EESTI ENERGIAD

Vernissage:  28. 2. 2001, 18 pm

Kai Kaljo, Jüri Ojaver, Paul Rodgers, Jaan Toomik, Jaan Paavle und Jaan Jaanisoo

Personal energy - how is it created and destroyed. Not simply the power of bodies physical but spiritual and emotional energy is at the heart of this exhibition . How it is squandered and yet somehow survives in a pragmatic, rapidly changing world.

The dissipation of energy in sexual relationships. The distance that comes between people and the intense burning blinding energy of personal love and sexuality. The alienation of individuals and the forces creating outsiders on the edge of what is considered "normal" society - the drift into the criminal. The frustration of fighting with bureaucracy, corruption and nepotism and of fighting for the truth through lies, and the temptation to give up that fight.

The consuming anger of lost opportunity for life and love and the equally intense vacuum that is loneliness. Yearning, nagging loneliness. Not just the loneliness, the longing for an unknown other, that typifies much creative work (The dark lady of Shakespeare's sonnets) and which often drives artists onwards - but a destructive loneliness, of outsiders, isolated individuals and the unloved. The borders of despair.

These are the currents which underlie these artists work and are treated with some humour, albeit black humour, bringing together video presentations installations and actions from six artists from Estonia. Work verging on the borders of theatre, which shifts ones perspective and places us in an unfamiliar place filled with cool shivers and gooseflesh.