The overview exhibition Raul Meel. Dialogues with Infinity, presenting the works of a great figure in post-war Estonian avant-garde art, the internationally acclaimed artist Raul Meel, opens on Friday 9 May in the big hall of the Kumu Art Museum. A comprehensive book about Meel’s work is also being published.
“The entire 20th century Estonian art history lies between Konrad Mägi and Raul Meel,” says the curator Eha Komissarov. “The exhibition presents the fascinating story of Raul Meel’s (1941) activities as an art innovator between 1968 and 1992, as well as a summary of the development trends of his work from 1990 to 2014. Throughout the Soviet period, Meel worked with themes and images taken from the rapidly developing science and technology. He has a place in our art history as a tireless innovator who expanded the borders of contemporary Estonian art.”
Raul Meel represents the radical side of Estonian art innovation in the 1970s and 1980s; he is considered the most prominent autodidact and outsider in Estonian art. In 1959–1964 Raul Meel studied electrical engineering at the Tallinn Technical University. His technical background provided him with a different angle on art. His artistic manner of expression was rather similar to topical trends in the West at that time. He managed to illegally get some of his work out of the Soviet Union to exhibitions abroad, and thus gained international recognition, while at home his image as a dissident strengthened. In the 1970s Meel established close contacts with representatives of Moscow non-formal artists and became friends with Ilya Kabakov. Meel also spoke the same language as the master of Finnish electronic art Erkki Kurenniemi, whose 1966 video Spindrift (Kiasma) can be viewed at the exhibition.
Meel’s best known work, Under the Sky (1973), is being shown at the exhibition for the first time on such a scale. Technical tables and graphs in three colours – blue, black and white – form the foundation of the work. The series is remarkable because the artist unites the colour combination that had an especially forceful national impact in the 1970s (the three colours of the Estonian national flag) with the title, combining them via a rigid graphic format. This kind of approach superbly characterises Meel’s art more broadly: contextually often rather emotional, but highly construed in form.
Besides prints, the displays include Meel’s spatial installations, videos of performances, archives and paintings, including a selection of 20 works donated to the Art Museum of Estonia by Antti Piippo.
The exhibition presents various interactive solutions. With a special device, viewers can combine and print out drawings from Meel’s most famous series, Under the Sky. The main sponsor, EMT, has produced a smartphone application on the basis of Meel’s installation Dice: it is not possible to roll the big original die, but you can do it on a smartphone.
A book is being published about Meel’s work, with articles by experts in different fields. The authors of the articles are the curator of contemporary art at the Kumu Art Museum, Eha Komissarov, the head of new media at the Estonian Academy of Arts and curator of the exhibition, Raivo Kelomees, the art historian and semiotician Virve Sarapik, and the writer, artist and linguist Erkki Luuk.
Curators: Eha Komissarov and Raivo Kelomees
Project manager: Ragne Nukk
Exhibition designers: Raul Kalvo and Helen Oja
Graphic designer of the exhibition and the book: Tuuli Aule
The exhibition visuals can be found in the digital collection of the Art Museum of Estonia.
