Speed of Darkness and Other Stories
Location: 5th floor, Gallery of Contemporary Art
Two independent lighting art exhibitions, under the joint title Speed of Darkness and Other Stories, will open on Friday, 8 June in the 5th-floor Contemporary Art Gallery of the Kumu Art Museum. Works by Finnish, Latvian and Estonian contemporary artists are represented in the project. Jaakko Niemelä is the curator and author of the concept for Speed of Darkness, an exhibition that closed in Finland in May and has now arrived in Estonia. This is supplemented by Other Stories, an exhibition that interprets the same subject, which was initiated by Eha Komissarov.
“The selected art projects deal with the creation of the material base of darkness and search for a means to allow darkness to be transformed into material for an installation, by activating darkness,” Eha Komissarov, one of the curators of the exhibition said. “Darkness becomes functional when we decipher it as separate phenomena, between which the artists create significant connections and points of contact, by using metaphysical opportunities and experiences from everyday life.”
According to Eha Komissarov, the impetus for initiating a simultaneous project came from the sensitive expression “speed of darkness”, which was employed by Jaakko Niemelä, and which generated the idea of searching for new points of departure for the interpretation of darkness in the Estonian language and art space. In May 2012, Speed of Darkness closed at the Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova Museum in Finland and has now arrived in Estonia.
The unusual combination of the words “speed” and “darkness” attributes to darkness traits that describe the distribution of light, and directs artists with various backgrounds and practices to create new cultural texts. All the artists invited to participate in the exhibition saw the promising possibilities for a better comprehension of the nature of darkness in the semantic contradiction of the speed of darkness.
In 2011 a workshop took place under the direction of the Finnish lighting artist Jaakko Niemelä, with the participation of young artists, two each from Estonia, Latvia and Finland. The Speed of Darkness exhibition, curated by Jaakko Niemelä, was a continuation of this training period. In the project, Estonia is represented by Timo Toots and Karel Koplimets, Latvia by Kate Krolle and Katrina Sauškina, and Finland by Anna Hyrkkänen and Paula Lehtonen.
The Other Stories exhibition includes works by Kristi Kongi, Jevgeni Zolotko, Ivar Veermäe, Liina Siib, the Finnish artists’ group IC-98, comprised of Patrik Söderlund and Visa Suonpää, Kristiina Hansen & Johannes Säre, and Neeme Külm, in cooperation with Ülo Krigul, Liisi Eesmaa, Anu Vahtra and Kärt Ojavee.
Curators:
Jaakko Niemelä (exhibition Speed of Darkness)
Eha Komissarov (exhibition Other Stories)
Sponsors:
Koneen Säätiö
