Each beginning is rooted in something already existent. The
phenomenon which might be called Estonian video art has its origins
in the attempts by many artists or artistic groups to break down the
barriers of availability and necessity.
Similar to cinematographic experiments made by Marcel Duchamp and the
dadaists, which have parental rights to video art, there are records
in Estonian art history of wonderful works by artists who, in the
pursuit of their artistic ambitions, have indulged in playful
invention.
Jüri Okas´s happenings and land-art objects captured on an
8mm film were born in the early ´70s from an enjoyment of making
an impact on reality. Recording it on film was secondary, but not
unimportant. The motion picture and the projected movement produced
by its means enabled the making of documentation of changing reality
and the artist in it. The technical quality did not seem to matter,
it was difficult to recognize the depicted objects and to grasp what
was going on. Now it seems to have gained an extra value: Time
recorded itself on the film while the artist was trying to record
Time.
From the point of view of video art history the ´70s could be
described as a gap. While in other countries video art was rapidly
developing, special issues of magazines were published, festivals
were arranged, the focus in Estonia was on " freeing" painting from
the influences of a post-impressionist school linked to Pallas, a
pre-war institution of higher art education. And strangely enough,
this was achieved with the help of hyperrealism. Drab reality and
glossed-over paintings adorning the walls of exhibition halls - these
were the characteristic features of the age.
There were some slight changes in the ´80s, although no visible
tendencies could be detected. Within the framework of a conventional
medium - the theatre - an original multi-media production was staged:
´A Multiple Man´, based on the work of Johannes
Vares-Barbarus, the first Soviet Estonian statesman, a doctor by
profession and a futurist poet. Designed by Leonhard Lapinö the
production was set among television screens, radio antennae and other
equipment.
The first half of the decade also saw a score of happenings arranged
by the University art studio in Tartu, another in a series of naive
attempts to change the world. In 1986 these efforts were crowned by a
video happening , the first and , reportedly, the last to date,
entitled AIDA, recorded by equipment which was falling apart. The
description, which has survived, gives a clue to the title , a play
on words in Estonian: AIDA as a title of an opera by Verdi and as a
commonplace utility building in the countryside - a storehouse.
The protagonists in the second half of the ´80s when the change
was towards a more open society were the members of Group T. Their
performance art which crossed international borders was recorded in
our art history simultaneously with its emergence. Video was used as
as a recording medium. The performances themselves were fine
spectacles drawing elitist circles in which the dark shapes of the
artists were followed by silent shadows of television cameramen.
Some features characteristic of videos could be traced in Estonian
cinematographic art such as deformations of colour, form or time (the
so-called effects in the traditional medium). These films, for
example, Mark Soosaar`s ´A Woman of Kihnu ´, ´Earthly
Desires´, ´Time´ might be called experimental. As a
rule motion picture art tends to keep to its boundaries, the picture
being linked to meaning, which is used to tell a story of the
suffering of the people or of happiness, of heroic moments in history
or of dramatic happenings.
To get an idea of the limits of imagination in Estionia or the lack
of it, we should refer to Estonian achievements in the field of
animation, the one audio-visual sphere in which Estonia was
internationally recognized.
The decades mentioned above could be described as the latent period
of Estonian video or the background which has influenced video
artists. In this preparatory stage video technology was introduced
and made available in Estonia.
The first overview (compiled by Raivo Kelomees) dealing with
international trends in video art was published in Kunst magazine in
1988, a bit later in the same year than the exhibition of young art
´I Have Never Been to New York´ was arranged. The two were
linked to the extent that video art by a Finnish group called MUUry
was displayed on that exhibition. However, this was a rare occcasion
as the artists and critics alike were still raving about
expressionist painting.
The advent of new technologies and good organizational skills made it
possible for video art to develop in the early ´90s. In 1993
Ando Keskküla set up a video installation ´Opus Petra´
which consisted of video screens, natural limestone and a number of
constructions intended to explore the mythological potential of the
layers of limestone on which people walk or build every day. In the
same year Tiina Tiitus, a fashion designer, displayed a stylish and
nostalgic video in the Art Hall Gallery, probably the only one she
has made so far.
Okas made a "comeback" in the same year. In his retrospective show at
the Luum Gallery called ´Untitled´, an installation was set
up consisting of four screens placed on different levels and a rusty
iron plate in front of them, the slots in the iron plate cut the
picture imaginarily into pieces.
An event which brought video art into focus was the French-Baltic
video art festival held in Riga, Vilnius and Tallinn in 1992/93. The
festival which was the first of its kind in the Baltics featured a
few works by Estonian television directors and designers. Some
questions were raised: if video and art are combined, does it result
in video art? Or, wouldn´t it be possible to make the equipment
available to video artists, in view of the steady growth of TV
channels?
The outlook was brighter at the Second French-Baltic video art
festival in 1993/94 at which Estonia was represented by Tiia
Johannson, Ene-Liis Semper, Raoul Kurvitz, Tiina Tiitus and Raivo
Kelomees. The videos made by TV directors depicting the work of fine
artists was a genre in its own right. Peeter Brambat´s
´Aaaa´, recorded Jaan Toomik´s performance art and one
of the most intriguing pieces - Jaanus Nôgisto´s
´Fotovision´ I and II was based on the work of the
photographers of the Destudio group , including Peeter Laurits and
Herkki-Erich Merila.
At the end of 1993 the First Annual Exhibition of the Soros Tallinn
Center for Contemporary Arts titled
´Substance-Unsubstance´(curator Ando Keskküla) was
arranged and it was a demonstration of the long-awaited new media.
The event which provoked discussions and shook the artistic scene
created a situation in which it was impossible to continue in an old
way and too expensive to take up anything new. Jaak Saks, Rainer Kurm
and Martin Vällik set up an impressive meditative installation
´Early Spring´. In addition, some aggressive-looking
interiors were shown and the relationships between the human body,
memory and environment were explored.
A memorable event is connected with the name of Jaanus Nôgisto
employed by Commercial TV at the time. Under his direction a
´Fotovision´ about photographer Peeter Linnap was made and
it happened to be short-listed. among fifty other works, for the
Deutsche Videokunstpreis Festival in 1994. This international
recognition raised the question of authorship as the festival
statutes stipulated that the names responsible for the visual side be
stated. The authorship could have been Linnap´s although the
photographic material in the video is said to have belonged to his
father-in-law.
By the autumn of 1994 the attitude to video art had become more
positive, even at "official institutions", for example, at the
state-run academic Art University where video art became an approved
subject. The students of the Art University could take an optional
course in video art history illustrated by videos shown at the
above-mentioned French-Baltic video art festivals. It is probably too
early to discuss the possibility of independent work within the
course. Four students who are studying at the College of Arts and
Communications in Tampere got a taste of independent work while
making a television broadcast with a title "YESNO" (Marko Laimre,
Mari Sobolev, Mare Tralla) in collaboration with the Estonian
Television. Raoul Kurvitz has also collaborated with the Estonian
Television in carrying out several projects under a general title of
´Lifestyles´. This is quite typical of Estonian culture:
the most active and talented people will be absorbed into the already
existing structures and there will be no alternative movement. This
is, of course, true about the relatively open society which has no
ideological anomalies in which we are living now. The obligation to
have an alternative does not necessarily exclude the simultaneous
existence of a variety of equal and parallel phenomena.
The problems of media and electronic art were again on the agenda at
the Second Annual Exhibition of the Soros Center for Contemporary
Arts (curator Urmas Muru) titled ´Unexistent Art´at the end
of 1994.
Towards the end of 1994 another French-Baltic video art festival was
held with the same artists participating as in previous year. This
time they did better than our southern neighbours if we consider
awards and distinctions as a measuring yardstick. Ene-Liis Semper
(´Home´) and Raoul Kurvitz (the whole set) got distinctions
and Raivo Kelomees was awarded the grand prix which included a
month-long scholarship for making a journal de voyage in France , an
award from the video art department (headed by Pascal Gallet) at the
French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In May 1995 Margus Tônnov and Raivo Kelomees participated in a
media art festival in Wroclaw. Tônnov presented a video titled
´On Earth As It Is in Heaven´made in collaboration with a
Commercial Television channel. The fact that his film competed with
the works of internationally recognized video artists was
telling.
We can only wish that Estonian artists will be more active in looking
up the dates and sites of various festivals and that the television
companies, although suffering from the lack of funds and having an
identity crisis, will find it possible to give them more support.
And last, but not least: the most wonderful presentation of Estonian
video art took place at the Sao Paulo biennale in 1994. Estonia was
represented by Jaan Toomik´s video installation ´A Road
Leading to Sao Paulo´ which showed an imaginary itinerary drawn
in a straight line from Tartu via Prague to Sao Paulo.
Raivo Kelomees
June, 1995
Translated by Krista Mits