Review: Biennale of Young Artists, Tallinn, 2007
	Catherine Hemelryk

	The Biennale of Young Artists took place from 28 September to 11 November 2007 The Baltic region has long played host to many -iennales, from the Textile Biennale in Kaunas to the Sculpture Quadrennial in Riga. After the celestial alignment of the biggest art events this summer – Münster, Documenta and Venice – another timing nicety occurred this autumn in Tallinn with the Print Triennial, and appropriately the newest, the first Biennale of Young Artists (BYA).
	Rael Artel and Anneli Porri curated this first edition of the BYA which took place in the grand yet-dilapidated Rüütelkonna Building in the centre of the tourist hub of Old Town. This exhibition was just one part of the BYA, the project started in February 2007 with the first event of the Public Preparation programme. This began with a panel discussion in Tallinn entitled Translocal Express with the panel considering the roles of national identity versus universality and different approaches in the region and beyond. Themes raised from this (including perhaps the inherent problems of representation verses content perhaps signified by the panel) threaded through into the final exhibition, as did the intentions of the iMagine event at CAC Vilnius in May 2007. The 3-day workshop for young practitioners from the region featured seminars led by Mara Traumane, Aaron Schuster and Simon Sheikh. Artists’ power and responsibility for the future, with a perennial favourite topic of potential future utopias led to presentations of the first gay magazine in Poland DIK Fagazine (pertinent considering current issues with Pride marches) and stimulating discussions on desire and advertising via Balzac and Adam Curtis led by Schuster. Although a little arbitrary, the events were fascinating and the most poignant thing to arise from this event was simply the meeting of the young artists and curators from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Unlike the older generations with their Soros-era links, this younger generation were more likely to meet in Amsterdam, Berlin or London than next door and this event successfully fostered new links.
	The other events included a Summer Camp in Pärnu focussing on collectives, project spaces, magazines and activists and the Portfolio Café, a programme running concurrently with the exhibition to help equip MA students with the tools to find a way not only in the already established art systems, but to have the tools for forging their own routes. The exhibition titled Consequences and Proposals was halved; one per curator. Rael Artel’s aimed to explore the immediate future basing from the perspective that all art-making is political and Anneli Porri’s looked at the recent history of the region with its hushed up events and transforming society. Rather than being separated physically the two shows intermingled throughout the halls with colour-coded labels or plinths for differentiation. Where this approach succeeded was that the rooms of the building could be used in the best way possible for the needs of the work. It was entirely used from its formerly public grandiose to the drab private offices in the back. The curators played with these previous uses and most successful were the installations by Johanna Lecklin’s Story Café and Andreas Mangione & Hanna Dagerskog in the ex-library. Their edition of Road Runner’s Press was a walk through the Kista Science City – a high-tech source of information and a reprint of a SF comic from 1969. With a chipboard hexagon they neatly show outmoded ideas and hark back to an unashamed idealism and Buckminster Fuller. Evelina Deicmane and Theo Mercier also succeeded particularly well in the gloomy faded glory of the grand hall with chandeliers. Their medieval hunting trophies of antlers and wooden stumps featured unsettling photographs to create a macabre overlap with fairytale and nature in a surprisingly fashionable piece. In reality it was difficult to compartmentalise the shows and discern their subtleties and the shows ultimately negated each other – Porri’s seeming tautological and Artel’s appearing unfocused – and several artists could have been in either show, yet when extracting the shows individually this is not the case.
	Artel’s half had some extremely strong work, which although denying a strict theme, shared a sensibility and many questioned the established art-system. Some used visual lexicon playfully to critique exhibiting such as REP’s hieroglyphics explaining historical exhibition hanging from rigid density to a pluralist yet designed explosion. Juozas Laivys brought air from another institution, and will infiltrate the next venue with air from Tallinn. This playful cross-fertilisation was represented in the space by an unkempt pencil sentence (not written by Laivys) that was nowhere near as beautiful as the idea. Gintaras Didžiapetris’ You Are the Mirror’s glossy white cards were presented in a rough cardboard box on the floor in a back room. It deftly played with viewer relationships, although would have more impact in a white cube space.
	Several of Porri’s artists focused on the recent troubles with Russian relations. The movement of the memorial in Tallinn was explored in Kristina Norman’s bizarre but fantastic film that tied in 2001’s monkeys with the monument taking off. Rather more simplistic and epigrammatic were works by John Phillip Mäkinen (reversible jacket in the flags of Russia and Estonia) and Alexander Raevski (Moldovan cities coloured by flags). A highlight of this section of the show was Dying Words by Emma Kihl with her sound, print and text replaying the death or silence, pause or inarticulation, the layers of this piece highlighted by the easiness of other works on the floor. BYA strikes a nice balance in presenting work being made by young artists today whilst not pretending to be a conclusive survey show (an impossible task), the curators picked up on several pertinent issues and sensibilities although it is shadowed by compromise. Issues of nationality, politics and what it means to be an artist working today (or not, in the case of Akvile Anglickaite’s portraits) are present without being too laboured or didactic. The focus on younger artists is appropriate, perennially relevant particularly in a region where young artists are so active. Biennales can be a catalyst for artistic production and the fostering of ongoing conversation between instalments, and this is a strong start despite a minority of weaker work hiding amongst the excellent pieces. The curators have provided a strong beginning for this new Biennale through presenting much strong work, and through the Public Preparation that has made an important contribution to the region fostering new relationships and dialogue. See also www.biennaleofyoungartists.org Catherine Hemelryk (1978), 2004 MA Curating Contemporary Art (Royal College of Art, London), 2002 BA (hons) Fine Art (Newcastle University). Currently curator at Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, also maintaining freelance curatorial work, writing and studio projects.
	| Estonian Art 2/07 (21) | Published by the Estonian Institute 2007 | ISSN 1406-5711 (Online) | ISSN 1406-3549 (Printed version) | einst@einst.ee | tel: (372) 631 43 55 | fax: (372) 631 43 56 |