„Thieves have appeared in the buses of Kalamaja. My friend had his expensive phone stolen from his pocket. The man who was sitting next to him stood up and got off the bus at the moment my friend felt that something was wrong. Stay alert, widespread appearance of aliens have occurred here.“
Posted in Facebook Kalamaja group
Karel Koplimets’s exhibition project Case No. 12. Kalamaja simultaneously held in Hobusepea and Draakon gallery studies the strange, in a way paranormal events and phenomena that have been taking place during the past few years in Kalamaja, the district in Tallinn where the artist lives. According to Kopliments, these events have a direct connection to the real estate bubble and gentrification occuring in the area.
Koplimets’s working method can be described as a sequence of case studies characterized by heightened attention towards a specific narrative situation where reality mingles with fiction. While reconstructing the cases with found objects, photographs, scale models, video and spatial installations, the artist works with such comprehensiveness that the viewer often finds it difficult to have doubts about the validness of presented information. Koplimets is intrigued by criminal statistics as well as biased relationship towards urban space. The artist magnifies the details of the surrounding urban environment, thus creating the sense of danger in viewers as well as bringing up the fears that we are first unable to define or give form to.
Case No. 12. Kalamaja is an integral spatial exhibition consisting elements of video, light and photography held in two galleries. Koplimets’s purpose is to make the viewer think about the developments in daily living environment while giving a documentary approach towards studying strange, implausible and paranormal situations and scenes taking place in Kalamaja district. In a way, the author continues to interpret the themes he has examined in his earlier work. Koplimets attempts to define the phenomenon of Kalamaja and the strange events taking place in the form of a narrative that fluctuates between documentary and fiction. It is an image about Kalamaja that has been totally turned upside down and where changes in urban space have been mingled with paranormal phenomena. Koplimets’s work is nonevaluative and noncritical, yet offering a fresh and playful approach to the depiction of daily life of a district in Tallinn.
Karel Koplimets (1986) has graduated from the department of photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Since 2007 he has mainly worked with photography, video and installation art. Koplimets is intrigued by complex psychological conditions based on fear, paranoia or sense of danger and their relation to urban space. In his work he has observed murder and criminal cases as well as emphasized their folkloric, mythological and conspiratorial aspects. Koplimets is a member of artist group Visible Solutions LLC (together with Taaniel Raudsep and Sigrid Viir) that studies the mechanisms of market economy and their relations with an individual as well as media. The artist has also completed several art projects with Ivar Veermäe. Besides several personal exhibitions Koplimets has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Estonia and elsewhere in Europe.
Thanks to: Allfilm, Maido Juss, Kalle Karindi, the Koplimets family, Valge Kuup, Kaisa Maasik, Rundum, Siim Saadoja, Hanna Samoson, Johannes Säre, Mihkel Säre, Ott Tiigirand, Sigrid Viir, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo, Otto Varjust.
Supported by: Caparol, Cineunit, CNC Stuudio, Focuspoint, Estonian Union of Photography Artists, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, department of photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts, High Voltage, Overall, Proplastik.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea and Draakon gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.