Zhiguli 2101 and Moskvitch 412 park
Kädi Talvoja

	A photo-technical shot of a deserted car park, a view from one car into another, ... a third, the glance fading out on the windscreen of a fourth ... Arbitrary foreshortening, sharp focus on metallic shiny plates, cold smooth surface of the canvas, scarce choice of colours, aerographic diffusion of bright red seats ... The first Estonian hyperrealists were mostly condemned, namely for similar pictures of cars painted after the examples of the Americans. Superficiality, a magpie-like desire for shiny things and a banality of motifs were inevitable in real life, but in hyperrealist art … unforgivable. The hyperrealist paintings of the 1970s rarely show a human being, and thus they seem like scenes from a modern horror movie after a catastrophe – no trace of destruction, no trace of life. The motifs are emphatically mundane, but not trivial. The hyperrealists mostly focused on the surface of things and everything that took place on that surface. The central place in the work of the first American hyperrealists belonged to cars and motorbikes, and this is why the style acquired its technocratic image (hyperrealism is probably one of the last Western art phenomena that aspired to the meaning of style in its all-embracing and clear-cut nature). Car pictures also have a rather significant and not too positive role in the Estonian hyperrealism of the 1970s. At the young artists’ exhibition in 1975, which marked the start of the local boom of hyperrealism, the too precise painting of motoring technique earned the sharpest criticism. The display organised by the Tartu University Art Studio in 1978, honestly focusing on pictures of cars and motorbikes painted after reproductions in foreign magazines, severely tested even the most benevolent critic. The concentration of glamorous vehicles in the motifs chosen by the artists might have actually become fatal for the image of hyperrealism: even with the best intentions, it was impossible to attach any deeper meaning to those pictures. On the other hand, the ambition of many hyperrealists was to captivate through illusionism. Nothing much has changed with the passing of time. Most of the hyperrealist works (few of which have survived and even fewer have reached public art collections) offer, at the first encounter, ‘wow-type’ joy to the eye, some perhaps to the intellect, but usually nothing at all to the soul ... The artists of the first, Tallinn-based, wave of hyperrealism, the best of whom came from the design and architecture departments of the Art Institute, managed to earn respect in a few years time, thanks to the topic of the architectural urban environment. With the emergence of new dormitory residential areas, the alienation associated with urbanisation had become a socially hot topic. The Tartu school, preferring grotesque tales, had to wait for rehabilitation until the appearance of decent kitsch discourse in local culture. In the heyday of the style, one of the most original painters was Urmas Pedanik, who began his art studies at Tallinn 46th Secondary School in the same year as Ando Keskküla, the importer of hyperrealism. As his first attempt to be accepted to the Art Institute failed, Pedanik spent three years in the army, and his hyperrealist works thus fall in the later wave of the trend. His more exciting works belong in the field of electronic poetry. Soldered electrical schemes in huge photo enlargement (Scheme I, Scheme II, both 1977) and Electrical Cabinet (1978) are among the best paintings of the abstract trend of hyperrealism. The sharpness of the photocouple and playing with focus are used mostly conceptually, namely in these works. And that was not just ‘playing around with tricks’, as the critics of that time were fond of saying, but everything served the aim of an aesthetic (perhaps even beautiful) final result. The fact that the abstract appearance of the works was achieved through ‘over-winding’ realism should be emphasised here, and this type of realism is only possible with the camera lens. In these paintings, the photo-like manner seems most natural, reflecting the message of hyperrealists: ‘art is everywhere’, all you need is a sharp eye. Hyperrealism relied heavily on craftsmanship: practical professionalism. In their world, intrigue and moral were replaced by glamour, seriousness and typically Soviet hidden messages through simple and candid simulation of photographs. In the interest of gender equality we should perhaps also mention that after the period of lyrical, pretty painting established by the romantic group called ANK’64, the hyperrealists introduced masculine force into art. Hyperrealism fit well into the end of the Soviet period. The environment, by that time totally written over by the authorities, dreary rooms and miserable objects around us that the artists noticed, even if they were over-fetishised Western glossy magazines, might illustrate the time even better than words. The glance of hyperrealists conveyed by the passionate camera was merciless. However, the viewer of the picture could be equally merciless, because occasionally a car is simply a car. Urmas Pedanik (1949), artist and designer Kädi Talvoja (1974), art historian, curator of the Kumu Art Museum
	| Estonian Art 1/07 (20) | 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 |