Patterns of Time 3
Patterns of Time 3 is an overview of the development of Estonian applied art and design over the last 100 years. Applied art became a genre in its own right in Estonia in the1920s and 1930s, when it rose to the forefront along with the blossoming national consciousness and blazed a clear path for itself. Estonian applied art was influenced by traditional folk culture as well as international art currents. Especially in the Estonian context, applied art and design are often closely intertwined, and a great deal of cross-fertilization has taken place. The exhibition has divided into several conceptual themes to make viewing easier.
Once inside the exhibition, the visitor will find a number of smaller exhibits devoted to Estonian product design. The 1950s marked the beginning of an era in which artists went to work for Soviet-era industrial enterprises, a process that was supposed to reconcile “unique artistic work” and “faceless mass production”. By the early 1960s, over 100 artists were working in the industrial sector and to varying degrees helped shape the course of the process. The best of the work of these artists attained significance on the European level, but only rarely ended up in the homes of local consumers, for this was an era in which ordinary people faced perpetual shortages of goods. In any case, the serial and limited edition products of the Art Products Factory Plant, known from 1975 as ARS, represented a unique link between the artistic and the mass-produced.
As in the case of any historical overview, Patterns of Time tends to be based on what each phenomenon seemed like at the time. Time is capricious; it makes its own demands and highlights aspects that it later casts aside or erases. The patterns remain in flux.
Patterns of Time 3 was developed by museum collection curators Merike Alber, Kai Lobjakas, Airi Ligi, Anne Tiivel and Helen Adamson.
Design by Maret Volens and Ketli Tiitsar, graphic design: Tuuli Aule.
The exhibition was supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.