Exhibition 2008
25.10.2008-11.01.2009 Classics. Metal artist Lilian Linnaks
Today we know Lilian Linnaks above all as jewellery and metal artist, but she started her career as a lamp designer in factory Estoplast in 1960. Lilian Linnaks made a quick ending to the factory’s habit to copy the foreign designs and very soon they started to produce modern white lamps designed by young artist. These lamps were with large variety of shapes and fit perfectly for most different interiors from home to cafés. The artists has used similar fitting theme in her jewellery, like dual jewellery where pendants on the chain fit to wear together and separately as well. Lilian Linnaks uses a large variety of materials and techniques in her own specific way, her creations are clearly recognisable. Her jewellery is made of silver, sometimes gold-plated, the tones of semiprecious stones associates with the form of the piece and it varies from red to brown or quite smoky gleaming greyish brown. Remarkable part of her creations take forms and plates, her favourite material here is aluminium. She skilfully stains or enamels the surface of aluminium. By today Lilian Linnaks is a professor emeritus of
11.07.-12.10. Jug
The exhibition Jug is an attempt to focus on the piece of kitchenware that can be justifiably considered one of the most widely used types of necessities throughout the centuries. Indeed it is not possible to find any set of tableware having an ambition to perfection where the jug could be missing.
There are numberless jugs in every possible function surrounding us. For instance, ewers, teapots, coffeepots, drinking jugs, milk jugs and sauceboats, to name just a few. They have been made of glass, porcelain, ceramic materials and metal. There are jugs with paintings and monochrome jugs, jugs used in the peasant's kitchen and prudishly fancy jugs, large and tiny jugs, unique artist creations and factory made jugs.
Which was and is a jug in the space that surrounds us? We attempt to find an answer to this question.
13.09.-12.10. Newly New. Textile artist Ene Pars
Textile artist Ene Pars presents large scale patchwork rugs that are inspired by Estonian national mitten patterns, rug designs and national costume skirt stripes. Every stripe combination has its own uniqueness, rainbow of colour that carries the domicile characteristics, joy of life, aesthetic taste, sorrow, youth, maturity etc of the wearer.
13.09.-12.10. Shade of the Memory. Maiju Altpere-Woodhead
Estonian artist Maiju Altpere-Woodhead, currently living in Australia, presents her latest creation. She shows thin porcelain artwork – plates and small objects, turned from porcelain sheets that are decorated with nets of lines. She often uses motifs inspired by nature; shades of blue, white, yellowish grey and brown are dominant in her work.
12.07.-07.09. Plural. Annual exhibition of the Estonian Textile Artists Association
The Estonian Textile Artists Association has its 15th birthday this year. Our Association is in its teens. When group behaviour is especially catching. Slogan for the annual exhibition is: everything that infects and sticks. Fashion, panic, virus. Mushroom grows itself on and through moist tree and earth, forms beautiful colonies, sometimes eatable. Are we been eaten? Are we eating? We label, scar, change colour, shape and sizes. We are testing the empathy of society. Textile art consists of thousands of links. Links can be found in ideas, materials, techniques, in makers and in viewers.
Almost 50 authors present their works in the annual exhibition of Estonian Textile Artists Association. Members and non-members of our Association show different handwritings, visions and concepts. Young authors and students from
12.07.-07.09. Picture and Carpet. Peeter Kuutma. Designs
Peeter Kuutma (1938) is a multitalented textile artist and has been active in the field of tapestry for more than 30 years. His interior textile projects include works varying from single/simple living rooms to the complex
Peeter Kuutma is the best known Estonian geometrical tapestry maker. His abstract tapestries are inspired by nature and are aristocratic and decorative at the same time. Peeter Kuutma has dedicated several monumental tapestries to Estonian cities. Some panoramas of
Current exhibition is focussing the attention to colourful pictures – sketches of carpets. This is the way how the compositions and colour combinations of Peeter Kuutma’s future carpets are born.
08.05.-29.06. Metrosideros Robusta. Karl Fritsch
Metrosideros Robusta is the Latin name for the Northern rata.
I see parallels in my approach to jewellery and the growth of the rata tree. These trees start life as an epiphyte in the branches of another tree. As it grows the epiphyte rata sends roots down to the ground. It eventually replaces the host tree when it dies.
More than ten years ago I began using conventional jewellery pieces as a grounding material in my work. Like the epiphyte rata I added my attachment in gold or silver, nestling in or on a ring and also growing over entire pieces of jewellery.
Most of my recent rings do not include any ready-made pieces, they are entirely replaced by my own creations.
Karl Fritsch, 2006
Karl Fritsch (born
His solo exhibitions have been in display in the SM's - Stedelijk Museum in s’Hertogenbosch, the Die Neue Sammlung in Nürnberg, the Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim, Gallery Deux Poissons in Tokyo, Galerie Ra in Amsterdam, Jewellers’Werk Galerie in Washington, Gallery Funaki in Melbourne etc.
Jewellery by Karl Fritsch has been exhibited in the
The exhibition by Karl Fritsch in ETDM is a part of Deutsche Kulturfrühling
Nicaraguan pottery is a product of a profound cultural heritage. Some scholars consider ornately decorated pottery to have been the most valuable commodity in this region during Pre-Columbian times, akin to jade, obsidian, and gold in other regions of the
The “Renaissance” of Nicaraguan pottery during the past decades, the results of which can be seen in this exhibit, has been initiated and supported by small inputs in the field of education as well as through an overall struggle to earn income in this poor developing country.
Nicaraguan pottery has reaffirmed its glorious past, as it today is presented in the museum halls.
Before arriving at the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, the exhibit had a tour in Museum of Cultures, Helsinki and three Danish museums (Museum of International Ceramic Art – Denmark, Funen, Art Center Silkeborg Bad – Jutland and Danish Museum of Art and Design – Copenhagen), and will continue on its Nordic tour to museum in Iceland with a support of Nordic Cultural Fund.
Exhibition in ETDM is supported by Estonian Ministry of Culture, Estonian Cultural Endowment, Embassy of Nicaragua.
Five hundred years ago European conquistadores settled in
08.05.-29.06.
Kalevipoeg. Leather bindings from the collection of Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design (ETDM)
The exposition includes 24 leather bindings of Kalevipoeg, the Estonian national epic written by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald, executed within the period from the 1930s to 2004 by 17 Estonian leather artists. In the permanent exhibition in addition 4 bindings of Kalevipoeg are displayed.
During the period 1857-2003 the national epic Kalevipoeg has been printed for 18 times. Each new edition of the epic has attracted the binding artists to bind the book in leather. First the epic was bound in leather by Eduard Taska in
Following the traditions set by Taska the bindings from the period 1950 -1960 emphasise the quality of leather as a material, supported by a simple and noble design. Decorative script and figural and ethnographical ornaments are entwined into a composition. Preferred methods are cutting and line techniques and modelling.
In the 1970s the style of Estonian leather artists becomes bolder and the range of technical methods is enlarged. High relief modelling and braiding are used more extensively and also authors take up technical experimenting. Rita Tänav-Veldemann creates a boldly archaic set of images with her bindings executed in high relief modelling. Naima Suude has created a whole series of bindings of Kalevipoeg using good old braiding method which allows emphasising fine nuances of the natural texture of leather.
The design of the binding of the epic is moving rather wilfully, by paths that defy time and fashion. The depiction of the links with myth is attempted through the use of symbols. In the 1980s and 1990s abstract approach is taken up and the cognitive relation with the subject is enhanced. The bindings of Luule Maar, Kaja Kits-Karm, Ella Summatavet and others provide a vivid evidence of extremely different associations of sign systems, all in their own way helping us to understand the ancient myth.
The edition of Kalevipoeg with the illustrations of Kristjan Raud that saw light in 2003 caused a new flood of leather bindings of Kalevipoeg. The bindings of Tiina Piisang, sound and dignified, direct the viewer to move from outside to inside. The black and grey and red binding of Kalevipoeg by Sirje Kriisa is an expression of emotionality and sensitivity, the artist having created a harmonious association with the strivings of the book designer Andres Tali.
The national epic of the Estonian people still calls our creative artists to interpret Kalevipoeg, to design it, thus making it intimate for both present and future generations
Exhibition curator Anne Tiivel
15.03.-27.04. 2nd Skin.
2ndSKIN Cork Jewellery project is based on a double meaning concept.
In an anthropological point of view, jewels, as a second human skin, temporary, are social mediators. They express identity and a personal public image.
Jewels issued from the 2ndSKIN project show, in different ways, how these two senses, the social and the biological ones can be related, according to interpretations of the participants from different countries.
ESAD (Superior School of Arts and Design), Matosinhos, and DesignLocal,
The works of established artists (from Estonia Kadri Mälk, Tanel Veenre), current and former students and guest students of ESAD (Tõnis Malkov from
This travelling exhibition will be seen in several countries. It was showed in
Exhibition curators Ana Campos and João Real (
16.02.-09.03. Treasury. Formal Interiors for Public Buildings 1918-1940
16.02.-27.04. Treasury. Modern Home 1918-1940
The 1930s were a decade of faster development and greater wealth that directly preceded the Soviet occupation; a time when Estonians began embracing a modern and European lifestyle. With the founding of public buildings and modern homes grew the need for quality domestic products. The public was fond of applied art in national style, silver-plated platters decorated with ethnic ornaments, beer-mugs from silver or crystal and floral sets of dishes and writing pads were produced by enterprises of Tavast, Kopf, Lorup, Langebraun, and Taska. These trademarks were known and appreciated farther than home. Nowadays the products of these companies have become a national classic. The national style was in full strength even in 1940 when state commissioned rooms in Estonian style for presidential residencies and formal interiors.
However, the national style was not the only one that was fondly used in design. Full of feeling and luxurious art deco style interior accessories that fit well with furniture from exotic wood and covered with leather could be find in pukka homes more than one could guess.
The exhibition shows photos of remarkable interiors and buildings of that time as well as valuable original furniture that was designed by top architects and interior designers (E. Habermann, H. Johanson, O. Siinmaa, R. Wunderlich, A. Volberg and others). Besides the unique the furniture of
16.02.-27.04.
Exhibition provides a brief cross-section of various facets of the work of the grand old lady of Estonian leather art, Minni Patune (born 1918).
After graduating from the State Applied Art Institute of Tallinn in 1950, Minni Patune was employed for 23 years as the artistic director of the Tallinn Art Products Factory leather decorative work studio. She also found time to devote herself to her own artistic endeavours and successful appearances at exhibitions.
Minni Patune was quick to reject the compulsory thematic material of the 1950s and in the 1960s proved capable of surprising with her free-style, timeless compositions in the field of both bookbinding and boxes. Drawing inspiration from life around her, the artist created an entire series of elegantly styled black and white chrome leather book bindings, boxes, photograph and record boxes with gold trim; these represent the classic works of Estonian leather art. For example the photograph box “Sillad” (Bridges, 1968), “Rahutus” (Restlessness, 1968), the guest book “Kuused ja Kuu” (Spruce and Moon, 1964).
An exciting phenomenon in its own right is her latticed calfskin tapestries, which were inspired by nature and were done using a technique she herself developed, blowing a breath of fresh air into exhibition halls in the early 1970s. In terms of design of the leather tapestries, the spectrum ranges from balanced geometrical compositions to lively and temperamental natural rhythms.
Minni Patune’s work has earned its place beside such seminal leather artists as Eduard Taska, Adele Reindorff and Ella Külv.
Exhibition curator Anne Tiivel
15.12.2007-03.02.2008
Classics. Textile artist Lea Walter
The exhibition gives an overview of trends in the work of textile artist Lea Walter (born 1926).
Walter incorporates nearly all known weaving techniques in her work, but tapestry woven rugs account for the greatest number of her works. From 1951-1961, she worked as a sketch artist at the Art Products Factory. From 1967-93, she was art director of the decorative weaving studio at "ARS", then an independent artist.
Gaining renown in the beginning of her career primarily for her tapestries, in the 1960s she became an interpreter of Estonian folk ornamentation. Inspired by striped traditional folk rugs, she used the flame motif and geometric patterns. Starting from the 1970s, Lea Walter's work has been dominated by monumentalism, clear composition, compelling colour scheme and consistent rhythm, which make her distinctive among her peers in the field of textile art.
The exhibition features both Walter’s earlier work – less frequently displayed works such as table mats, athletic knitwear outfits from the Art Products Factory era as well as silken handkerchiefs painted in collaboration with Galina Leshkina from as early as the late 1950s – as well as the more widely known woven tapestries, the most recent of which dates from 2004.
The works are from the Museum’s collections and elsewhere.
Exhibition curator Kai Lobjakas