The slogan of the exhibition is metropolitan, rebellious beauty that saves the world. The art group, with its ever-changing membership, is represented on this occasion by the paintings of Andro Kööp, artist, interior architect and President of the group, and sculptures by Urmas Puhkan, artist and ceramist.
The curated exhibition project has flushed expected techniques and treatments of form down the drain, and created a new aesthetic out of the attitudes of punk and the means applied in street art, or, in fact, the lack thereof. This time, the works of art have been “ruined” to be refined. Canvases and beautiful forms have been trashed with pleasure, at random, just like life sometimes does to us; all this, however, with an abundance of baroque. The beauty of corruption or beautiful corruption, irresistible nonetheless!
Punk is like a rare, sensitive plant that only blooms when the values of society begin to rot at one end. There is a light stench of “the time for punk has arrived once more” in the air, and the reason it grows on is that it hates the flower the most.
PUNK-BAROQUE glorifies freedom and it is clear that the creators have enjoyed floating in this kind of freedom. One can only agree that “punk is cool”, that baroque is also somewhat punk, and that nothing is merely what it seems. The exhibition may also be treated as an analysis of the personal and universal backgrounds of visual self-expression happening in the urban space: what are the options of self-fulfilment for a young, eager person in a socially stratified society – a crime in the making. And yet, once again, beauty can save the world.
This is not the first presentation of its kind by NEO*EKS*PRE*POST – previously, in 1994, the art group blew up with Peeter Must at Vaal Gallery, where a joy of painting swept through the gallery like a powerful blast (painting as such was almost considered pseudo-art in the curated art world of Estonia in the 1990s, which you can convince yourself of at the current KUMU exhibition covering that period. However, a new triumph of painting in the art arena of the world had already begun).
NB!
– The Creators participating in the project have not self-identified as punks!
– The introductory text is written in a humorous self-, text- and sociocritical tone!
– Neither the text nor the works of art pursue the anarchism that is attributed to punk; instead, they relate to the aesthetic views of the European cultural area and are analytical towards the breeding ground of punk.
– BEAUTY SAVES THE WORLD! is the banner of NEO*EKS*PRE*POST!
Gallery name: Haus gallery
Address: Uus 17, Tallinn
Opening hours: Mon-Fri 10:00 - 18:00, Sat 11:00 - 16:00
Open: 06.03.2019 - 30.03.2019
