Centre Pompidou has acquired Kris Lemsalu’s ‘Car2Go’ to its collection

Temnikova & Kasela gallery is pleased to announce the acquisition of Kris Lemsalu's work 'Car2Go' by the Centre Pompidou.
 
‘Car2Go’ is one of the largest artworks conceived by Lemsalu so far and distinctly characteristic of her artistic practice. Built as a collage of multi-layered personal references and cultural motifs, it employs both ceramics and elements of mass produced nature (such as Opel Kadett car doors as wings) and can be activated via performance.
 
This acquisition of the work was made possible by generous support of Les Amis du Centre Pompidou, Silvia Fantauzzi & Taavet Hinrikus, Taavi Einaste & Susan Luitsalu, and Rain Lõhmus. It is the first time when private donors have stepped in to support the acquisition of an artwork by an Estonian artist to the collection of an important international museum and both Kris Lemsalu and Temnikova & Kasela are extremely grateful for that.
 
Lemsalu's 'Car2Go' was commissioned by Elise Lammer for Les Urbaines festival, Lausanne in 2016. It was further shown in 'Metamorphoses' curated by Zdenek Felix at Gallery Guido Baudach, Berlin in 2017 and 'Contemporary Art from Estonia', curated by Britta von Colampenhausen in the European Central Bank, Frankfurt. In 2022 it was shown at the exhibition 'The Act of breathing' in Horst Arts & Music festival at Asiat, Vilvoorde and Cinematek, Brussels. 
 
In Lemsalu’s own words, ‘Car2Go’ originated “from one rather bizarre event altogether. I was in Sri Lanka, where people drive like crazy on the streets, and while everybody was in this hectic atmosphere, I suddenly saw this car driving really, really slowly, with a family walking behind it. And I realized that it was a funeral march. These are the types of events that I see and they start to linger in my head. I can't get rid of them somehow. But of course, that's not the only way to translate the work. This is built up with many other layered stories. So I would say that Car2Go came up after half a year after seeing that. Let's say that it is my own personal newsletter."