Inga Meldere, Dafna Maimon, Kasia Fudakowski, Lieven Lahaye, Anu Vahtra 'Everyone is invited except those who were not'

Experimental group exhibition ‘Everyone is invited, except those who were not’ features the works of artists Inga Meldere, Dafna Maimon, Kasia Fudakowski, Lieven Lahaye and Anu Vahtra. 

Graphic design by Oliver Long, typeface by Patrick Zavadskis. 

Exhibition views: Anu Vahtra

Exhibition initiator Olga Temnikova:
The more I learn about both personal and historical aspects of the art world, the more I find it impossible to overlook the underlying power dynamics and favoritism within the structures of curated shows I visit. I am not against it, it’s human, and I am surely not an outsider to these systems. 

Observing these patterns grew into an obsession. To the point where I decided to ‘curate’ a show based on an open structure, not putting any boundaries on the show’s topic, but instead to concentrate on friendly links between artists, and hope for the best.

In this experimental group show I selected an artist and invited her to choose the artist she wanted to invite next along with asking her to dedicate and present the artwork to this next artist. The second artist responded to the first’s with their own work, and passed this on to another and so on. The idea was also to keep it easy, playful, and summery. There were really no limitations, I simply did not want this end-of-summer show to be a burden, but rather a reason to be in touch and play together.

The first artist I invited was Inga Meldere.

Inga Meldere:
I developed the routines of breathing exercises or painting with oil on paper during COVID-19. Each day, I created, continued or reworked two or three A3 format paper sheets. At the beginning of each exercise, I was relaxed (I wanted to keep it like that - no fear or doubt which is usually present when in front of a white, empty canvas), and unconsciously followed the movement of my hand; later, after some strokes, the mind and thinking got involved. While painting I tried to keep my breath steady; my breathing in and out was long and rhythmical. Conscious painting after the unconscious is more like reshaping, retracing, or finding belonging to something that has appeared on paper before, and feels connected and familiar to something I'd seen or experienced previously. 

The ongoing "collection" grew, and I tried to make one more exercise out of it by revisiting it. I devised three groups or themes on which the drawings reflected: the human body, living nature, and the funny ones relating to living nature.  I chose four works relating to bodily aspects from this ongoing “collection” for the show. They are framing fragments, closeups, and body sensual translations and describe the drawings of a fragile cage of ribs housing the pulsating hook of a heart with towering red juicy lips.

The mood of these works directly brought me into Dafna Maimon's creative territory.

Dafna Maimon:
If my organs were some kind of an internal band, (which they very well may be) my intestines would definitely be the lead singer. Much of my existence has revolved around the pleasures, nurture and struggles that come with fighting, listening or giving into the demands of my organic plumbing and its endless hunger. That is why in 2021, for the Helsinki Biennial, I created a 22-meter long immersive velvet intestine the audience could enter. The intestine – part of the large-scale project Indigestibles – was a liminal space, a gateway between an inner and outer world, where the discerning between what becomes oneself, and what is let go of is brought into focus. I also hosted somatic workshops for the audience to explore their gut-mind relationship. The video Indigestibles; Heartburn, is a do-it-at-home video version of these workshops, inviting viewers to viscerally journey into themselves.

Simultaneously, I had started painting and drawing patterns of mold with pastel on the fake pieces of schnitzels, and other meats that were strewn around the digesting intestine. Over time this led me to a practice of pastel painting on velvet. The paintings Breathing a Hurricane and Just a Kidney Obsessed with Death (2024) capture a felt sense of my organs, and the visions that follow from a practice of letting go of rational thinking by diving into the body’s own intelligence. It felt natural to turn to Kasia Fudakowski next, who is one of my favourite artistic sparring partners in conversation and collaboration. In Kasia's own words, she has a 'don't ask, don't tell' relationship with her body—an approach very different from mine. I simply wanted to see how she would continue the conversation.

Kasia Fudakowski:
Nepotism and favouritism conveniently mask the other ‘isms’, sexism, ableism, ageism, classism, racism etc. In 2015 I recorded Sexistinnen: Exercises in Self Sabotage,  an undercover performance choreographed around satirising internal sexism, staged at Art Basel Statements (the art world’s intestine) during the Baloise Art Prize jury presentation together with my gallerist Jennifer Chert. In the follow up performance entitled Second Chance, I emerged (like a turd) out of Carol (Boobytrap) Claudette, a hurricane-shaped sculpture, and begged the art world for forgiveness. To this I’m adding Reasons to Reproduce/Reason not to Reproduce, a text-based work which digests a question, memorialising the process rather than the result.

I audaciously asked both Lieven Lahaye and Anu Vahtra to join this chain. We visit waterfalls together, cola-coloured ones, and our car rides through Estonian forests are always accompanied by their incredible intellectual generosity..

Lieven Lahaye:
“Shimmer, Slice, Accretion” is a text I wrote about three notes on my desk: ‘Shimmer’ comes from Joan Didion’s “Why I Write”. ‘Slice’, from a radio story by Scott Carrier where he describes seeing a slice of pizza upside down on the carpet and reads it as being a threshold between observing an ordinary domestic setting and the one of a sick person. ‘Accretion’ is growth or increase by the gradual accumulation of additional layers or matter. Shimmer, Slice, Accretion is a photograph that Anu Vahtra and myself composed together in 2021 to accompany the text. Accretion is the soft dictatorship of material over the way it is organized, no matter if this material is sand, forming dunes or Kasia’s invitation to this exhibition.

A human being has seen your order, a painting on a folded-out box, was originally made as part of Coverage, an exhibition of boxes that collected together stories, gossip and rumors, named after Lyn Hejinian’s poem “Coverage”:

Discontinuity in my experience

to me means radical coverage. With garrulous scanning 

... as the cobweb that humiliates the space that waves

 ... constantly distracted, the vulnerability 

not of the fragile but of the fake..

Anu Vahtra:
As the chain is already splitting, I’m showing another two images while keeping in mind the breathing-living organism that this exhibition in itself represents. One of them, The Hotel, is a photograph that shows how I perceive a city as an organism, a chaotic system where everything is aligned, if only you’re able to find the vantage point. It doesn’t matter in which city this photograph was taken. Rather, what it stand for is some sort of an amalgamated city: a cityscape in the western world, which is formed from gathered situations, moments and reactions to what goes on in this city, often under the influence of powers that are both meticulous and ridiculous and lead to processes such as standardization, gentrification, brusselization. When the commuters and the tourists leave this amalgamated city, people live there, together. They make do, solve problems creatively, disregard or bypass institutional power, fix shit up, have fun.

Exhibition is supported by Punch Drinks.

EST: 

Näituse algataja Olga Temnikova: "Mida rohkem ma süvenen kunstimaailma isiklikesse, kui ka ajaloolistesse aspektidesse, seda keerulisemaks muutub võimudünaamika ja soosimiste ignoreerimine, mis peituvad kureeritud näituste struktuurides. Ma ei ole nende vastu – see on inimlik ja kahtlemata ei jää ka ma ise neist süsteemidest kõrvale.

Sääraste mustrite jälgimisest kujunes aja jooksul lausa kinnisidee. Lõpuks otsustasin kureerida avatud struktuuriga näituse, kus ei seadnud mingeid piiranguid näituse teemale, vaid keskendusin hoopis sõbralikele suhetele kunstnike vahel ning jäin parimat lootma..

Valisin ühe kunstniku ja palusin tal valida järgmine näituse osaleja ning pühendada ja esitada talle teos.Teine kunstnik vastas esimesele oma teosega ja edastas selle edasi järgmisele – ja nii edasi. Idee oli hoida kogu protsess lihtne, mänguline ja suvine. Mingeid piiranguid ei olnud, sest ma soovisin, et see suvelõpu näitus oleks võimalus suhelda ja mängida, mitte koormav ülesanne."

Eksperimentaalsel grupinäitusel on üleval tööd kunstnikelt: Inga Meldere, Dafna Maimon, Kasia Fudakowski, Lieven Lahaye ja Anu Vahtra. 
Graafiline disainer: Oliver Long, font: Patrick Zavadskis.

Näitusevaated: Anu Vahtra