Marko Mäetamm is a beloved Estonian artist, so it is no coincidence that he has presented Estonia twice at the Venice Biennial. This year he was accepted to present his works at Miami Nada fair. His series called “Our Daddy Is a Hunter” drew up media attention with mentions by the likes such as Art Agenda, Art Market Monitor and Miami New Times. His next comic oriented exhibition will run almost simultaneously in two adjacent galleries: 1st-13th April in Draakoni gallery and 3rd-15th in Hobusepea.
Mäetamm shows us the frustration of a middle-aged family man. He plays around with the notions of family, home and house. Violence distorts their normal image – a bleeding house, a killer dad or the explosion of accumulated sexual frustration. He uses his own family as material to play with, to create imaginary situations where things have gone horribly wrong, although depicting violence in a funny, animated way so that it becomes a kind of “Tom & Jerry”.
Pärtel Vissak: Why do you prefer to tell your tales on the gallery walls when you could do it via a book, comic or animation instead?
Marko Mäetamm: Well, I think this has more to do with my laziness to adapt my ideas to the book format and to find somebody who could edit it. And it has always been a challenge for me to try to make written text work in the gallery situation. On the other hand – writing a book is not completely new for me. I do enjoy writing. I wrote quite a lot when I did my first artist catalogue some years ago and I am preparing the next one at the moment and there will be a lot of my own writing as well. Plus I am planning a diary-like book and I am constantly writing for it, I think I would still need a year to finish it. But I am not considering myself as a writer but rather a visual artist and I am probably still more happy working in a gallery space. Talking about animation – I have made more than 20 short videos and some of which are also animations, not frame-to frame animations but more experimental. So moving images are my daily practice. Talking about comic art – I have never had any particular interest towards comics until last year when I discovered it as a very comfortable way to tell my stories. So actually the next project I am currently working on will be comics, painted on large canvases.
Have your artworks offended people and have you then apologized or you just don’t concern yourself with that?
I have never thought to offend people with my works but I am definitely happy if my work touches someone. People should react to my work and I have seen it happening in different ways – l have seen people hysterically laughing, getting shocked, getting hungry, getting happy. I have also seen people getting offended. But this is already between the people and the work and the reason why they react and how they react is inside them, not inside my work and definitely not inside me. Therefore I don’t see a reason to go and apologise. I don’t need to apologise for how they react. But if people come and ask me, then I am always happy to talk about my work. I have had a lot of long and very interesting discussions with the audience.
How do you feel when looking at your tales about domestic violence? Is it only funny or do you see them as a personal fear as well?
First I have to say that it is not funny at all. The idea is not to amuse myself or someone else, but to talk about things I find important to talk about. Domestic violence as a theme or a topic is never overexposed in society but vice versa – it is always considered as a taboo, something that is uncomfortable to talk about. Something that we never want to talk about when it is happening to us or somebody we know. And if it is happening to somebody else then we would rather ignore it. People may disagree with me but this is how I see it happening and this is why I am creating my works. My works often appear both serious or even terrible and funny at the same time, this has probably rather to do with my way of seeing the world. Talking about personal fear – if it is there then I think it is rather subconscious.
You refer to your dreams a lot, how often do you remember your dreams and do you write them down?
Usually I do not write down my dreams. I have done it only one or two times, I think. My idea is that if the dream is important or worth using in my projects then I will not forget it. The same is with some real events or life experiences – if I still keep thinking of some of them after 5 or 10 or 20 years then there must be something to it.
Concerning your project “Hair”, did you know straight away that it was going to become a piece of art or did you contemplate a lot? How many of your ideas like that make it to the gallery?
“Hair” is based on a very old story, that happened already more than 20 years ago when I was still a student. I definitely didn’t have an idea to use it in my art practice back when it happened, I had completely different working methods at that time. But this was such a funny and mysterious story and I kept thinking about it every now and then until I made this work three years ago. It fitted perfectly to the other ideas I was currently working on.
I think all of my ideas are somehow connected to my real life – is it a real experience or a thought or a dream or something my wife or kids have said to me, or something that I have read and which has had a strong impact on me. Everything in my art practice is somehow connected to reality, some connections are quite strong and visible, some are very loose and almost imaginary.
How come in “My daddy is a hunter” the dad never shoots anyone?
I am not violent person myself and I am trying to avoid direct violence in my works as well. And my attempt is not to show brutal scenes but rather to make people think about different things. I think that “what if…” is much more captivating then “see what happened!”
When doing your ready-made domestic scenes, is there an aspect of not having “such cool toys” as a child or maybe rather the “Sims effect” of simulating life situations on a smaller scale?
I found these ready made doll house objects and little dolls completely by chance. I think I was looking for some Christmas presents and I bumped into them in a toy store. It is definitely simulating life situations in a small scale just like children do when they play. And I liked the idea of using the same items which are meant for children to play with, and to see how simple it is to stage violence situations with the same objects children are supposed to play home with. This is exactly how it happens in real life with real people – the same family in the same house can have wonderful Christmas Eve with a lot of presents and a Christmas tree and everything, but the same Christmas Eve can turn into the most horrific nightmare if something goes wrong. Things can change in the blink of an eye.
For me your “Postcards from Paris” displays most directly your train of thought. When doing this piece, were the sentences something very personal or just the funniest thing you could come up with?
The idea came to me when passing one couple somewhere in a very beautiful park in Paris. And I was thinking what they might think or talk about. Would it be something nice or something very bad? I first made loads of photos with couples sitting in different parks and then I started generating texts. Some texts came from real life – something that somebody had said to me, or something that I had heard people talking about on the street. Some texts are also simply made up, inspired by the poses and body language of the people in the pictures. So they were different. But the main aim was to create stories opposite of the stereotypic idea of Paris – the city of love and romance. I wanted to show the other side of this city which it definitely also has.
How often does your family oppose your artworks that are supposedly about them?
I always talk with my wife about my next idea. And very often she is there when the next idea appears. And I test my ideas and works on her, too, I think I can read her feedback very well because we have been together for more than 20 years and we know each other very well. If I see that I have gone too far with something and I see that the work may offend her or the kids, then I will definitely change something or even consider not to show the work in public. I have two-three works like that. With the kids – it is important that I am able to explain to them what I do and why I do it. This is also very useful in general – it keeps your attention on your work and reminds you that you are fully responsible for what you say or create.
For more information visit maetamm.net
