Jaan Toomik

Last updated

Jaan Toomik (born 2 October 1961 in Tartu) is an Estonian video artist, painter and award-winning filmmaker, often described as the most widely acknowledged Estonian contemporary artist on the international scene.

Contents

Status

In the Estonian art world Toomik received recognition as a painter from the late 1980s and from the early 1990s as an installation and video artist. The critics often refer to him internationally as the most well-known contemporary artist from Estonia [1] mainly due to his short video works that have received wide international acclaim (e.g. Father and Son, 1998). He has participated at the São Paulo Biennale (1994), ARS ‘95 (1995), Manifesta 1 (1996), Venice Biennale (1997; 2003), 4th berlin biennial of contemporary art (2006), etc.
Currently he is represented by Temnikova & Kasela Gallery. [2]

Biography and art

Toomik was born on October 2, 1961 in Tartu, Estonia (then: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic). His father died in 1971, when he was 9 years old, leaving him and his older brother to the care of their mother who was a doctor. Toomik remembers that some time in his late puberty, he became a highly sensitive young man, only taking an interest in philosophy and the beautiful arts. [3] : 43  After graduating from secondary school in Haapsalu town in 1980, he joined the Soviet army for two years, as every male citizen of the Estonian SSR back then had to. From 1981 to 1983 he served his military service near Volgograd in Russia, guarding a huge bomb warehouse and loading ammunition onto the trains bound for Afghanistan, but also drawing dozens and dozens of portraits of his fellow soldiers. [3] : 44 


Shortly after his army experience, Toomik enrolled in the art academy in Tallinn, where between 1985 and 1991 he studied in the faculty of painting. Some large-scale paintings with openly Neo-Expressionist brushwork have survived from that time (e.g. Menstruation, 1989; Dancer, 1990). The artist described himself as being heavily influenced by Jorge Luis Borges in those days: “the perception of identity was different during the Soviet era. /…/ We all lived in some other world. Even geographically we transferred ourselves somewhere else. /…/ However, during the Singing Revolution (1988) you started to identify with this land and nation.” [3] : 45  A good example could be Toomik's temporal installation Bed 75 (1993), located in the centre of Tallinn for one month, which consisted of 75 iron beds, bought by the artist from the Russian military bases – then still located all around the newly independent Estonia. Through painting, Toomik had gradually found his way to performance art and then to installation art and site-specific art, actually abandoning painting altogether, [4] albeit for a short period of time. His interest in installations marks an important move in his professional career. An art historian, artist and curator Hanno Soans has even suggested that “many of Toomik's fans among foreign curators have not properly digested his early development story, the way the Neo-Expressionist painter converted himself to a modern Post-Conceptual installation and video artist.” [3] : 11 


The start of his international career was somewhat “symptomatic” to an artist from post-Berlin Wall generation. Estonia regained its independence in 1991; Jaan Toomik has participated in different international art events since 1993. During the first part of the 1990s, he began to create simple conceptual actions that he usually videotaped. A performance and installation video Way to São Paulo (1994) prepared the background for Toomik's eventual breakthrough on the international art scene. First presented in 1994 in Brazil at the São Paulo Biennale, it depicted a peculiar cube mirror floating on three rivers in Tartu, Prague and São Paulo – all cities geographically on the same line. This was followed by Dancing Home (1995), first presented at ARS ’95 in Kiasma, Helsinki, where the casually dressed artist is seen on the rear deck of a ferry dancing to the hypnotic rhythm of the engines (indirectly echoing the Estonia cruise ferry disaster that occurred on 28 September 1994). In 1997, Toomik represented Estonia at La Biennale di Venezia with another of his site-specific installations, a “view corridor” made of bottomless/topless coffins. With Truck (1997), he projected a bright sunny video image taken from the highway in the San Antonio, Texas, desert onto the back of a truck driving from Tartu to Tallinn in the darkness of the autumn night. The 200 km drive on the trail of the “video-mobile” was documented from the following car. Among other things, on the video documentation of this work, Sirje Helme (then the director of Estonia’s Contemporary Art Centre [5] ) can be briefly seen explaining the art project to the traffic police.

In 1998 Toomik’s most celebrated video Father and Son was completed and first presented at City Gallery in Tallinn. In this short video (2 minutes, 35 seconds) the artist is skating naked across the icy cold Baltic Sea, continuously circling the viewer. Accompanied by a religious choral sung by his ten-year-old son, he finally disappears into the white radiance from which he came. The video belongs to numerous collections (Art Museum of Estonia; Courtesy Nicole Trussardi Foundation; Erika Hoffmann collection, Berlin; Stedeljik Museum, Amsterdam; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Ludwig Museum, Budapest) and all authorized copies are sold. More than a decade later it was still circulated in prestigious international contemporary art events (e. g. 4th berlin biennial of contemporary art, Berlin, 2006; Ostalgia at New Museum, NYC, 2011) and the artist frequently receives requests from different collectors and institutions about the possibility of acquiring a copy.

Toomik has had more than twenty noteworthy solo exhibitions at different venues around the world since 1997, and is considered one of the few contemporary Estonian artists who can be discussed from two distinct angles – the domestic approach and the international reception. For example, the video, Untitled (Man) (2001), displays a certain homage to the themes related to Vienna Actionism, which were important to Toomik in the late 1980s and early 1990s. [6] It shows a man (an amateur actor and performance artist Alar Sudak a.k.a. Elaan) in the middle of the muddy field whose genitals are tied to a stake or a rod through a long piece of white bandage, making him look “castrated”. It is also one of the earliest examples in Toomik’s video art when he turns the camera away from himself and experiments with documentary approach. Peeter and Mart (2001) is a dialogue between two artists, a discreet, yet honest interview with a painter (Peeter Mudist) suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Invisible Pearls (2004), made in collaboration with Jaan Paavle and Risto Laius, is really a short documentary film about ex-convicts who have free-willingly gone through genital mutilation. Liina (2003) and Jaanika (2007) also vividly demonstrate the documentary side of Toomik’s art, which contrasts with his usual artistic signature – universally laconic, short video images and sounds such as Jaan (2001) or Waterfall (2005).

However, in most cases Toomik’s video pieces have a deeply personal background and explanation, as in the case of Untitled (2002). It’s a documentation of a performance dedicated to his deceased brother. In the video, the artist falls freely from a height of 9 meters as if diving or jumping into water, but instead of water it is the earth that “swallows” the artist. Dancing with Dad (2003) is executed in a similar vein: the artist is dancing on the grave of his father, whom he never had the chance to dance with in reality because of his father’s early death. Tellingly, Toomik shares his full name with his father who was also Jaan Toomik.

The motive of cycle within the family bloodline often reoccurs in Toomik’s art. By entitling his short film piece Father and Son 2 in 2007 (not perhaps without a certain sense of self-irony), the artist makes a reference to his “hit” video Father and Son from 1998. The camera captures the artist when he's driving his car and appears to be screaming behind the wheel. Like in 1998, the voice of the artist's son is used in the soundtrack of the piece but this time it's a newborn baby, whose loud cries are juxtaposed by the abrupt “tantrums” of his middle-aged father.

Jaan Toomik continues to live in Tallinn, Estonia, and in the 2000s he has worked at the Estonian Academy of Arts [7] as a professor in the Chair of Interdisciplinary Arts and as a Head of Department of Painting. In 2005, he received the Konrad Mägi Medallion – once-in-a-lifetime award and considered quite prestigious, especially among painters – from the Estonian Artists' Association. As Toomik is considered to be primarily a video artist internationally, his paintings have been received with greater enthusiasm in Estonia than abroad. According to art historian, Eha Komissarov, “these works by Toomik provide a good example of the influence of the manipulation of the body that characterises his video art. They include a self-portrait of the artist /…/, accommodate both the origin of the interpretation of aggressively psychoanalytical surrealism and the story of that generation.” [8]

From art to (art) film

Another change occurred in Toomik's artistic strategy when his solo exhibitions took place at Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn in 2007. Alongside his newest paintings and video works, it featured his first attempt as a filmmaker: a short film Communion (2007, 12 min) shot with a 35 mm camera. His long-time friend and (sort of) alter ego Alar Sudak plays the protagonist of the film where almost no dialogue is used and atmosphere of Toomik's earlier video installations is clearly present. This short film proved to be successful: Communion received jury's special award at the 54th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen [9] and in 2011 it was screened at Centre Pompidou alongside works by Alexander Sokurov, Zbigniew Rybczyński and Želimir Žilnik. In 2010 Toomik finished his second short film Oleg (2010, 20 min, 35 mm), a psychological story with a dark guilt-ridden atmosphere, which is based on his memories from the 1980s when he was in the Soviet Army. Toomik has also publicly expressed a desire to make a full-length feature, while still maintaining a passionate attitude towards painting and all kinds of interdisciplinary art practises.

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">São Paulo Art Biennial</span> Art biennial

The São Paulo Art Biennial was founded in 1951 and has been held every two years since. It is the second oldest art biennial in the world after the Venice Biennale, which serves as its role model.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kumu (museum)</span> Art museum in Tallinn, Estonia

The Kumu Art Museum is an art museum in Tallinn, Estonia. It is one of the largest museums in Estonia and one of the largest art museums in Northern Europe. It is one of the five branches of the Art Museum of Estonia, housing its main offices.

Erich Carl Hugo Adamson was an Estonian artist who worked mainly within the medium of painting in applied art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonhard Lapin</span> Estonian architect and artist (1947–2022)

Leonhard Lapin, also known under the pseudonym Albert Trapeež, was an Estonian architect, artist, architecture historian, and poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gastón Ugalde</span> Artist, Painter, Photographer & Scluptor

Gastón Ugalde Bolivian artist recipient of the Konex Award in 2002 along with Oscar Niemeyer is called "the most important living Bolivian artist" by the Konex Foundation in Argentina and is also referred as the "Andean Warhol" by art critics. Ugalde is also known as "the enfant terrible" of the Bolivian Art Scene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mall Nukke</span> Estonian artist

Mall Nukke is an Estonian artist. A printmaker by training, she is primarily known for her paintings, collages and installations influenced by pop art. Mall Nukke emerged on the Estonian art scene in the early 1990s, her work at the period can be seen as commentary of nascent mass culture and consumer society in newly independent Estonia. Her early collages combined various cultural references and created new media characters based on real entertainers and public figures. Since the 2000s, Mall Nukke has concentrated on creating photo-manipulations and mixed media paintings inspired by Eastern Orthodox icon art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taavi Varm</span> Estonian artist

Taavi Varm is an Estonian artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liis Koger</span> Estonian painter and poet

Liis Koger is an Estonian painter and poet based in Tallinn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timo Toots</span> Estonian artist

Timo Toots is an Estonian artist, mainly active in the field of interactive art and new media art. He is also the founder of project space Maajaam in Otepää.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tartu Art Museum</span> Museum in Tartu, Estonia

Tartu Art Museum is a state-owned museum of art located in Tartu, Estonia. It was founded in 1940 on a private initiative by the members of local art school Pallas. This is the largest art museum in Southern Estonia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikolai Triik</span> Estonian artist

Nikolai Voldemar Triik was an Estonian Modernist painter, graphic artist, printmaker and professor. His work displays elements of Symbolism and Expressionism.

Malle Leis was an Estonian painter and graphic artist. Her works mostly represent abstract forms in nature, including flowers, fruits, and vegetables. She developed a silk screen technique that became her trademark.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kris Lemsalu</span> Estonian artist

Kris Lemsalu is a contemporary artist based in Tallinn, Estonia and Vienna, Austria. She studied art at the Estonian Academy of Arts, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Eccentric with color and material, she uses props, costumes, and other natural materials to portray her artwork. In these installations, Lemsalu sculpts an installation that "gives birth to a world of shamanic force, visionary weirdness, and collective revival." By playing with traditions, Lemsalu blurs the origin and scenically removes their dogma. She avoids "concrete labeling, simultaneously showing us the absurdity of as well as the effectiveness of rituals. From this collective transformative euphoria emerges a belief in the possibility of human redemption." "A punk pagan trickster feminist sci-fi shaman, Kris Lemsalu gathers together both collected and crafted objects into totemic sculptures and hallucinatory environments, animated with performances by the artist and her coterie of collaborators;" her work being shown in many places, including Berlin, Copenhagen and Tokyo. In 2015, she participated in Frieze Art Fair New York, where her work Whole Alone 2 was selected among of five best exhibits by the Frieze New York jury.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kuno Veeber</span> Estonian painter

Kuno Veeber was an Estonian painter and graphic artist whose career began in the late 1910s.

Marcia Grostein Marcia Grostein is a Brazilian-American artist known for using various mediums across public art, sculpture, painting, video art, photography, and portable wearable art/jewelry. She was the first contemporary Brazilian artist to be acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the 20th Century Collection by the curator Lowery Sims.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaarel Kurismaa</span> Estonian artist

Kaarel Kurismaa is the first and one of the most important sound art and sound installation artists in Estonia. His work also expands into the field of painting, animation, public space monumental art, stage installations. In Estonian art history, Kurismaa’s significance lies mostly in the pioneering work with kinetic art and with keeping its traditions alive. Kurismaa stands as one of Estonian sound art scene’s central icons. His idiosyncratic work serves as a foundation for Estonian sound and kinetic art.

Ülo Õun was an Estonian sculptor whose career began in the late 1960s and came to prominence in the 1970s. Õun mainly worked as a portrait and figural sculptor and was known for his works in colored plaster and bronze.

The Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia is a self-established, artist-run contemporary art museum in Tallinn, Estonia. EKKM was founded in 2006 by Anders Härm, Elin Kard, Neeme Külm and Marco Laimre. As an unconventional format of an institution, the organisation focuses on producing, exhibiting, collecting and initiating contemporary art. At the same time, they challenge and aim to alter the classical working methods of established art institutions.

Anu Põder was an Estonian visual artist.

Bita Razavi is a contemporary artist living and working between Helsinki, Finland and Mahu, Estonia. Her works, which have been exhibited in various exhibitions worldwide, look into the inner workings of social systems in relation with the political structures and national events of historic proportions in various countries. She works with a broad range of media including video, photography, installation, sound and performance.

References

  1. ↑ See, for example, web portal “Estonica.org”: http://www.estonica.org/eng/lugu.html?menyy_id=874&kateg=41&alam=57&leht=9 Archived 2008-09-22 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ↑ Homepage of Temnikova & Kasela Gallery: http://www.temnikova.ee/
  3. 1 2 3 4 Jaan Toomik. ISBN   978-9985-9756-5-7. Catalogue compiled by Heie Treier. Tallinn: Art Museum of Estonia, Kumu Art Museum, 2007.
  4. ↑ Eha Komissarov, Jaan Toomik. – Estonian Artists 1. ISBN   9985-60-433-4. Edited by Johannes Saar. Tallinn: Center for Contemporary Arts, Estonia, 1998, p. 221.
  5. ↑ Homepage of CCA, Estonia: http://www.cca.ee/?lang=en
  6. ↑ Hanno Soans, The Return to Toomik. – kunst.ee, 3/2002, p. 12.
  7. ↑ Homepage of Estonian Academy of Arts: http://www.artun.ee/index.php?lang=eng
  8. ↑ Digital web archive of Art Museum of Estonia: http://digikogu.ekm.ee/eng/fpage/search/oid-451/?sfrom=author&searchtype=simple&searchtext=toomik&offset=11
  9. ↑ "Looking back - 2008 Award Winners". www.kurzfilmtage.de.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.