EXHIBITIONS
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9th Tallinn Print Triennial will take place at the Lasnamäe pavilion of Tallinn Art Hall from June 21st to August 31st 2025.
The 19th edition of the Tallinn Print Triennial, one of the longest-running art events in Estonia, is devoted to reinterpreting the tradition of graphic art, while reflecting our contemporary time and space. Drawing on the architecture of this year’s main venue, which can be seen as an endless loop, the triennial invites us to imagine the life cycle of a graphic figure: what it is born from, where it dies, and everything that happens in between. The works of 14 artists displayed in the Tallinn Art Hall’s pavilion offer multiple approaches to addressing the unprecedented information glut all around us.
Due to information overload, the reactive nature of methods of communication and the acceleration in the pace of life it has caused, we’ve come to recognize that the digital was designed for forgetting and the analogue exists for remembering. In such a context, the illegible title of the exhibition serves as a form of resistance. Interpreting it requires a little too much attention and concentration, which appear to be in short supply in today’s context of flickering screens and massive burden of filtering information.
Curator: Marika Agu (CCA)
Artist: Siim-Tanel Annus (EE), Zuza Banasińska (PL), Mirtha Dermisache (AR), John Grzinich (EE/US), Maria Erikson (EE), Doris Hallmägi (EE), Semjon Hanin (LV), Lauri Koppel (EE), Maija Kurševa (LV), Lauri Lest (EE), Maria Mayland (DE), Dzelde Mierkalne (LV), Anna Niskanen (FI), Algirdas Jakas (LT), Tõnis Jürgens (EE), Anne Rudanovski (EE), Ülo Sooster (EE), Anastasia Sosunova (LT), Viktor Timofeev (LV), Gintautas Trimakas (LT), Taavi Villak (EE)
Marika Agu (1989) is a curator based in Tallinn. Since 2017, she has worked as a curator and archive project manager at the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), organising exhibitions and screenings based on the archive’s publications and videos. She was a member of the curatorial team of the Icelandic art festival Sequences 2023. She has studied semiotics, cultural theory and art history, and has also studied librarianship. Marika has been curating exhibitions since 2012 and has also published articles in Estonian and international media. She is a member of the board of A Shade Colder, a magazine dedicated to contemporary art, established in 2021.
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The artists included are Triin Mänd, Elise Marie Olesk, Marten Prei, Sandra Puusepp and Paul Rannik.
The works in the exhibition approach printmaking through exploring its potential as a tool for documentation, systems thinking, and the material nature of things. For example, in Hälve, Sandra Puusepp examines the process of grinding a lithographic stone as a tension between natural material behavior and imposed standards, revealing surface irregularities that are usually hidden. In Marten Prei’s work, a large visual image is constructed from one hundred hand-printed segments derived from a digital photo collage, raising questions about perception and image logic. Paul Rannik’s piece Water and Its Character investigates the unique properties of different bodies of water through lithography and chemical composition, creating a visual map that reflects both the water cycle and the artist’s personal experience. Many of the works are united by a desire to make visible what is usually unseen.
Kvadraat is a graphic art based young artist collective. Their work reflects their collective curiosity about the role of graphic art in contemporary visual culture. They experiment with processes, materiality and concepts to open up new ways of thinking about printmaking, viewing it not only as a technique, but also as a means of expression and critical engagement. Through this lens, they explore questions relating to materiality, repetition, reproduction and the shifting boundaries between disciplines.
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ARS Project Space 15.08.–7.09.2025
Mon–Fri 12–18, Sat 12–16
Exhibition opening on August 14 at 18.00
A touch can be a vessel for both unimaginable lightness as well as incredible weight. Yet, oddly enough, both seem equal in effect. Every touch demands the recognition of some sort of boundary. The question: "Where does the other end, and where do I begin?" ends in (a) touch. Where we meet is where our boundaries lie, and thus, every touch also presents as a hidden border situation. However, the ability to spot lines drawn in sand deteriorates over the course of a lifetime.
Boundaries, which one might recognise as such, oftentimes tend to border on the extreme – be it national borders, the line between life and death, or the edge that separates depths from altitudes. Taking this into account, the exhibition "and then, suddenly, nothing" turns its attention towards the birthplace of a boundary – towards touch; be that touch the glistening condensation of water on a windowpane, the trace of a pen on paper, the refraction of light in the distance between a wave’s crest and a camera’s lens, or the last brush of a bee’s hind leg against the landing board of its hive, before taking off in solitary flight.
In their work, both Mölder and Maide deal with places and motifs, for which "almost, as if" acts as a motor of meaning. Almost, as if there was something just beyond sight. Almost, as if you could spot some kind of flicker, somewhere over there. Almost, as if things were not quite as they seem. Combining the mediums of photography, glassworking, drawing, graphic arts, and installation, both artists observe the sound of silent touch and the illusory nature of certain boundaries with remarkable deliberation and attentiveness – what remains is a touch, which lingers in its traces.
Curator: Aleksander Metsamärt
The exhibition is supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Artists’ Association, Suti Viinaköök
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Riin Maide (1997) is an artist and scenographer living and working in Tallinn. Tenderness, graphic depiction and site specificity take on a central role in Maide’s work. Her works deal with fragile boundaries and spatial dissonance – built elements, installations, scenographic tools, and symbols intertwine and blur the lines between the internal and the external, between closeness and distance, and between the present and the past.
Maide holds a master’s degree in scenography (2025) and has previously completed her studies in graphic arts (2020) at the Estonian Academy of Arts’ Faculty of Fine Arts. She has also pursued further training at DAMU’s Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre in Prague, as well as the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Riin has received the Edmund Valtman and the Eduard Wiiralt scolarships and was awarded the EKA Young Artist Prize in 2020.
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Krista Mölder (1972) is an artist who, at the centre of her work, deals with light, time and the potential for something to emerge, to develop – characteristics which are inherent to the photographic medium. These technical and formal aspects also stand as a substantive starting point in her artistic process. Her photos and videos hold and capture potential: the contours of perspective, the outlines of possibility. Mölder stages situations that are not fully finished, and in her photography, it is that which gets left out of frame that captures her interest, as well as the interplay between the separate elements of a picture.
Krista Mölder was a nominee for the Köler Prize in 2016, and she received the Annual Award for Visual and Applied Arts by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia in 2020. In 2022, Mölder worked at the WIELS Art Center residency in Brussels. Among her recent exhibitions are: "A Temporary Thing" (2024) at Ars Projektiruum in Tallinn; "The Death Began in Autumn" (2023) at Casa Lü in Mexico City; "and Other Shades of Light" (2022) at Tallinn Art Hall; "The Blue Bird. To the Other Me" (2021) at the Tartu Art House; "You were a bird" (2020) at the Temnikova and Kasela Gallery in Tallinn; "before the sun blinded our eyes" (2020) at the Hop Gallery in Tallinn; and "Getting Lost" (2017) at the KanZan Gallery in Tokyo.
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ARS Showroom #74: Laura De Jaeger "Witness, observer, (zzz)"
ARS Showroom Gallery
5.–29.08.2025Mon–Fri 12–18
Finissage 28.08 at 19:00
A migrating bird’s nest and trucker's bed share impressions of the surroundings, time passing and their companion's resting rhythm.
With contributions by Juan Pablo Plazas and Luth Lea Roose.
Laura De Jaeger lives between Tallinn and Brussels. Her work focuses on objects and sites that are currently resting. Through gathering and paraphrasing, she checks in on ways stories can charge or reshape them. She works with physical materials as well as writing and inviting. Alongside her artistic practice, she works at the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM), teaches at the Estonian Academy of Arts, and guides through exhibitions in WIELS.
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Flanders State of the Art, Estonian Artists' Association and PERI.
The artist would like to thank Patrick De Jaeger, Nienke Fransen, Tõnis Jürgens, Edith Karlson, Johannes Luik, Andri Savet and Agnes Isabelle Veevo.
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Lilli-Krõõt Repnau "Border Area"
GÜ Gallery 28.08–13.09.2025
Mon–Fri 12–18
The opening 28.08 at 19.00
Fininssage 13.09 at 16.00
The exhibition Border Area invites the viewer to enter a space inspired by landscapes of recent history. Through playful forms and shapes, both hidden and visible boundaries are explored.
At the heart of this project is the concept of the nonument, a neglected or vanishing monument caught between memory and disappearance. These overlooked sites reflect shifting ideologies and contested histories. Printmaking becomes a tool to trace the slow erosion of meaning, capturing transformation through layered impressions and fading marks.
The series explores the remnants of the Soviet legacy: buildings, monuments, and landscapes that disappear, are forgotten, reappear, and merge.
One of the graphic series shown in this exhibition is Making a Nonument, which revisits a monument my friends and I helped renovate as teenagers in 1995, in the small village of Käsmu in northern Estonia. During the Soviet era, Käsmu was a restricted area, heavily controlled. The Deer Monument was left behind by the Soviet military and was in a state of extreme disrepair. The monument we restored still stands today.
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Lilli-Krõõt Repnau (b. 1982) is a printmaker and animator, working as an Associate Professor in the Department of Animation at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her artistic practice spans a wide range of media, with a significant focus on recent history.