 |
|
|
|
In the year 2000, the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art is old enough to start recording its history. Having actively involved itself in Estonian art life as early as 1992, the centre began to both create the ensuing confusion and to document it. Seven years of confusion, excluding the somewhat eventless early part of the decade, now find themselves safely between covers of the art history collection The Arrogant Nineties. Various authors portray the decade through the prism of sociology, semiotics, art history and culturology. This risky undertaking, having now become a book which records the history of the still unfinished decade, balances between critical and historical methods, primarily because many events of that time have not yet acquired a meaning, although the first step on that road has been taken.
|
|
|
|
Estonian Artists 2, published a few months ago, displays a clearer tendency as far as method is concerned. This is the second volume of what will hopefully grow into a series. With its biographical treatments, the book offers insights into 25 Estonian artists. At the moment, the series stands at the crossroads - whether to reach into the more distant past or predict the future. Choosing the past, you lose the reputation of a contemporary institution; choosing the future will turn you into a weather station. The work of younger artists indeed no longer suits the book format; it should instead be a video or film, computer environment or CD-ROM. The topicality of the work of older artists, on the other hand, requires a different evaluation in the changed cultural situation. This publication thus raises more questions than answers.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Estonian Art 2/00 (8) | Published by the Estonian Institute 2000 | ISSN 1406-5711 (Online) | ISSN 1406-3549 (Printed version) | einst@einst.ee | tel: (372) 631 43 55 | fax: (372) 631 43 56 |
|
|
