Mihkel Maripuu

Mihkel Maripuu “ALTERIX”

Neeme Külm

Contemporary sculpture reflects a broader rejection of the idea that sculptors are the creators of objects. Sure, we can expect to see a whole range of objects at exhibitions but when we actually enter the gallery, the key element might actually be the space itself. Other sculptors might create something that appears to be an object, but is in truth so rich and with details that take on a life of their own in relation to the whole that the object loses any sense of cohesion, transforming into multitudes and becoming porous, at best creating a quizzical connection with the porous self of the viewer.
It’s not too difficult to understand where this protest stems from. Traditionally, sculptures have always been in the service of something or someone. Even though its finest examples always imply something deeper than a mere urge to subjugate, it has greatly limited the scope of sculpture. In its fullest capacity, sculpture could cover the obscure grey area between the object-centric and spatial experience.
Neeme Külm’s work seems to approach this territory from two opposite directions. On the one hand, he seeks out seemingly secondary details or layers in the space and amplifies or enhances them into something far more compelling. It evokes a certain sinic quality. As François Jullien writes, Chinese thought constantly reminds us of the fact that, however insignificant the starting point, continually underlining its propensity will lead to decisive results. That which does not break tends to, for this very reason, spread out, condense and thicken, thus gaining greater consistency through such regular accumulation, ultimately attaining validity as something evident. Külm forces details and layers to grow in directions they would not have otherwise grown, but which help them become valid in their new form. The final result often comes across as robust, but it starts from extreme attentiveness and is carried by a tenderness not unlike that of a gardener tending to his plants. The result can also appear rough, even crude, but achieving it has involved artisanal finesse.
On the other hand, Külm also creates objects that are completely divorced from their immediate surroundings. There are instances where his creations seem not to be intended for sensory perception at all, but rather aimed directly at the mind: instead of images, they tend to evoke (indeterminate) thoughts. Sometimes he confronts visitors with abstract geometric objects that were designed never to serve any practical function, resembling something from a computer program or drawing board. And other times, he draws on a familiar everyday object or symbol and distorts it just enough to make it lose its original meaning and become enigmatic. Even in this more object-oriented approach, apparent simplicity has demanded a great deal of meticulous work. Külm is like a French chef who disguises his layered dish with a mask of Italian simplicity.
Although this may apply to all good artists it seems particularly appropriate to say that Külm’s true creative subject is the visitor and their experience, especially the part that falls between playfulness and uncanny. His spatial interventions disrupt our habitual expectations of the “user experience” of an exhibition, as well as our accustomed way of relating to things by asking what this evokes in us and how we cope with it. He poses the question indirectly, through delicately executed acts of brutality and polished roughness.
The artist and the gallery would like to thank Aksel Haagensen, Raili Keiv, Kadri Villand, Tarvo Porroson, Tiit Pääsuke, Karl Nagel, Viktor Gurov, Ott Metusala, Marko Smirnov, Alice Kask, Veiko Illiste, Johann Möldre, Eik Hermann, Virgo Pastak, Art Allmägi and Valge Kuup Studio. The exhibition is supported by Tallinn Art Hall and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Photos: Joosep Kivimäe

Neeme Külm “en face”

Tõnis Saadoja

Tõnis Saadoja’s previous exhibitions have focused on the mediation and compression of memory and light perception: how to concentrate, through multiple filters, the lights within our memory. 
The artist’s latest exhibition, ‘The Enduring Present’, continues in a way to examine the themes of light and time, but also executes an experimental about-face. This series is painted en plein air, meaning outdoors, in the open air, with the completion of each work being limited by the changeability of natural light within a two-hour period. As such, these paintings explore how long a moment lasts and what a single lasting moment can equate to on the canvas. In a certain sense, they are a documenting of the work of a performative artist, but in another – and more important – sense, they are a meditation on what the present means and how long it lasts; in other words, when the present is done.
*
The proposition: a relatively small canvas, oil paints, an eye that looks for and finds a view of some kind and compares the colours found in nature with those on the canvas, the view itself being a composition of tree branches, tree trunks, roadsides, light – and time. What is to be achieved with all this is for that which is visible to the eye to remain on the canvas as a translation with a certain credibility. The painting renders a present moment; a specific moment of light. This means that the time in which to paint is limited due to the light changing. It is limited to the present: there can be no painting the past or leaving the painting’s completion to the future. The present here is determined by the enduring nature of both the gaze and the light: the present moment endures for as long as the light remains the same for the gaze in question. It is a present that persists in the equivalence of the gaze and the light, wherein the painting on the canvas of the very same light is a benchmark for measuring that equivalence: as long as it is possible to paint the same light one has already started painting, the present endures.
This enduring moment demands concentration. In etymological terms, the Estonian word for ‘enduring’, kestmine, shares the same root as the word for ‘centre’, kesk: to endure means ‘to be in the middle of something’, without touching its edges. For a moment to endure, to stay in the moment, requires focus.
Although there are paintings here which fill the frame or aspire to the familiar rectangular format, the scale of the image is determined for the most part not by the frame itself, but by what the eye plucks from the view as a sort of intrinsically complete motif. We do not look at these images frame by frame, after all, but along the curves of the branches, the trunks, the landscape, the glints of and chinks in the light; we look at a moment in time found in nature which focuses our gaze on its dynamics. And while the present has duration, duration itself has no frame, no edges: it is within our focused gaze. The present never really comes to an end. It endures until, at some point, it simply no longer exists, when there is a new present. But it is not 
in its nature to come to an end. Similarly, a painting does not end at its edges: it has simply been completed within the duration of one and the same light.
A completed and hung painting endures in another way, whatever form that takes – it is already a trace of something which is living its own life. If the canvas was exposed to light when painted on, it will be darker in the light of the room in which it is exhibited than the view that was painted, and vice versa: if the canvas was in low light when painted on, it will later be lighter. This is the painting’s own memory of the moment of painting, of its specific proposition, of the dynamics of the painter’s gaze and the shared present of light. But it is not truly a memory or a moment of remembrance (“how it was then”). This is where the observer’s present comes into play, shaped by the light from the gallery window or exhibition space, and the desire to endure of the viewer’s gaze and their ability to focus. These images ought to be viewed repeatedly, in different lights and different moods: they are the result of a living present moment, and therefore require new durations, new presents, in order to communicate with themselves. They are not finished – they are merely done.
Accompanying text: Aare Pilv 
Graphic design: Ott Metusala 
Photographic documentation: Stanislav Stepaško and Paul Kuimet

Mihkel Maripuu “ALTERIX”

Other exhibitions

Neeme Külm “en face”

Tõnis Saadoja “Present Continuous”