While the main festival exhibition “Crazy 1990s!” at Pärnu Town Hall reunites—with some updates—the artist group from the very first Art Summer, the satellite exhibition at the Artists’ House presents works that the curators consider inseparable from the 1990s. These are pieces they view as symbolically and contextually significant within that decade.
In the curators’ memories, the 1990s were a contradictory time—Coca-Cola replaced grandma’s homemade redcurrant juice, saucy burgers became serious rivals to smoked sausage sandwiches, and the media became filled with alarming reports of the global AIDS epidemic, seen as an inevitable companion to the sexual revolution of the era. The sudden arrival of freedom and the fulfillment of dreams of the “desired world” brought an exhilarating euphoria, but also new fears, vices, and paranoias. These themes—sex, AIDS, and Coca-Cola—also echoed strongly in the art of the decade.
Participating artists: Marko Mäetamm, De Studio, Peeter Laurits, Herkki-Erich Merila, Raul Meel, Raoul Kurvitz & Rühm T, Leonhard Lapin, Peeter Allik, and Sorge
Curators: Marian Grau, Jan Leo Grau
Contributors: Ain Kaldra, Orm Naarits
Supported by: Estonian Cultural Endowment and Pärnu City Government
