Big connections and small differences
	Anu Allas

	“I have these two things in quite different compartments, theatre and video. I think that in theatre I, of course, use my awareness of contemporary art, but to include theatre in video still seems totally unsuitable.” Ene-Liis Semper’s interview with Harry Liivrand, Eesti Ekspress, 28 September 2006
	Despite making a huge effort not to, I nevertheless will again start with theatre. It is true that tackling Ene-Liis Semper’s videos and installations via her work in theatre [Ene-Liis Semper graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts as a scenographer and has created dozens of sets and costumes in various Estonian theatres – Ed] can quite easily be misconstrued. What’s more, ‘theatricality’ and ‘performance’ carry with them the danger of becoming comfortable symbolic words that seem to justify and explain anything at all (this is not ‘real’, just acting, a show), but in the end they still miss everything. However, it is difficult to cast aside the theatre altogether. Maybe next time. In connection with Semper’s current exhibition and its reception, I remembered a radio interview of a few years back, where the journalist talking to the video artist Ene- Liis Semper was amazed to learn about her extensive work in theatre. This kind of surprise was normal and understandable. Semper’s activity in theatre was no secret, but the exhibition and theatre audiences did not exactly coincide. To the fans of her videos, her work in theatre was not that important, something that most artists have to do in order to survive.
	The situation began gradually to change during Semper’s last exhibition in the Tallinn Art Hall in 2002–2003. There was more talk about creating space, presence, theatre productions, and Ene-Liis was thought of as a theatre designer, if not in any other way then certainly via images and vocabulary. At that time parallels with theatre seemed fascinating and promising, and still are, as long as they do not become formal, superficial and do not try to suffocate all other topics and possibilities. During the few years since her previous exhibition, quite a bit has happened which has considerably shifted the public’s expectations. Ene-Liis Semper is one of the creators, an artist and often the director of the recent group NO99. The theatre has attracted keen attention. The spaces, stages and costumes created by Ene-Liis seem to compete with one another and prove the claim – however well-worn the claim may be – that an artist can and sometimes does create at least half the production. However, this is an altogether separate topic. Anyway, the majority of the Estonian cultural public associates Ene-Liis Semper with theatre as much as with visual art, or maybe more with theatre. Those who earlier might have doubted or been totally ignorant, have now realised that she takes it – theatre – seriously. There is probably part of the audience which goes to an exhibition of the theatre designer Semper not knowing much about her earlier work. The journalist is no longer surprised to hear about her work in theatre, and asks: “How did working with King Ubu [the production of Alfred Jarry’s surrealist play in summer 2006 – Ed] influence your preparations for this exhibition?” And the artist replies: “It didn’t”.
	Here we are then. It is true that what an artist says about his or her work, and what the public and the critics observe, can often be completely different. “I can see the Harlequin – in a costume from King Ubu – running in circles to the cheers of the crowd”, protests the spectator. “I see a weird, long-legged rag doll Malle sprawled on a chair in the middle of the room. I see an artist in a rabbit’s costume and I see him being shot and the ‘blood’ oozing from the shirt lining.” This is, after all, theatre, a show, where nothing is real! Whatever. It has never been an easy task to write about Ene-Liis Semper’s oeuvre, but it is always exciting. Her works tend to produce any number of associations, without ever affording any secure foothold. They can be paired off with other, more diverse, works; they can be divided in every which way, but none of that produces a whole with stable features that could be labelled as an ‘Ene-Liis Semper work’. If, for example, we regard the three ‘big wall videos’ of the exhibition, each seems to require a totally different vocabulary and tone in order to analyse it. What would happen if we transfered the rabbit of the tragi-comic family story (Nameless, 2004) to the peculiar video about a condition (Train, 2006)? How would the rumble of an approaching train sound or what would a waiting person do in a room turned upside down (Untitled, 2006), where the camera ‘crawls’ across the ceiling between lamps and finally moves out of the window to look ‘down’ at the sky? These are completely different worlds. If we could be certain that this was ‘theatre’ (either in the most mundane or most expansive meaning), it would be easier to stand the change of registers.
	From the interviews with Ene-Liis Semper, I seem to remember, for some reason, all sorts of negations: it’s not like that, I did not mean that, it did not influence me. Let us disregard here the special relationship between an artist and the media, and the strategic or emotional reasons for the arguments – such constant negation could develop into a much more efficient image. The same tendency also seems to be spreading among critics – it is much easier to say what Semper’s videos are not, despite the appearances. It is not as if these works have a more real and constant existence somewhere ‘deep’, which nobody is smart enough to put into words: they actually do mean different and contradictory things at the same time. This multiplicity is, in a way, rather fragile – the moment you emphasise and clearly determine one part, it starts to disturb and destroy the others. As often happens, the absence of something in Ene- Liis’s works is sometimes more eloquent than its presence. Regarding this exhibition, it has already been pointed out that she has practically disappeared from her videos, except for a hidden appearance (in a rabbit costume, ‘headless’, wrapped in tin foil at the opening performance). Recalling Semper’s earlier works, the heroine’s essence, behaviour and disappearance require special examination. The early heroines were always dramatic, even tragic, vulnerable or tortured, but nevertheless beautiful, often glamorous, and always well aware of their role. The video Beautiful (2006) – where the artist, in a white costume, after meticulously trying out various poses and positions, is shot at seems a kind of obituary to the earlier tormented protagonists. Or to put it more eloquently – liberation. Although, of course, one never knows.
	Coming back to theatre, we should not overdo the parallels, although there certainly is something. Semper’s relationships with her images and stories resemble a theatre director’s relationships with her material. They (images and stories) are never especially unique, but they are frequent; no need to stick to them, although it is always possible to return to the most important ones; their other possible and earlier meanings often retreat before the one specific new presentation and cause. Personal energy and ‘small differences’ are always more significant in Semper’s works than switching into a bigger current, representing something, choosing a side on a battlefield. It is not a question of whether someone somewhere has already said, thought or done something similar, but of what can be done with the abundantly existing raw material, how to connect this with yourself, how to make it eloquent. Ene-Liis Semper (1969), theatre, video, installation and performance artist. Since the mid-1990s, she has participated in numerous exhibitions all over the world, including the Venice Biennial. Her work has been characterised as auto-aggressive, meditative, conceptual, surreal, associative, and staged. Her first exhibition after a few years’ interval took place in autumn 2006 in the Tallinn Art Hall. Anu Allas (1977), art critic. She works at the Art Museum of Estonia.
	| Estonian Art 2/06 (19) | 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 |