The largest ever exhibition of Ene-Liis Sempers work opens at Kumu
The works of Ene-Liis Semper, one of the most internationally recognised Estonian artists, opened at the Kumu Art Museum . The exhibition, which encompasses all five floors, is a synthesis of spatial installations and video art. According to the artist, this is the most labour-intensive and largest of Sempers solo exhibitions to date and is also one of the most important projects in the art programme of Tallinn European Capital of Culture 2011.
According to Eha Komissarov, visitors who come to the exhibition expecting the violent autistic approach characteristic of Sempers earlier work will find a changed artistic position. It uses an arsenal of decisively altered visual resources to address the dislocated world, Komissarov said. The video projections that are integrated into the objects create new synergies and generate total perceptional dislocations.
The exhibition created by Ene-Liis Semper, a video and installation artist and one of the artistic directors of Theatre NO99, is a location-specific exposition. Emotionally, the exhibition is sustained by certain existential attitudes and a movement between abstract images and intimate moments.
At this exhibition, some of Ene-Liis Sempers earlier videos enter into a dialogue with new works created especially for this exhibition. A context is created for them by a large-scale labyrinth, a refined spatial installation, which is also an extensive encroachment into Kumus traditional architecture and creates its own space in the middle of the museion. The five years that have passed since Sempers last solo exhibition are also clearly perceptible in the exhibition.
We can see not only a reflection of the cutting, witty and highly multifaceted aesthetics of Theatre NO99, but also a different approach to emotional attitudes, observations and reactions that sustain the theatrical performances. At the same time, we see contradictory moments from a persons life. These moments are simultaneously sensitive and pitiless: their poetic nature is captivating, while their honesty is painful.
Ene-Liis Sempers solo show is one of the most important and largest exhibitions in the art programme of Tallinn European Capital of Culture 2011. The exhibition is supported by Theatre NO99.
The exhibition will run through 31 December 2011 at the Kumu Art Museum.
Source: Eesti Kunstimuuseum
