On 8 March, four new exhibitions will open at the Tartu Art Museum: “Karin Luts. Travel Images” will showcase a collection of previously unseen watercolors and drawings. “Serpent”, a solo exhibition by Terje Ojaver, will feature one of the living classics of contemporary Estonian sculpture. The exhibition “Local Beauty. The Tallinn Jewellery Factory” will explore the factory’s heritage from the early 1950s to the mid-1990s. Additionally, in the project space, visitors can view the video work “Winter which was not there” by Georgian artist Vajiko Chachkhian.
“Karin Luts. Travel Images”
A new exhibition opening on 8 March in the Tartu Art Museum takes a look at paintings, sketches and diaries by Karin Luts in order to discover the importance of travel in the artist’s life and œuvre.
As with most of us, travel was an essential part of life for the painter and printmaker Karin Luts. It served as a form of education and creative stimulation, as well as a way of escaping the tedium of everyday life. She often stayed abroad for extended periods of time, which allowed her to immerse herself more deeply in the local milieu. In keeping with tradition, she captured her impressions in sketchbooks and sometimes even on canvas. Luts did not consider these travel images to be serious art, likening them more to the work of a photographer, with the only difference being that she did her work by hand. Yet, these numerous works, executed in a variety of media, form an important part of her body of work. She chose to depict various places, capturing her most immediate emotions. Her sketches are characterised by a humorous expressiveness, her gouaches by a romantic poise, and her watercolours of southern seas and Venetian canals by a particular delectability. Some sights stuck in the artist’s mind and later became the starting points for the creation of masterpieces.
Curator: Mare Joonsalu
The exhibition will remain open until 28.09.2025.
Terje Ojaver “Serpent”
Terje Ojaver, a classic of contemporary Estonian sculpture, is opening the new solo exhibition Serpent at the Tartu Art Museum on 8 March, displaying the very latest of her work and a selection of her earlier creations.
Terje Ojaver’s sculptures speak of life as a challenge that must be faced. A giant woman armed with a pitchfork is ready to defend her home and children, yet she is fully aware of the dual purpose of her weapon. She knows that a corpse is essentially fertilizer, worm food: the beginning of new life.
By surrendering themselves to the cycles of nature, the figures in Terje Ojaver’s work rise above the self-indulgent absurdity of human activity. They are saints. However, Ojaver’s animalism does not draw inspiration from shamanism; it is instead modernist, classic and the work of a trained sculptor. Just as nature serves as a religious imperative for Ojaver, traditional craftsmanship forms the ethical foundation of her artistic practice. Art must be good, and its contents must align with the laws of nature.
Artist: Terje Ojaver
The exhibition will remain open until 28.09.2025.
“Local Beauty. The Tallinn Jewellery Factory”
Tallinn Jewellery Factory has an important role in the history of Estonian design. During the Soviet era, its austere and romantic style of tableware, cutlery and jewellery defined the look of local everyday life for decades.
Tallinn Jewellery Factory was founded in 1959 and has had several names over its lifetime. During the longest period, from 1959 to 1978, the company operated under the name Tallinn Jewellery Factory. The exhibition focuses on the work produced by the factory in the period 1951–1994, from the time when the first artists became involved with the factory, until the moment both the state regime and the market changed and the company was privatised.
Over the years, the factory produced silverware, both dishware and cutlery sets, as well as jewellery. Jewellery was initially designed and produced here over the period of a decade from the early 1950s and then again from 1977.
Curators: Kai Lobjakas and Ketli Tiitsar
The exhibition will remain open until 28.09.2025.
Vajiko Chachkhiani “Winter which was not there”
The visually gripping and deeply poignant “Winter which was not there” (2017) by the Georgian artist Vajiko Chachkhiani (born 1985) invites us to think about an individual’s existence and the hidden layers of the past.
“Winter which was not there” shows us a poetic and symbolic interpretation of a person’s identity and the erasing of one’s own past. Even if there remains nothing but emptiness, is the past really gone? Can the past really disappear if there is still someone who remembers?
Artist: Vajiko Chachkhiani
Curator: Kristlyn Liier
The exhibition will remain open until 04.05.2025.