Enn Põldroos: Museum of Obsessions
“Museum of Obsessions” is a comprehensive solo exhibition of the Estonian artist and writer Enn Põldroos (b. 1933), presenting his works from the late 1950s to the 2020s. As an artist characterised by an adventurous nature, he has constantly changed his artistic style, ranging from the socialist realism demanded at the Stalinist art institute to surrealism. The exhibition explores Põldroos’s art through the images and motifs that have accompanied him throughout his life, and to which he has always returned in one way or another. These recurring “home ports” in his art sketch out the possible contours of the artist’s creative core.
Gallery
Curator Anders Härm on the exhibition:
Estonian art history has tended to regard Enn Põldroos as an adventurous artist: he has experimented with various painting styles and manners and the visual language of his works has changed multiple times since his graduation from the State Art Institute of the Estonian SSR (ERKI) and his first appearances in the local art scene in the late 1950s. He seems to constantly slip out of expected styles, avoiding becoming totally ossified: his “system is a lack of system”, as he has stated.
This exhibition does not focus on a multitude of styles, but rather on the more or less hidden reference points, fixed motifs and genres in Põldroos’s oeuvre that the artist keeps coming back to. Some of these genres are constantly “in use”, while some motifs appear, disappear and reappear. Certain motifs showed up in the earliest phases of his career, while others permeate his entire oeuvre, are present during a long period or reappear after some time, and there are various ways in which that happens.
We will henceforth call these genres and motifs obsessions. For Põldroos, these recurrent motifs in his art seem to function as anchors in stylistic whirlwinds and adventures: they hold together the artist’s identity and prevent it from disintegrating, but they also make up the core of his art, the nucleus of his artistic consciousness, seeming to draw a faint polygonal contour around it.
Team
Curator and exhibition designer: Anders Härm
Graphic designer: Tuuli Aule
Installation manager: Tõnis Medri
Technical assistant: Kaarel Eelma
Coordinators: Johanna Jolen Kuzmenko, Anastassia Langinen
Exhibition team:
Richard Adang, Darja Jefimova, Liisa Kaljula, Paul Kuimet, Kaie Kukk, Ketlin Käpp, Maria Lota Lumiste, Anu Lüsi, Renita Raudsepp, Mati Schönberg, Mihhail Staško, Stanislav Stepaško, Laura Tahk, Terje Tammearu, Eva Tammekivi and Madli Valk
We thank:
Riina Põldroos, Juhan Põldroos, Rita Raave, Enn Kunila, Reigo Kuivjõgi, Sven Pertens, Margus Punab, Kädi-Liis Sepp, Kristian Taska, Sirje Helme, Eha Komissarov, Merike Kurisoo, Elnara Taidre and Ave Vellesalu
Tartu Art Museum, Estonian Academy of Arts Museum, Estonian Artists’ Association, University of Tartu Art Museum, Estonian History Museum – Theatre and Music Museum, Narva Museum, University of Tartu, Tallinn Secondary School of Science, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, Estonian Society of Art Historians and Curators
