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Photo reportage from the exhibition XENOS at the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia

What all of these very diverse works coming from different ages at this exhibition have in common is their link to the motif of xenos, whether it is the experience of otherness in deep psychological structures or political superstructures, or the overcoming of otherness, constructing one’s singularity outside the dichotomy of me/us vs. the other. This is an exhibition-as-essay, the subchapters and dramatic arc composed by all of these marvelous artworks, which hopefully provide an opportunity to calmly contemplate these often affect- laden issues.

Xenos (ξένος) means stranger, enemy, foreigner as well as friend-as-guest in Greek. Similarly, such ambivalence is not alien to Estonian either: we have words such as “võõruspidu” (party with guests) and “võõrustama” (to host), the latter of which differs only by one letter from “võõristama” and “võõrastama” (to stand aloof, to consider someone a stranger).

Questions about xenophobia and a debate on racist attitudes have regained prominence since the 2015 refugee crisis when public anger against foreigners across Europe rose sharply. There are many theories that try to explain the other and otherness and also deal with the causes of racism and xenophobia, but in spite of deconstruction applied to the entirety of xenophobic discourse, it hasn’t been possible to prevent such views from continuing to arise in new modulations that seem endless and universal. This would suggest that something else is behind the xenophobic and racist attitudes.

This exhibition takes psychoanalysis as its theoretical basis, which deals with an externally constructed stranger as the external projection of an internal stranger but has been relegated to the background as of late. The stranger, “the image of hatred and of the other,” as Julia Kristeva says, “lives within us”. “He is the hidden face of our identity,” she argues, and, “by recognising him within ourselves, we are spared detesting him in himself” because “the question arises again: no longer that of welcoming the foreigner within a system that obliterates him but of promoting the togetherness of those foreigners that we all recognise ourselves to be”.

The exhibition is accompanied by a booklet containing the curator’s introductory essay and short texts on all the artworks displayed at the exhibition. In addition to the screening of Ho Tzu Nyen’s film, Ingo Niermann and Krõõt Juurak will make an Army of Love performance and recruitment action in the form of a lecture at the EKKM’s café on August 24 at 5 pm.

Press release by Anders Härm

Exhibition team: Marten Esko, Johannes Säre, Laura Toots, Dénes Farkas, Mihkel Säre, Taavi Suisalu, Alver Linnamägi, Henri Eek, Villem Säre, Mihkel Maripuu, Mihkel Ilus, Hans-Otto Ojaste

Graphic design: Martin Pedanik

Supported by: Estonian Cultural Endowment, Estonian Ministry of Culture, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Tallinn Botanic Garden

Thanks to: Gert Hatšukov, Tarmo Johannes, Elin Kard, Ott Kagovere, LVLup!, Aleksander Meresaar, Estonian Art Museum, Edouard Malingue Gallery, Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation, Pro Marine Trade OÜ, Studio Kader Attia, Video Data Bank at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

XENOS Curated by Anders Härm
13.07.–25.08.2019
EKKM, Põhja pst. 35,
Tallinn, 10415, Estonia

Vito Acconci, Centers, 1971. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Exhibition view of Xenos at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, 2019. Curated by Anders Härm. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Vito Acconci, Centers, 1971. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Ho Tzu Nyen, The Cloud of Unknowing, 2011. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Ho Tzu Nyen, The Cloud of Unknowing, 2011. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Ene-Liis Semper & Kiwa, Oasis, 1991. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Marko Laimre, Raw Material, 2000/2019. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Dénes Farkas, I Cover Your Ears, And Tell You The Truth, 2018. Detail. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Dénes Farkas, I Cover Your Ears, And Tell You The Truth, 2018. Detail. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Dénes Farkas, I Cover Your Ears, And Tell You The Truth, 2018. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Dénes Farkas, Mburucuyá (passiflora caerulea), 2018. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Helen Melesk

Dénes Farkas, Mburucuyá (passiflora caerulea), 2018 (left). Tanja Muravskaja, Untitled/Self-Portrait, 2015 (right). Exhibition view of Xenos at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, 2019. Photo: Paul Kuimet.

Kader Attia, The Body’s Legacies, PT: 2: The Postcolonial Body, 2018. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Kader Attia, The Body’s Legacies, PT: 2: The Postcolonial Body, 2018. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Helen Melesk

Kader Attia, The Body’s Legacies, PT: 2: The Postcolonial Body, 2018. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Félix González-Torres, Untitled, 1989/1990. Detail. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Félix González-Torres, Untitled, 1989/1990. Detail. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Kalle Hamm & Dzamil Kamanger, The Garden of the Undocumented, 2013 (left). Félix González-Torres, Untitled, 1989/1990 (right). Exhibition view of Xenos at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, 2019. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Félix González-Torres, Untitled, 1989/1990(front). Kalle Hamm & Dzamil Kamanger, The Garden of the Undocumented, 2013 (back). Exhibition view of Xenos at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, 2019. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Bita Razavi, Pictures From Our Future, Pictures From Our Past, 2016-2018. Detail. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Bita Razavi, Pictures From Our Future, Pictures From Our Past, 2016-2018. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Ingo Niermann & Alexa Karolinski, The Army of Love, 2016. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Kalle Hamm & Dzamil Kamanger, The Garden of the Undocumented, 2013. Detail. Photo: Helen Melesk

Kalle Hamm & Dzamil Kamanger, The Garden of the Undocumented, 2013. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Paul Kuimet

Kalle Hamm & Dzamil Kamanger, The Garden of the Undocumented, 2013. Installation view at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. Photo: Helen Melesk