soviet-era 3D postcards which I scanned in and did the color subtraction, did not work for from the outset–on every postcard the colors green and red are shifted at the wrong angle. These photographs have preserved only cognition of beautiful fountains. They live together with sculptures in the park. Some of the statues provide shelter for birds that dash into greenery. We can see that obscure abandoned Monolith in the park behind the bushes.

The compositions depict the arbitrary provision of some aspects that, when abandoning time, carry the atmosphere to which the content can be added. And everything can be given a meaning, because the background is meaningless and everything is arbitrary. The eternal subconscious narrative of something, has caused a strange obscure narrative. An approach that is ephemeral and fading, which is counterbalanced by rocks originating from the earth’s crust, because it seems that, if anything is real, it is the surface on which we walk. Everything else is invisible to the eye, but stored.

Exhibition will be open until August 6, 2018.

Artist thanks: Gennadi Baranov and Lauri Koppel.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Kristel Saan and Sten Saarits will open their co-exhibition Zero G Tonic in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, August 8th, 2018.

Present exhibition with a cryptic title began during the artists’ joint residence in Endla marsh. With the help of the video and sound materials that the artists filmed and recorded there, Saan and Saarits have created a spatial installation in the gallery – namely, an environment where the focus lies on the lack of gravitation. Current exhibition recreates and offers landscape experience through various senses. The artists are both inspired by their interest towards the interrelations between body and environment as well as the various possibilities related to material perception.

Kristel Saan and Sten Saarits: „Absorption of a cognitive environment is limited by information processing – the context exists, but the details are still rendering their fully-fledged three-dimensional presence. The intertwining of parallel environments and narratives is in process. In the background there are intersecting timelines that are still being analyzed.. The perceptible is the depletion and regeneration of details and the implications behind signifiers in a new language, where the experienced landscape and it’s semiotic interpretation have fused into one. Contrasts are emphasized and as a result the whole will eventually thin out itself to a shift in the previously known reality. The Internet has zero gravity.. Communication language consists of shapes and figurative models that are feasible to experience when dispersed successfully. Situational error analysis is an ongoing process. The more realistic the landscape around us will become the more successful becomes the depiction of it. We are almost there..”.

Exhibition in Hobusepea gallery will be open until September 2nd, 2018.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Espak Ltd.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Robin Ellis Meta (1989) will open personal exhibition U+1F6AE in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, August 5th, 2018. Exhibition will be open until September 24, 2018.

Robin Ellis Meta has obtained BA degree at the Royal Academy of Art The Hague in
2016. The artist has been in their homeland, Estonia, since the beginning of 2017. It is there, that Meta restarted their characteristically critical Instagram documentary photography and vlogging. “U+1F6AE” was born through the research of the exploratory archive materials and publications. The title refers to the “put litter in its place” symbol.
The exhibition’s format deals with topics like municipal waste, creation in the digitalized world and avatar based virtual identity. Meta expresses the last through finished and unfinished artworks, by creating a correlation that loses all need for a finished end product. Robin Ellis Meta is musing “Your trash is my art”.

Artist thanks the EAA Gallery.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and
Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Andres Tali (1956) will open his personal exhibition DELTITNu / uNTITLED in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, September 26th, 2018. Exhibition will be open until October 15, 2018.

Andres Tali took a piece of paper and wrote:

Letter of explanation.

The artworks of the present exhibition consist of a series of fragments from the artist’s mental world – the fragments that have proved to be important or intriguing for the artist for some reason during the past two years. Most of them have initally started as sketches, excerpts torn out from their context (that are floating in emptiness and expecting the audience to fill the space with new contexts), instantaneous visions, emotions etc. The works are incomplete – the viewers will complete them in their heads. The technical side of the works seems to be inadequate and effusive according to the artist’s ideas. And namely the very inadequacy and certain inappropriateness creates the actual value of the work (for the artist) – including important keywords such as error, glitch, reflection, decay, deconstruction, retrieval, symbolism … (and the list goes on…).

Andres Tali folded the sheet twice, put it in the envelope and sent it.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonian and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Eike Eplik‘s (1982) personal exhibition Natural will be open in Hobusepea gallery from Wednesday, October 17th, 2018. Exhibition will be open until November 5th, 2018.

The artist presents installative sculptures that follow organic and natural forms at different levels of abstraction.

Eike Eplik: „One day, I took a piece of clay and without knowing what to do I started to play with it. I pressed, squeezed, flattened it, formed random lumps out of the clay, then made a few more, and then even some more – somehow, this activity seemed so natural. I put the clay away and went home. The next day I felt the same way about the material – that I could go on making the lumps, just keep making them without thinking and perceive the material. So I made up my mind to continue doing it. For weeks I spent my time with making forms, natural and originating perhaps from my inner self, out of the round chunks of clay, just like some strange termite-eremite. I built my towers higher and higher. Soon I realized that if I kept on making the towers, it would lead me to want a change at one point and the forms would also transform. This is the way it happened. The brain took increasingly over and started to create variations. The towers became intact forms that related to other objects and forms.“

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Mart Vainre (1988) will open his personal exhibition Self-Contained Pictures in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, November 7th, 2018. Exhibition will be open until November 26th, 2018.

Mart Vainre’s work is mostly mediated by camera or image processing, even if the artist has almost always used painting techniques in order to materialize his pieces. While including other methods of picture making in his working process, Vainre aims at creating multilayered viewing experience where the picture would simultaneously have a subjective as well as objective effect. His works can be viewed as time-consuming rituals that illustrate the intersections between the personal and the universal.

According to the artist, the pieces completed for the present exhibition serve as „echo chambers“ that are quoting the primary sources hidden in themselves. Vainre reuses and magnifies arbitrary blotches of paint, primitive self-portrait and abundant brushstroke in order to study the contents and construction. It seems more important for him to ask „how?“ than „what?“.

Mart Vainre: „My working method is based on the wish to fire myself up with as little means as possible. Without relying upon the infinite external possibilities I aim at focusing on my personal weak and incomprehensible impulses that I keep intensifying through my painting method, recreating and repeating various motifs. Expressing myself through colour and afterwards contemplating the result has led me to the realization how the opposites may be closely intertwined: the individual and the public; the moment, the past and the future; disarrangement and order; anxiety and peace.“

The artist’s gratitude to: Carl-Robert Kagge, Holger Loodus, Martin Melioranski, Elis and Taaniel Mägi, Helena Rummo, Piret Tamm.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Tõnis Saadoja (1980) will open his personal exhibition Arrival in a Paper Town in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, November 28th, 2018.

According to the artist, Arrival in a Paper Town marks a port of call on an improvised journey in the territories between painting and photography. The motif based on a photographic image leads to painted fragments where space can be described as conditional rather than concrete. Paper town is a reserve for harmonies that are bound with recollections, architectural themes and pictorial attractions.

At the present exhibition Tõnis Saadoja proceeds studying the illusory pictorial space while moving between the painting and the photographic image. Current exposition can be viewed as a continuation to his previous personal exhibition Studio held in Tallinn Art Hall gallery in early 2018.

Exhibition will be open until December 17, 2018.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

BRITTA BENNO‘s (1984) personal exhibition Trapped will be opened in Draakon gallery at 5pm on January 9, 2017.

The artist describes her new work as follows: „The accords of the rhythms and sounds of the simultaneous presence in a physical body and in virtual space resonate at a dimly lit drawing exhibition. Next to the motionless charcoal drawings and intaglio prints there are animations, everything being accompanied by sound. The line exits the borders of drawings and extends to the wall and the exhibition space.
Breathing, mouse clicking, heartbeat, keyboard clicking. One rhythm, one pulse. I am a human being, therefore I breathe. I am a human being – always connected. Breath peacefully in. And out. Don’t hold your breath. Life is as light as a plastic bag.“

Exhibition will be open until January 28, 2017.

Thanks to: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Artists’ Association, Graafikakoda, Ragnar Neljandi, Heigo Eeriksoo, Mari Prekup, Berit Kaschan.

Exhibitions in Draakon gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

TAAVI SUISALU‘s (1982) personal exhibition Landscapes and portraits will be opened in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, January 11, 2017.

Taavi Suisalu: „While preparing for the current exhibition, I have navigated on the surface of technological sphere and practised cosmic field-recording and distant photography – for that purpose, I have used the top achievements of the engineering science of the Cold War era, the orbiting satellites accessible from electromagnetic landscapes. Their ability to communicate information between very far distances changed the ways we move in space and time as well as perceive the personal and the general in it. The equipment originally designed for military purposes is now widely used in science, communication and has become part and parcel of the global culture. The first ones have transformed into inadequate technological waste. However, there are cases where, as a result of favourable system errors, satellites have reset their working regime after they have been switched off. This, in turn, results in transmission of dented, disrupted and noisy signals with the potential of an aesthetic error.
At the present exhibition, landscape and portraits have interwoven. Landscape is presented as a distant self-portrait – a somewhat cosmic reflection where the one taking his portrait and the one whose portrait is being taken have been recorded as a pixel, the smallest addressable element, in the middle of the picture. The exhibition tells about the unaddressed signals; suspense between the personal and the general; love towards antennas; technological metaphysics and technological utopia to defy gravitation while free-falling for several decades.“

Exhibition will be open until January 30, 2017.

Thanks to: Kaspars Lielgalvis, MoKS, Evelyn Raudsepp, Heiki Zvorovski, Ivar Suisalu, Kadri Toom.

Exhibition will be supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Group exhibition A Space Above the Line will be open in Hobusepea gallery at 6 pm on February 2nd, 2017. The participating artists are Giulia Landonio, Johanna Greta Mölder, Ann Pajuväli and Irma Isabella Raabe tutored by Margit Säde and Liina Siib.

The group of MA students of the Estonian Academy of Arts has turned the gallery into a seemingly habitable apartment consisting of all the usual things that belong to a home. Yet, it is unclear whether it is an air.bnb.com apartment, a recently renovated office space, or a conceptual furniture shop. The artists have created a space that aims at being a space in progress, a space on tour while never really finally arriving any destination. Current exhibition simulates the dystopian post-truth space – a place that is simultaneously public and private, virtual and physical, where sounds and echoes can be heard but where the human being is absent.

What should one do with the things that don’t follow the line or cannot be placed on the indicated shelf? Where should one locate his or her human obsessions, fears, anxieties, wishes – the inner speech filling one’s senses? Occupying a space in such a way creates unpredictable shifts where things stop functioning the way one could assume – free associations become true, embarrassing confessions and deviations are allowed and irrationality becomes the only reality.

On every Sunday during the exhibition there will be a special programme – a counterbalance for the „post-truth“ situation – that offers a meeting place for various activities related to voice, word and listening.

Programme:
2 pm on February 5: authors of Värske Rõhk – Margit Lõhmus, Kristjan Haljak, Eileen Änilane, Anne Kaare and Kristel Birgit Potsepp – present their work.
2 pm on February 12: Riina Maidre voice workshop.
2 pm on February 19: Piret Karro reads her poetry, Kadi Estland talks about her web book Curriculum Vitt (www.curriculumvitt.ee), listening session by Margit de Säd.

Thanks to: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, department of graphic art at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Jan Lütjohann, Kirill Tulin, Heldur Lassi, Marko Nautras, authors of Värske Rõhk, Riina Maidre, Kadi Estland, Jaak Arula, Audioguide Ltd, Hans-Gunter Lock, Alar and Marju Raabe.

Exhibition will be open until February 20, 2017.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

ALISSA NIRGI (1993) will open her personal exhibition Two by two in Hobusepea gallery on Wednesday at 6pm on February 22nd, 2017.

Alissa Nirgi is a photography artist who lives and work in Tallinn. She has obtained BA degree from the department of photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts in 2016. Nirgi is currently studying at the refreshment training course on visual art therapy at Tallinn University. In 2015, Alissa Nirgi was awarded the Eduard Wiiralt Grant. Among her works of wider recognition there are photography project „A new land outside my window“ (exhibited in 2015-2016 in several exhibitions, including EKA Gallery during Tallinn Photo Month; Dymchuk gallery in Kiev, Ukraine; and Riga Photography Biennale) and public space photo installation „Kaspar is sitting“ (2015, exhibited in public space of Tallinn, Estonia).

In her work, Nirgi uses documentary approach and is mostly inspired by alienation from one’s environment, accommodation and the sense of belonging. While being intrigued by the subjects such as migration and language barrier, the artist focuses on human beings or human groups who are in a way between two environments – they have either been separated from or forced to leave their habitual enviroment and they are strangers in their new surroundings.

At her current exhibition in Hobusepea gallery, Alissa Nirgi presents a photo series that has been completed in collaboration with eight Mormon missionaries serving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Tallinn, Pärnu and Tartu. Nirgi asked the missionaries to take photos with disposable cameras about their favourite places, people, objects and situations in order to find out about their personal preferences.

Exhibition will be open until March 13, 2017.

Thanks to: Terje Nirgi, Kaspar Kiinvald, Mari Armei

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Group exhibition Perro / Koer / Dog will be opened in Hobusepea gallery on Friday at 6pm on March 17, 2017. Participating artists: Varvara & Mar, OPN Studio, Vicente Vázquez / Usue Arrieta, Javier Álvarez and Jaime de los Ríos. Curator Javier Galán.

The curator and the artists will give a guided tour of the exhibition on Sunday at 4pm on March 19, 2017. Current exhibition is organized by artists’ duo Varvara & Mar (Varvara Guljajeva and Mar Canet) who for the second time bring Spanish contemporary art to Tallinn under the aegis of Iberofest organized by the Spanish Embassy. As a tradition, Iberofest takes place in March with the aim to introduce Ibero-American culture to Estonian audience. Exhibition will be open until April 3, 2017.

On 5th July, 1993, the cartoonist Peter Steiner published a cartoon in the New York Times where two dogs appeared in front of a computer. One said to the other: “On the Internet, nobody knows you´re a dog”. That way he formally portrayed the internet identity, which is the projection of what I show so that others form the image I want of me. Myself in a third state, that is to say: Me, the first, what others see in me, the second, what I let them see in internet, the third. “Perro” the word in Spanish for “Dog”, is an exhibition of artists that qualify and reflect the identity in internet.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Spanish Embassy in Estonia.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

KEIU MAASIK (1992) will open her personal exhibition In Memory’s House of Cards in Hobusepea gallery on Thursday at 6pm on April 6, 2017.

The artist comments on her work In Memory’s House of Cards as follows: „Imagine a house of cards. Imagine there are photographs instead of cards. Photographs made by me. Imagine the house is a small world that I have created and where I live alone. In this world, the real is only what is present on the photograph. All that has been documented, has existed and will continue existing. What is not on the photo, has probably not existed.

The foundation of my house of cards was built by my parents. My mother took photos and father kept filming our daily life with his video camera in 1998-2003. We got our first digital camera in 2003. Thanks to that, building of the house of cards became my task. Gradually, I learned to document my life and my family’s life myself.“

Exhibition will be open until April 24, 2017.

Thanks to: Kreete Alasoo, department of photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Kristiina Kams, Madis Kurss, the Maasik family, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo, Terttu Uibopuu.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

LAIVI & MIHKEL MARIPUU will open their first co-exhibition Killer Image: Shifting Modes of Desire in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Thursday on April 27, 2017.

The artists comment on their exhibition as follows: „There are two instruments for purposeful manipulating: material and idea. The sum of all possibilities is an imperceptible chaos where order should be created while ignoring disorder. We are interpreting mental ideas into physical matter while searching, defining and understanding for a moment. The essence of art is an assiduous act of an unattainable truth, realizing ideas in physical matter: creating identifiable associations between the perceived idea and the conquered matter. Qualitative analysis. Perfection is unattainable as it is inevitable that the result of a concept becoming matter will be equivocal, general or ambiguous. Visual outcome depends on the way abstraction works. Choices are stylistical. Connection between material and the created product is both psyhical and immaterial. While sensing the intrinsic characteristics, meanings and restrictions of chosen materials, we adjust and apply the concept accordingly.
Mundane realization tests the aptitude of a human-size object. What can we depict as an image and a word after all? To express the essence of existence? Is it only the aptitude of translating the complex idea that we really value? According to the first impression and appearance? Does an image talk? Is language, being more explicit, more efficient than matter? The same words won’t guarantee understanding, however, these help to express viewpoints, offer support and protection. Trying to understand is human; yet, every interpretation is definitely personal, with the mixed layers of consciousness and subconsciousness. An artwork is a border between the inner and outer world of an artist. The starting point and choices change together with one’s identity: personal convictions and social belonging. Present moment of time is connected to the choices of both the past and the future.“

Exhibition will be open until May 15, 2017.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Teisipäeval, 16.05.2017 kell 17.00 avatakse Draakoni galeriis ELERIIN ELLO (1984) isiknäitus „Ilming“.

Miski, mis kerkib esile eimiskist, tuleb nähtavale olemise sügavusest.

– Eleriin Ello

Näitusel saab näha kunstniku värsket maaliseeriat, mille loomise ajendeist räägib kunstnik: „Maalisin hetki, kus valgus mängib varjuga, kerkides esile hämarusest. Keskendusin kahekõnele. Ühte pole teiseta. Alati koos ja käsikäes, luues end läbi teineteise moodustavad nad terviku.
Olen kujutanud hetki, mis on mind lummanud ja endasse haaranud. Harmoonia ja ilu tajumine neis toob hetkega kohale nagu sõrmenips. Justkui väravad või uksed viivad need hetked teise tunnetusse. Raputavad lahti sissetallatud radadelt. Kogen avardumist, ühendust ümbritsevaga, koosolemist. Selles on kergendus ja rahu. Mul on soov jagada, mida näen ja kogen. Soovin, et see looks rahu ka teis. Ja rohkem mul ei olegi midagi öelda.”

Näitus jääb avatuks 3. juunini 2017.

Näitust toetab Eesti Kultuurkapital.

Näituseid Draakoni galeriis toetavad Eesti Kultuurkapital ja Eesti Kultuuriministeerium.

ANNA MARI LIIVRAND (1983) will open her personal exhibition Unshatterable in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, May 17, 2017.

The title of the exhibition refers to the shatterproof quality of laminated glass when it is broken. In the event of breaking it is held in place by a plastic interlayer that keeps the layers of glass bonded. Anna Mari Liivrand observes our own attempts to hold something together. She uses everyday practices and images out of the necessity to preserve objects, thoughts and conditions that would be as close to the original state as possible.

Thanks to: Helena Keskküla, Valev Sein, Villem Tomiste.

Exhibition will be open until June 5, 2017.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Artist duo SÖÖT/ZEYRINGER will open their exhibition On time in Hobusepea gallery at 7pm on June 7th, 2017.

Sööt/Zeyringer’s live performances and video works are based on movement and text which are combined in rhythmical and poetic structures. In their work they try to find beauty, poetry, wit and absurdity in every-day acts, language and objects. Sööt/Zeyringer focuses on seemingly self-evident situations that are almost imperceptible, but most of us can identify with. In a poetic and humoristic way the works turn everyday procedures and acts upside down, revealing the performative potential of simple situations. By putting these insignificant moments into a new context, Sööt/Zeyringer‘s work speaks about larger matters.
The show On time combines 3 performative works by Sööt/Zeyringer. At the opening 2 of the pieces are shown as live performances.

sootzeyringer.wordpress.com

Exhibition will be open until July 3rd, 2017.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

The solo exhibition Stick It On Your Wall by Mihkel Ilus will open at Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, 5 July 2017.

At the hands of a new generation of painters, painting has found a new direction towards authenticity and the field of playfulness by breaking itself away from the canvas in spatial games, shamelessly asking questions about the existence of painting.
Undoubtedly, one of the most notable artists working with these ideas is Mihkel Ilus as has already been seen since his solo show Robusto four years ago. This exhibition forms both a conclusion to his experiments of the last four years and an interlude to a new chapter, painting that has almost completely liberated itself from the dictates of the brush, paint and canvas.
The exhibition is topographically divided between the conscious structural experiments on the ground floor and works that are still playing with the personal and intimate nature of easel painting, alluding to the subconscious, on the basement level. While the visible and meaningful part of traditional easel painting – the standard “oil on canvas” – has always been a flat, usually rectangular surface placed on the wall, and the invisible-meaningless structure that is mostly hidden is the stretcher frame, made not by painters but by woodwork technicians, in this exhibition the tradition has clearly been subverted, the wedge suddenly becomes more important than the canvas. As a commentary on all these liberal games, the artist plays in the exhibition by taking various derivatives of painting into the space – a text-based work in oils is stamped onto the wall ironically stating “Stick it onto your wall”. Nevertheless, it is not irony that dominates the show, but the drive for authenticity, resonating with the former ambition of abstract art, a playful attempt to prod the flesh and bones of painting. In any case, it is a way out of the zombie formalism haunting painting today.

Hanno Soans, art critic and curator

The exhibition is open until July 31, 2017.

Thanks: Estonian Artists’ Association, Kanuti Gildi SAAL, Meinar Mäesalu, Asso Riisalu, Sander Veermäe, Igor Hobotov, Allan Appelberg, Johannes Säre, Maija Rudovska, Hannes Aasamets, Hanno Soans, Henri Hütt, Karin Kahre, Elna Ilus, Maarja Tõnisson.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Jenny Grönholm (1988) will open her personal exhibition Wreck in Hobusepea gallery at 5pm on Wednesday, August 2nd, 2017.

Usually shipwrecks are caused by either a storm, running aground, colliding another ship or an iceberg, a fire, or military action. A ship is also considered a wreck when it is away at sea and no messages are being received from the vessel during a longer period of time. Current exhibition is not solely about a shipwreck but rather a story about situations that are impossible to describe with words. According to the artist she has depicted moments before the mystrious „something” – situations preceding the unknown.

Exhibition will be open until August 28, 2017.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Kristin Reiman (1992) will open her personal exhibition Wearing Out and Weathering in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, August 30, 2017. The exhibition is part of the gallery programme of Tallinn Photomonthꞌ17 contemporary art biennial.

Kristin Reiman:
“The perfect neutrals are
overcast sky
skin tone
lukewarm water
and maybes.

The neutral is the constant becoming of an in-between value. It is the
dry-on-damp
smooth-on-sharp
shiny-on-matte
the grey-on-grey as the overcast atmosphere becomes an unescapable projection from a bright-dull lightbox that hurts to look at;
the green-concealer-on-red-skin to smooth out the blushing imperfections on the facade of a face; and
the motion of sandpaper wearing out the characteristic peaks of a texture too rough for touch.

Neither bland nor savoury, neither tight nor diluted, the luminous grey is in limbo of indecisiveness becoming an intensity.”

Exhibition will be open until September 18, 2017.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Henri Hütt (1985) will open his personal exhibition Romantic Loneliness in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Wednesday, September 20, 2017. The exhibition is part of the gallery programme of Tallinn Photomonthꞌ17 contemporary art biennial.

Henri Hütt’s solo exhibition Romantic Loneliness continues his series of staged spaces. This time the focus centres around the border between the visible and the apparent.

“The city resonates around me. I am alone, accompanied by the familiar feeling of loneliness and that’s how it should stay forever. There is too little time, I have to experience everything, manage to accomplish double plans, arrange double meetings, in order to be alone. Unknown environments distort dimensions and I am moving step by step towards an unreachable horizon. Later on, before entering the reality zone, I am walking in the dawn along empty streets and I feel the irresistibly strong feeling that I would like to share it with others…”

Why, on the other hand, does it seem so wrong?
What happens when one shares something with others?
What do they get from sharing the experience?
What is worth sharing?
Am I then still alone?

Idea and execution: Henri Hütt
Technical support: Taavi Suisalu
Sound composition: Mihkel Tomberg

Exhibition will be open until October 10, 2017.

Thanks to: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Artists’ Association, MIMstuudio,
Kanuti Gildi SAAL, Emer Värk, Laivi Suurväli, Liisa Kivi, Rea Lillemets.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Kristina Õllek and Kert Viiart will open their joint exhibition “You Know You’ve Become Part of the View” at Hobusepea gallery on Thursday, 12th of October at 6pm. The exhibition is part of the Young Artist Prize, which was awarded to Kristina Õllek in 2016 for her MA graduation work, and it belongs to the Tallinn Photomonth’17 contemporary art biennial gallery programm.

The exhibition “You Know You’ve Become Part of the View ” is a continuation to Õllek’s previous exhibition project “When You Have the Object Itself in Front of Your Eyes” and their collaborative project “Exhibit_onscroll” on Instagram, which both engaged with the questions of image representation and dematerialisation within observing the format of an exhibition, and its influence on the viewer and contemporary art position in the digital age. The new exhibition at Hobusepea gallery will carry on with previous subjects and complement these through the contemporary context of archeology and museology by researching the relationship between the exhibited objects and their display elements as well the representative 3D virtual reality.

Kristina Õllek works in the field of photography, video and installation, and questions the
relations between space, object and image, considering the context of the original and the copy. Her work examines contemporary visual culture, how representation can be mediated and how it influences our perception. She is particularly interested in the format of exhibition making and in the phenomenon of art docu-mentation, regarding how its position has changed in the digital age.

The exhibition is open untill the 30th of October.

Photos: Kristina Õllek
Thanks to: Snehta residency, Aap Tepper, Rundum, Laura Toots, Kadri Laas, Tallinna Fotokuu’17, Liina Järvik, Laura Põld, Mathias Väärsi, Stacey Koosel.

The exhibition is supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Academy of Arts, Tehnikarent, Digiprint OÜ, Laserstuudio OÜ, Õllenaut OÜ.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Mari-Leen Kiipli will open her solo exhibition Passiflora in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Friday, November 3, 2017.

Mari-Leen Kiipli has studied photography in Tartu Art College and has MA degree from photography department in Estonian Academy of Arts. In addition she has studied in Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She has been participating in exhibitions since 2008. Mari-Leen is co-founder of Rundum artist-run space and is currently living and working in Tallinn.

In her works, she combines different mediums like video, photography and installation. The site-specific installations often draw attention to the viewers physical presence and sense of time. Video installation Passiflora encompasses the two floors of the Hobusepea gallery and creates an environment of transparences and reflections.

Exhibition will be open until November 20, 2017.

Photos: Mari-Leen Kiipli
Thanks: Artjom Jurov, Plekksepatöökoda, Salinas AS, Rundum

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Johannes Säre’s personal exhibition will be opened in Hobusepea gallery at 6pm on Friday, November 24, 2017. With the current exhibition the artist, who has also been called a trickster, wittily celebrates everyday moments that people have picked up but neglected right away.

The new video piece has been inspired by the famous “The Flight of the Valkyries” from the opera “Ring of the Nibelungs” by Richard Wagner. This musical piece has been used for dramatic illustration in hundreds of feature films and TV series. Säre’s video combines the recording of a performance of Wagner’s music by Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and the recordings of small everyday moments that seem to be the real life analogues of his earlier aesthetic machines.

The artist comments on his theme and inspiration as follows: “If I had to define my research subject then I would say it is the everyday world. Most of the ideas have born from minor observations, for instance when I see an icy puddle with the shape of a shadow of a car on a cold morning. I take notes of the things that from the rational point of view are completely unnecessary and generally won’t be memorized. Sometimes these ideas become artworks of some kind.”

According to Siim Preiman, the curator of the exhibition, the focus of Säre’s work is on the viewer – on attracting the viewer’s attention and creating an indelible memory. Preiman states that Johannes Säre is a good-hearted agent whose work mocks the positions of both serious art and the serious art afficionado. However, this time he won’t entrap anyone nor play practical jokes – instead, the artist presents a few situations the way they may seem at a right moment, in a right light, in all their grandeur and beauty.

Present exhibition was created in collaboration with the video production company Propaganda Productions and Estonian National Symphony Orchestra.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a specially published book (texts by Marika Agu, Janar Ala, Johannes Lõhmus and Siim Preiman; illustrations by Ann Paljuväli; design and layout by Studio Le60). The book presentation will take place at 6pm on Wednesday, December 13, 2017.

Johannes Säre (b. 1983) lives and works in Tallinn. He has graduated from the department of photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Interactive installations affecting the viewer, word plays and literalness are the central keywords to describe his artwork. Säre’s last personal exhibition “Super-intelligent shadow of the colour blue” was held in Draakon gallery in 2014. In the same year he was also given Köler Prize audience award for his work “Ascent to the Abyss of Lost Ideas”.

Siim Preiman (b. 1992) is an art agent located in Tallinn. He works as a curator at Tallinn Art Hall and runs a travelling gallery galerii. The last exhibition he curated was Art Nõukas’s “Lost and Found” in galerii in July 2017.

Exhibition will be open until December 18, 2017.

Thanks to: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture, Estonian Artists’ Association, Vannistuudio LLC, Dreamland Home LLC, Heidi Alba, Mihkel Alba, Kristiina Hansen, Tamara Luuk, Ulla Säre, Mihkel Säre, Villem Säre.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.