IN MODERN AND OLD-FASHIONED WAYS
Foreword: Piia Ausman, Curator of the Auction
Author of the catalogue texts: Heie Marie Treier, Art Historian (TLU/BFM)
The 2023 spring auction organised by Haus Gallery draws art history on a timeline. While our auction catalogues of the past few years divided the works into thematic groups according to motif, nature or unity of thought, this time we are moving clearly in time and chronology. The works are divided into chapters by decade, highlighting what is important and distinctive, illustrated by each individual work in that decade. For us, it is important to leave an educational mark on each auction, which pretends to be a comprehensive group exhibition of a certain era, both on the gallery walls and in the catalogue – material that can be used later on to further one’s knowledge of art, and which looks at both general artistic trends and each individual work.
The starting point for this catalogue is 1966. The 1960s more broadly were significant in our art, as there was a very clear mixing of the younger and older generations, with some coming in new and discovering, trying to grasp the world art trends behind the Iron Curtain without having the opportunity to leave the closed space of the Soviet Union, and others, many of whom continued to create in a remarkably innovative way, but whose years of study, mostly at the Pallas School of Art, were intertwined with the experience of France, Germany, and the rest of Europe in the early decades of the 20th century. This is how legendary abstract art exhibition by Elmar Kits took place in Tartu in 1966, which was reconstructed in 2016 and whose curator Peeter Talvistu writes the foreword below: ‘Elmar Kits (1913–1972) is considered one of the most outstanding and prolific creators in Estonian art history. His 1966 solo exhibition, most of the 105 works of which were completed in the same year, was the first real triumph of abstract art in Estonia and one of the most important milestones of the artistic revival of the late 1960s. The 1994 catalogue of Kits writes about the exhibition: ‘This exhibition can be considered a manifestation of modern art and a highlight of the 1960s.’’
Respecting this important point in the history of art, Haus Gallery drew a line between the two 2023 spring auctions to mark a culmination of the comparison between our older and younger artists, when some were still teachers of others. Later on, especially through the eyes of the art of the 1990s, this moment of the 1960s would seem to have been forgotten in retrospect. At that time, conceptual art was already dominant, experimenting with large-scale paintings and installations and art with a distinctly social undertone, and for this generation, the Soviet past was less looked at. Dizzying progress was made, and the Pallasian format remained distant and chamber-like, whose impetus, effectiveness and, in fact, the freshness of the 1960s is something we are rediscovering in our own way to this day. However, when we talk about the art of the late 20th century, we cannot ignore the continuation of a more intimate style of painting and more traditional and realistic art, of which the auction selection offers examples. This catalogue encapsulates in a concentrated and expressive way precisely what began in our art in the second half of the 1960s, became hyper-real in the 1970s, became intriguing in the early 1990s, and expanded with the possibilities of artistic freedom in the era of independence up to the present day. So, in the list of authors here, you will find Richard Uutmaa and Andres Tolts from the 1960s, but also Olav Maran, or Urmas Pedanik, Peeter Mudist, Malle Leisi, Märt Bormeister, and Kalju Nagel from the 1970s; Toomas Vint, Evald Okas, and Alfred Kongo from the 1980s; Enn Põldroos, Jaan Elken, but also Marko Mäetamm, and others from the 1990s. Siim-Tanel Annus, who rose to prominence in the late 1980s as a revolutionary performance artist, closes the selection with his most recent painting, which bears the significant title Genesis 2023, which Art Historian Heie Marie Treier writes about in the catalogue: ‘What does the word ‘Genesis’ mean? …/the book of Genesis from the Old Testament translated into Estonian. The story of the creation of the world, the story of the Garden of Paradise, the story of a perfect life without evil, and then the story of how a man and a woman were deprived of paradise because they wanted to experience a life of the flesh with suffering and become wise through it. …/.’
From this description, we could take the last strand of thought, as a generalisation, referring to what art refers to – a message that is so important at a particular moment in time that it transcends time, inviting us to reflect on the important aspects of life and the possibility of becoming wiser, better, and more beautiful in spirit. Even if, on this particular occasion, this is the emphasised aim of our art show – to find wisdom through the eloquent world spaces depicted in the picture frames, through each individual work as well as through the word art in the larger whole.