The Long and Winding Road to Kumu
	Georg Poslawski

	It took more than fifty years of fantasizing and seven years of good luck to fulfil a dream. Now the long and winding road to the Art Museum of Estonia is over. It ends in a maze of halls and bridges of a gorgeous edifice carved into a Lasnamäe cliff. This state-of-the-art building is packed with beautiful artefacts. Although the name Kumu refers to art in general (Kunstimuuseum - Art Museum) the permanent exhibition in the main focuses on the history of art in Estonia. What we have here is by all means a big picture of Estonian art throughout the centuries. Only now have we an opportunity to look at a development of arts in Estonia from different points of view and on different levels. The question as to whether Estonian art has to be seen as a product of hand-crafted replicas of comprehensive trends in a world's art, or as an independent process influenced by art movements in neighbouring countries, attains its most contradictory formulation in Kumu's exhibition on Estonian art since the end of WW II*. The time has come to talk about the positioning of Estonian art on a scale of world's art history and, of course, its image.
	Positioning and image Positioning has always been connected with a strategic vision and therefore expresses an institution's wish to display itself to the public as a body of certain signs in order to influence the shaping of an image or change it. So far, the international image of the post-war Estonian art has primarily been connected with a strong tradition of graphic art, a singular co-effect of various print techniques and diverse styles. Since the 1960s Estonian artists-printmakers have participated in many exhibitions in Europe and Japan. Printmaking was the kind of art that could be transported relatively painlessly behind 'the iron curtain' and thus constituted an easy way to communicate with the open art world. And the world understood this language of communication. Estonian artists were awarded grand prix at various significant international graphic art competitions, or became nominees. Indeed, the world outside the soviet borders learned about post-war Estonian art mostly via graphic works. Heads of large art centres in Europe and the USA arrived here to examine local art. In the 1960s, Estonian printmaking was truly the symbol of the emergence of 'new art' (Norton Dodge's exhibition New Art from the Soviet Union in American art centres). Unfortunately, Kumu's permanent exhibition does not reflect this. Why was it necessary to abandon the image of a 'great printmaking country' that for decades attracted curators and collectors? And what does the display at the new art museum offer instead?
	Painters of a 'bright future' Entering the halls of post-war art the visitor is in for a surprise - huge palatial canvases display the mythological characters of Stalinist era state commissions - soldiers, workers and peasants (maidens in national costumes). Above them, Lenin and Stalin themselves. What is amazing is that the authors of some works (paintings and sculptures) have in no way been connected with Estonia or Estonian art. An explanation for such a display is offered in the Kumu booklet: "The collection tries to fulfil several tasks. It examines the relationship between art and the Soviet state, best revealed in the display of the post-war socialist realism". In reality, the display of the 1940s and 1950s does not present anything but mediocre soviet academism. This particular exhibition might have perhaps fulfilled its purpose had it displayed, besides the 'Stalinists', also the work of those artists who were forced to leave Estonia after the soviet occupation. However, Estonian art in exile is totally lacking in Kumu, as if there had never been Estonian artists' associations in Stockholm, Toronto or New York.
	Studio Art Moving on from the large-format soviet palace art of the permanent exhibition, we find ourselves in the midst of quite another kind of art. The so-called official and unofficial art of the early 1960s is presented in equal share, but it immediately strikes the eye how different is not only the style but the format as well - the commissioned works and those made for the exhibitions are much larger than the others. In the tall, spacious rooms, the abstract works of Elmar Kits, Henn Roode, Valve Janov or Kaja Kärner seem like blotches of colour or sketches for something. In fact the artists painted these pictures more for themselves, and not for exhibitions. Material differs vastly too: 'unofficial' art seeks an outlet in collages (Kaja Kärner, Composition with a Watch, late 1950s) or in board paintings with limited usage of colours. Art made to be kept in a drawer and never exhibited certainly deserves (and awaits) thorough documentation and serious research as a phenomenon in its own right.
	Artists' groups The major part of the display of art in the second half of the 20th century belongs to painting, but unlike the exhibition of art of the first half of the same century, it is not directly gathered around schools or art groups, which greatly influenced the unofficial art processes both in Tallinn and in the university town of Tartu. Artists' groups from the sixties to nineties were associations of friends with similar intellectual interests and aspirations, with keen educational and creative processes going on inside. The permanent exhibition reveals strong connections between individuals and common ideas that influenced the development of art in Estonia since the second half of the 1960s. At the same time there is no chance to associate one or another artist with a specific process or his place in a group (except SOUP '69). Instead, the development of various artists (Jüri Arrak, Malle Leis, Tiit Pääsuke, Ando Keskküla, Andres Tolts) through several decades has been shown in detail, and additionally the 'one-painting-artists' such as Tõnu Virve. As a result, some stronger artists were left out of the exhibition, and quite a few are very badly displayed.
	Masters of Estonian Avant-garde It seems odd to have to admit that the avant-garde art (one of the most extreme forms of modernism) in Estonia was born under the influence of Russian avant-garde in the years before the country regained independence, both in its first (late 1910s) and second (late 1960s) period. The prophet of the second period is unanimously considered Ülo Sooster (1924-1970) who lived in Moscow. Besides his work, Kumu exhibits quite a comprehensive overview of three other great art innovators. Visitors learn about the processes emerging behind the 'iron curtain', which spurred new and singular art. It primarily signified abandoning formalism and turning towards Oriental philosophy in search of universal truth. Tõnis Vint, the founder of an acclaimed and functioning school already since the mid-1960s, was greatly inspired by his encounter with Ülo Sooster and his friends in Moscow. Leonhard Lapin and Raul Meel, in their turn, found inspiration in their communication with Tõnis Vint. At the same time, the anthroposophic approach to art was also characteristic of Kaljo Põllu, founder of the Art Studio of Tartu University, whose work and educational activities deserve much more extensive showing than currently available. The two kinetic objects of Villu Jõgeva and Kaarel Kurismaa afforded the exhibition a somewhat wider art historical significance, emphasising the importance of the background system at the time when new Estonian art was born. It must be admitted, in sum, that the huge and grand building of the art museum is alas too small to display art in a truly comprehensive manner as it is done elsewhere in the world. I therefore hope that the exhibitions of contemporary Estonian art and the relevant activities will soon find new rooms in the Museum of Contemporary Art, and about time too. * The permanent displays Difficult Choices and Alternative Art on Estonian art from the end of WW II until the restoration of Estonian Independence were curated by Eha Komissarov and Kädi Talvoja Georg Poslawski (1953), studied at the Tallinn Technical University, universities in Leningrad and Tartu. MA from University of Tartu and MBA from Estonian Business School. Studied art management in Germany and the USA. Ran LUUM Gallery in Tallinn and organised art auctions. Mostly researched Russian and Estonian modernism in theatre and art. Lives and works in Moscow.
	| Estonian Art 1/06 (18) | Published by the Estonian Institute 2006 | ISSN 1406-5711 (Online) | ISSN 1406-3549 (Printed version) | einst@einst.ee | tel: (372) 631 43 55 | fax: (372) 631 43 56 |