Estonian Pavilion Without Walls at Performa 17 Biennial
Schedule
Fri, Nov. 3, 5:30pm — 8:30pm
Flo Kasearu ‘Ainult liikmetele (Members Only)’
Tue, Nov. 7, 1:00pm— 2:00pm
Artist talk about Flo Kasearu’s ‘Ainult liikmetele (Members Only)’
Tue, Nov. 7, 5:00pm — 6:00pm
Estonian Film Program ‘Fragile Connections’
Wed, Nov. 8, 5:00pm — 7:00pm
Estonian Pavilion Symposium ‘Call for Action: Key Moments of Estonian Performance Art from the 1960s until 2010s’
Fri, Nov. 10, 5:30pm — 8:30pm
Flo Kasearu ‘Ainult liikmetele (Members Only)’
Sat, Nov. 11, 9:00pm — 10:00pm
Kris Lemsalu in collaboration with Kyp Malone ‘Going Going’
Sun, Nov. 12, 7:00pm — 8:00pm
Kris Lemsalu in collaboration with Kyp Malone ‘Going Going’
Wed, Nov. 15, 5:30pm — 6:15pm; 7pm — 7:45pm
Anu Vahtra ‘Open House Closing. A Walk’
Thu, Nov. 16, 5:30pm — 6:15pm; 7pm — 7:45pm
Anu Vahtra ‘Open House Closing. A Walk’
Fri, Nov. 17, 5:30pm — 6:15pm; 7pm — 7:45pm
Anu Vahtra ‘Open House Closing. A Walk’
Fri, Nov. 17, 5:00pm – 9:00pm
Merike Estna & Maria Metsalu ‘Soft Scrub, Hard Body, Liquid Presence’
Flo Kasearu
Ainult liikmetele (Members Only)
Fri, Nov. 3, 5:30pm — 8:30pm
Fri, Nov. 10, 5:30pm — 8:30pm
Estonian House New York
243 E 34th Street
New York, NY 10016
$20, $15
For Performa 17 biennial Estonian artist Flo Kasearu will engage the New York Estonian House as part of ‘Ainult liikmetele (Members Only)’, a site-specific project on the American Estonian diaspora and current members of the House, taking place in all of the 10 different rooms of this three-story Beaux-Arts building in Manhattan’s Murray Hill. The Estonian House parallels Kasearu’s beloved ‘Flo Kasearu House Museum’ in Tallinn, in which the artist has turned her family’s home and personal living space into a public museum. ‘Ainult liikmetele (Members Only)’ will provide a new narrative for the Estonian House filled with humor and absurdity, based on its past and possible future, while providing new insights into the complexity of national identity. Familiar settings are rearranged, new objects are added and visual elements highlight specific practices. While several characters occupy the rooms, Kasearu and Kadri Sepp, the manager of The Estonian House New York, will lead the tours.
Tue, Nov. 7, 1:00pm— 2:00pm
Perfroma Hub
427 Broadway
New York, NY 10013
Flo Kasearu in conversation with Laurel Ptak, the Director of Art In General. Artist Flo Kasearu talks about her work for the Estonian Pavilion, ‘Ainult liikmetele (Members Only)’, held at New York’s exclusive Estonian House.
Kris Lemsalu in collaboration with Kyp Malone
Going, Going
Sat, Nov. 11, 9:00pm — 10:00pm
Sun, Nov. 12, 7:00pm — 8:00pm
Harlem Parish
258 W 118th St
New York, NY
$15, $10
For this Performa Project Estonian artist Kris Lemsalu collaborates with New York-based artist and musician Kyp Malone. Lemsalu often experiments with traditional techniques to create her multilayered works, animal body parts, delicate sculptures of clothing, or objects made of porcelain are mixed with found natural materials – fur, leather, wool – to create staged installations. These can be self-sufficient, sci-fi-like narratives, or alternatively act as a stage for Lemsalu’s own performances; sometimes the sculptures become part of her costumes. Although Lemsalu’s themes are often chilling and distant, with an overall rough finish, Lemsalu’s works appear fragile and luxurious at the same time, highlighting the cynical aspects of art’s desirability, and providing an antidote to that cynicism by means of humor and irony. Together with Malone, she will present a live performance that features the melding of sculptures, video, songs and spoken word. The performance will include ceramic-based costumes by Lemsalu and animated video works by Malone. This new project is the second of a series of collaborative works with musicians to enliven Lemsalu’s sculptural installations and bring her performance and ceramics practices together.
Anu Vahtra
Open House Closing. A Walk
Wed, Nov. 15, 5:00pm — 8:00pm
Thu, Nov. 16, 5:00pm — 8:00pm
Fri, Nov. 17, 5:00pm — 8:00pm
Performa 17 Hub
427 Broadway
New York, NY 10013
Free
Anu Vahtra’s Performa Project ‘Open House Closing. A Walk’ activates vacant storefronts and spaces in SoHo, each displaying a different “scene” in an overall narrative. Vahtra is renowned for her artistic approach to site-specific space-oriented subjects and for the diligent methods of articulating them. Vahtra’s site-specific installations, which often include photography, use the space around them, making the site both the subject and the form of the work. For Performa, Vahtra looks to the legacy of Gordon Matta-Clark and the current phenomenon of “post-gentrification,” to draw links between SoHo’s past and present.
Anu Vahtra (1982) lives and works in Tallinn, Estonia. She studied photography at Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, NL and will be in residence at the International Studio & Curatorial Program in October and November 2017. In 2010 Vahtra and graphic designer Indrek Sirkel founded Lugemik, a publishing initiative in Tallinn that publishes small editions of books and other printed matter, working closely together with artists, writers, designers, printers in every step of the publishing process.
Estonian Film Program
Fragile Connections
Tue, Nov. 7, 5:00pm — 6:00pm
Performa 17 Hub
427 Broadway
New York, NY 10013
Free
As part of the Estonian pavilion, this hour-long short film program spans over two decades of works showing the presence of performance in Estonian contemporary art, as seen through the camera. The program touches on questions of identity, while demonstrating the inherent fragility in today’s social constructs and relationships. The program features works by Jaan Toomik, Ene-Liis Semper, Mark Raidpere, Marko Mäetamm, Marge Monko, and Taavi Talve among others.
Estonian Pavilion Symposium
Call for Action: Key Moments of Estonian Performance Art from the 1960s until 2010s
Wed, Nov. 8, 5:00pm — 7:00pm
Performa 17 Hub
427 Broadway
New York, NY 10013
Free
This lecture and screening, presented by curators Anu Allas and Maria Arusoo, on Estonian performance takes place within Pavilion without Walls: Estonia, providing a context for Performa commissions and projects from the country through a survey of key moments in the history of performance art taking place there since the late 1960s.
The focus of the presentation will be on the relationship between artistic practices and their social contexts, with regard to the broader cultural scene in post-Soviet and post-socialist societies. The discussion will touch upon the emergence of early happenings that took place on the border of art and everyday life in Soviet Estonia, the professionalization and pluralisation of performance art from the early 1990s onward, and the relation between contemporary Estonian performative art and the global cultural environment.
The program is followed by a discussion with Anu Allas, program manager and curator at the Kumu, the Art Museum of Estonia, in Tallinn; Maria Arusoo, director of the Center for Contemporary Arts, Estonia (CCA); and Ksenia Nouril, independent art historian and curator based in New York.
Satellite Program
Merike Estna & Maria Metsalu
Soft Scrub, Hard Body, Liquid Presence
Fri, Nov. 17, 5:00pm – 9pm
Art In General
145 Plymouth Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Free
As part of the Performa Consortium and the Pavilion Without Walls, Art in General will present an exhibition by Estonian artists Merike Estna and Maria Metsalu, curated by Maria Arusoo. Merike Estna’s new performance ‘Red Herring’ and Maria Metsalu’s ‘Mademoiselle X’ are part of ‘Soft Scrub, Hard Body, Liquid Presence’ exhibition. The exhibition posits if our over-consumption of virtual space has provoked a deep mutation in the psychosphere and explores the zombified body as a response to today’s evolving societal structures.
The Estonian Pavilion Without Walls is organized by Esa Nickle and Maaike Gouwenberg from Performa, with Curatorial Fellow Evelyn Raudsepp. Co-presented by the Estonian Contemporary Art Development Center (ECADC).
Partners: Art Museum of Estonia, Center for Contemporary Arts, Estonia, Art in General, the New York Estonian House. Supported by the Estonian Ministry of Culture, Outset Estonia, and the Estonian Contemporary Art Development Center (ECADC).
