In today’s Pallas school of photography, the following topics / fields of tension stand out:
Politics
In the present period, no artwork or exhibition can be overlooked outside of politics, because the social background and today’s events are making everything political. Most explicit work in this exhibition is the work of an art critic / our lecturer Kaisa Eiche “I will not raise my son for war!”. This autographed double portrait is both an elegant work (soul lights on both figures) and a work that allows for quick contextualization, which can be predicted for a long time in history.
Memory
Memory in art is an ancient and unchanging subject. It is indisputable that images help to remember – even if they simultaneously distort that memory into their own language. If this were not the case, archives would not be destroyed or memories would not be erased, especially by the power structures. The legendary installation “Registry of Oblivion” (2006) by the musician and artist Alan Proosa simply talks about the appearance and disappearance of memory through old personal photographs; Pille Paalam’s sharply painful and sensitive photographic essay/ film “Positive” has become a classic of Estonian image history with painful topic of deportees; and so is also the four generations project of “Mothers and Daughters” by Pallas alumni / teacher Diana Tamane from 2011.
Intrigue
In PallasFoto, as it is common to iconic schools of contemporary art, some artists offer pictorial intrigue. Let Sille Annuk, the photographer of Postimees, be the one who solves the landscape genre primarily linguistically, showing how geographical places / places / loci are reflected in the names of clothing companies. Or, for an intriguing example, an even simpler and more striking “Calendar” from Aili Paat-Marje Essenson-Liisi Siibak, where even the basic special concepts from top to bottom-left are called into question by a 90-degree turn of space.
Sensitive designation
Looking at extremely vibrant and nightmarishly simple portrait “Tree Navel” by Tõnu Tamm, a former mathematician, it seemed that nothing similarly discrete would hardly come anymore. Indeed – it took some time, nearly 2 decades – but Andrus Kannel, a photographer and a semiotician, came up with his extremely fine-textured “soundscapes”, where sounds are impregnated in a certain way into the meaning making tissues of (almost) video still landscapes. What the world of sounds can do with the image becomes clear when watching and listening to these works carefully.
Fantasies and symbols
Toomas Kalve shows his work “From the Life of Dead Birds”, that has become a classic in his well-known bulky staged character (performed with Hasso Krull), Vallo Kalamees continues to combine the delicious theme of “topographic landscapes”, and Katrin Arrak (Adamson) opens what we project into them ourselves when we look at the pictures.
Of course, the exhibition also has a number of completely new works that are just beginning their axiologic trajectory in the art world (Rain Avarmaa, Luisa Vilo, Agnes Müürsepp and others).
New authors / new works
The newcomers that started in the 2020s are already quite promising, but without yet established value systems. While Rain Avarmaa makes sci-fi monumental works in the style of Universal studios with his spectacular montages, Agnes Müürsepp plays in his works on the aesthetics and atmosphere of the good old “decisive moment” and on Greete Altrof’s moving psychological portraits of his loved ones. There are more young actors in the Pallas school – and it is more than certain that they will be heard again soon. The exhibition also features works by foreign artists who have studied at Pallas for a long time or even graduated: Jelena Jakovlevič (HR), Diana Tamane (LV), Gael Denis (FR) and others.
Authors participating in the exhibition:: Greete Altrof, Sille Annuk, Katrin Arrak, Rain Avarmaa, Kaisa Eiche, Sten Eltermaa, Marje Essenson, Anna Hints, Johan Huimerind, Tiit Joala, Vallo Kalamees, Toomas Kalve, Indrek Kangro, Andrus Kannel, Stina Kase, Elariin Kruusamägi, Tiit Lepp, Peeter Linnap, Kristjan Mõru, Alis Mäesalu, Agnes Müürsepp, Aili Paat, Liisi Peets, Taavi Piibemann, Alan Proosa, Ruudu Rahumaru, Liisi Siibak, Silver Sikk/ Donald Koppel, Diana Tamane (EE/ LV), Tõnu Tamm, Pillery Teesalu, Malev Toom, Lilli Tölp, Luisa Vilo, Gael Denis (FR), Jelena Jakovlevič (HR).
“Hortus Pallasfoto” II exhibition was curated by Professor and Head of Photography Department Peeter Linnap.
Designed by Toomas Kalve and Vallo Kalamees
