Anyway after that Steve wasn't feeling that well (sore throat) so just Franziska and I went to Kumu, the art gallery. Not the old art but the new art - starting in about 1600 I think.
The top floor was all new responding-to-digital-age art which was more interesting than I've described it (though I admit I've described it badly). Like this installation by Timo Toots called Neural Nectar, 'a metaphor for the age of artifical intelligence'. Toots 'created the wax and honey sculptures... in collaboration with bees in the summer of 2025 at the bee art laboratory in the tech and art laboratory Maajaam, near Otepää, in southern Estonia.'
There was, actually, some very fine material on this floor. I mean it only scratches the surface of the 'psychotic' or whatever you call it nature of what we're living through/in but it works well. I have to say I wanted to retreat to the past however (particularly, Estonia's past grapplings with totalitarianism).
Siima Škop, 'Õpime, et ehitada!' ('We study to build!') 1952. Beautiful propaganda poster.
Viktor Karrus and Roman Treuman, 'Socialistliku võistluse väljakutse vabariigi traktroistidele' ('Tractor drivers taking up the challenge of socialist competition') 1951
Evald Okas 'Uus Lin' ('New Town') 1965
Nikolai Kormašov 'Raudbetoon' ('Reinforced Concrete') 1965
Henn Roode 'Demonstratsioon' ('Demonstration') 1963.
I must say this really had an impact on me, though I don't find it as attractive as many of the others, but the way Roode has put in that busy band of faces in there is really impressive.
Valve Janov, 'Kala Karlova kohal' ('Fish Above Karlova') 1965
Look let's face it - basically everything in here was incredible! There was a freshness to it, even the soviet-era stuff, that didn't just feel like work executed under something the world was going through, but something peculiarly local. I loved it.
This is Mart Viljus' 1997 installation 'Trademarks'. It's excellent in execution and concept. Look at some of these 'products'... the trademarks/branding is real, but it's on the 'wrong' product. Great take.
Now for the feedback:
I almost stole the picture of the star-headed person below but I guess, well, I sort of have stolen it anyway right.
Basically I don't think I can really do KUMU justice in either text or photos but it wasn't just the great building, etc it was the ambience of the work which opened up perspectives on world history via Estonian history and really felt like the tip of the iceberg.
On to... the architecture museum!
