Margus Tiitsmaa aka Sorge

Artist's country of origin: Estonia

Margus Tiitsmaa (born 1963) aka Sorge has had a long and coulourful road as an artist. In Soviet times he studied in Tallinn Pedagogical Institute and designed windows for shopping walls, secretly organizing performances in Saue forest at the same time. He was not accepted to the Estonian State Art Institute as his way of thinking fell out of the standard in every possible way.

However, after having proceeded to work in Pärnu Sütevaka School´s art department, Tiitsmaa was one of the founders of the Nongrata school of art and so-called South-West Estonoian anarchism as an art style. This was not enough for Tiitsmaa´s restless soul and eventually he also enrolled to the Master´s program of the Estonian Academy of Arts, even though he could have easily been a lecturer there based on his extensive experiences.

Tiitsmaa has been interesting both as a performance artist as well as a painter. The two are inseparably connected in his case. Even if the paintings do not make a clear reference to a performance, the viewer can easily think of one when looking at Tiitsmaa´s work.

Source used: Siram.”Margus Tiitsmaa´s magical anarchism“. Sirp, 22.06.2007