From 4 April, the exhibitions of the collaborative project Rooms in Rhymes by seven curators will start to open. Each week a new exhibition by one of the curators replaces another on one of the museum floors, thus forming a rhythmical and fluctuating whole of displays throughout the museum building. Openings on 4, 11, 17 and 25 April, as well as 2 and 9 May.
The exhibition cycle experiments with curating as a form of poetic, performative and collective practice, wishing to enhance dialogue in visual art projects and to host the plurality of voices. Evelyn Raudsepp invited an extended group of curators to join her, including team members usually carrying out different roles at the museum, and creatives who have previously worked with EKKM: Anita Kodanik, Brigit Arop, Johannes Luik, Laura De Jaeger, Laura Linsi and Marten Esko. The exhibition will feature more than 20 artists, both local and international, including authors from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom.
Johannes Luik’s exhibition from cycle Rooms in Rhymes approaches space as a metaphor to an egg, which is simultaneously a form and a process, tension between interior-exterior and endless creation.
Artists: Alexander Webber, August Weizenberg, Eke Ao Nettan, Helena Keskküla, Liis Vares, Sandra Ernits.
On the opening night of 17 April from 18-21, the exhibition will not be ready and will continue to be finalised during the evening.
An egg (in Latin ovum) is generally a fertilized egg cell (zygote) covered with a shell (in most birds, reptiles and primitive mammals) or a coat in arthropods (insects, crustaceans, arachnids). (Wikipedia)
Form
The egg represents one of the oldest forms. Its shape is usually narrower on one side and wider on the other. The egg can be seen as a proto-sculpture.
Container
The egg is also an archaic container. The egg holds and protects. The eggshell and the plaster mold are similarly structured. They are both made of calcium compounds.
Process
The function of the egg is to exist only for a certain time. The egg is not meant to stay an egg, but to give birth to something. To cease. Thus, the egg can also be seen as a process, or at least a visual representation of a process. A process that feels like a non-process. Something that feels static – a form.
Potential
The egg cracks and opens. Something hatches from it. But before that, in the process, the egg also has a future version of itself, a form that does not yet exist. A crack in the eggshell may put an end to this state, but it also has the ability to bring something new into the world.
The displayed artworks examine the fringe areas of forms, reflecting upon the relationship between ourselves and our surroundings through process-based and site-specific works. How to keep the process alive when you know there has to be an end result?
Johannes Luik is an Estonian installation artist and sculptor who lives and works in Tallinn. He graduated from the Department of Installation and Sculpture at the Estonian Academy of Arts (BA 2019), the LUCA School of Arts in Belgium (MA 2021) and the Estonian Academy of Arts (MA 2022). Luik was awarded the Culture Endowment’s 2023 Annual Prize for Visual and Applied Arts. Johannes Luik is the technical director of EKKM since 2024.
The Rooms in Rhymes exhibition cycle will be sequenced with six curated exhibitions and an eventful programme, see the full programme here: https://fb.me/e/7Swf8TT3z
Supporters: Estonian Cultural Endowment, Estonian Ministry of Culture, City of Tallinn, Akzo Nobel, Liviko AS, Punch Club OÜ.
EKKM is open Wednesday to Sunday from 12.00 to 19.00.
Johannes Luik’s exhibition from the cycle Rooms in Rhymes will remain open until 5 May.