News > Artist Jüri Mildeberg and writer Indrek Koff

Artist Jüri Mildeberg and writer Indrek Koff

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Triinu Soikmets, gallerist and curator at Haus Gallery

A picture is worth a thousand words. However, sometimes a picture may prefer to remain silent while secretly wishing that there was somebody to see right through it. On a third occasion, thousands of words are frolicking in hundreds of stories, lightheartedly and without concern, albeit somewhat anxiously. Then the pen asks the bristles of the brush – or the other way round – out on a date, and after the initial excitement they both discover that when they draw lines, side by side, new sounds start resonating between them.

On the picture: Jüri Mildeberg, series "Stories of A Hundred Nations"

One way to organise such a date would be to write a book and have it illustrated, just as the “state-paid writer” Indrek Koff and the “wild artist” Jüri Milderberg did. One caters for the pictures and the other the words, which “work as secret threads” as they both say. 

The seed that brought about such a coming-together – the books Poem and Stories of a Hundred Nations and their illustrations – was sown by the author and artist Piret Raud who probably had an inkling that there was something that connected Indrek and Jüri. Indrek had always admired Jüri’s craft; however, without encouragement from Piret he would never had dared to contact him. To begin with he considered a children’s book, but as soon as Poem and Stories of a Hundred Nations started to take shape, he understood that these were the ones he should bring to Jüri’s attention. He had always believed that books were the contact point of at least two forms of art. “I say ‘at least two’ because in my mind it is always interesting when literature is reworked in music and performing arts.” However, the author concedes that there are some works, such as a great novel, that should be allowed to speak alone and on its own merits.

A text and a picture may inspire each other in either direction but in this particular case the word was the first to emerge. The texts of both books were almost complete and though they eventually changed a little, the mood and the general approach were already in place before the author handed the books over to the artist to read. Jüri confirms this: “The text came first and the picture came after. I have tried to do it the other way round, to draw a picture first and then ask someone to write the text but it has never worked!” Such outlets that combine two mediums are not a first-time experience for either of the authors. Most of Indrek’s books have been like that – he is a prolific writer of children’s books, most of which have been rather generously illustrated. “I have been lucky with artists, all my children’s books have turned out beautiful works of art,” he believes. Jüri in turn speaks about the pictures that he drew for Don Quixote on the 400th anniversary of the book. “The handwritten text was penned by Paul Erik Rummo and it turned out amazing. The book itself can be seen at the El Toboso municipal library.”

While at an art exhibition, the order in which the works are displayed may function as a tool that substantively carries forward the narrative, one may become tempted to find out whether such an order in a book would be just as meaningful. Jüri – who drew some 75 pictures for the books, of which about a half made the cut – remains humble and puts the responsibility gently and respectfully on the shoulders of the designer, Dan Mikkin. Indrek emphasises the role of the designer as well, but also sheds a little light on the background. "The pictures in Poem are more abstract and those in Stories of a Hundred Nations are a bit more figurative. The way they are laid out within one book is motivated, there is no doubt about that; there are associations between each picture and the related text, though not always clear and direct.”

The two books sort of make a set – the poetic form of one is indirectly channelled in the way the other fairy tale is narrated; however, this way is not conventional at all. It is as if the reader is fed a list of topical newspaper headlines and is stimulated to elaborate on the theme and characters, fantasise over the culminations and find personal reflections to go with them. Indrek confirms that Stories of a Hundred Nations is not a clear-cut fairy tale book but it undoubtedly builds on the fairy tale as such, so as to get where the reader wants to go with his help. He also refers to the Explanatory Dictionary of Estonian according to which a poem is a long, usually narrative piece of verse and, in music – a unipartite work of music in the form of sonata that expresses a poetic or philosophical idea, arranged for a symphony orchestra. These are the two definitions he tried to bring together. Thinking about the difference between a poem and a fairy tale, Jüri too resorts to musical genres. “They are like opera and oratorio, in the first characters wear costumes, in the second they are just neatly dressed.”

Neither author wants to single out a picture or a line of text. Jüri is especially partial to the cover of Poem, however, Indrek ends up tearing it open and stopping on pages where colourful imagery is used to speak about the creative pain of the poet with the opposite page, conditionally illustrated with a collage of various grimaces and a tiny red heart. In Stories of a Hundred Nations one page may accommodate several stories, starting from a “wistful fairy tale from the times when all folks were good and beautiful with no need for poetry” or an “unhappily ending fairy tale about how everything is going so damn well but how some stupid people just do not want to understand it.”

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