Analogue vs digital

Andreas Trossek (2/2012)

14. XII 2011–2. I 2012
Hobusepea Gallery



Urmas Pedanik, the last few years have been like a second coming for you in the Estonian art scene. First, the more retrospective "Vaated" (Views) in March 2010 at Tallinn City Gallery, then "Ruumid" (Spaces), put together from more recent work and exhibited from December 2011 to January 2012 at Hobusepea Gallery. Reading your catalogue put together for "Ruumid", it turns out that before these two exhibitions, you last painted in the middle of the 1980s, and there has been a pause of almost a quarter of a century in between. Why is that?

I am always surprised when an artist has a hundred theories about their work to explain what it’s all about. I remember when I was young we had young artists’ group shows, and Peeter Mudist, who was also young then, was puzzled that you all talk and talk, but I just paint. It is actually good that you are just doing something, but what art critics make of it is something entirely different.

A process of interpretation?

Yes, you get some kind of a construction back, but at the same time you still feel that it's not quite right.

A purely technical question now: how are your new hyperrealist oil paintings of “computer landscapes” actually done––still using a projector?

Albrecht Dürer made a print of an artist drawing an object––in front of him there is a frame with a grid made of cord, and the artist as if paints the object onto the paper through this grid. That was the technique then. The technical possibilities of the 1970s were limited to the slide projector: you drew an outline onto the canvas and then the painting began. And by memory, because you don't go back to the Eesti Draamateater (Estonian Drama Theatre) at the end of Väike-Karja Street when painting a still life! [laughs] You make the composition with your camera and paint it in your studio as you see it.

Technology is not that important to you?

Technology is always developing, and why not use it. There's always the question of how someone will value it. The late Jüri Kaarma was expelled from the graphics department at the State Art Institute of the Estonian SSR (SAIE) in the 70s for using a photograph, but at the same time he was one of the best book designers.

I mean, from the perspective of the viewer who looks for painterliness and brush strokes in paintings...

The brushstroke has been taken from the picture on purpose. This had more to do with the impressionists. If you look at an impressionist painting, then the old masters would say that from the classical point of view, this isn't a painting. Old masters didn't paint that much themselves—one painted one thing, the other another thing and the masters added their signatures, like a factory. So what painting technique I use or how I get the painting on the canvas—who cares?

You were referred to long ago as a classic Estonian hyperrealist with your oil paintings of electronics from the late 70s, such as "Trükitud skeem I" (Printed Scheme I) (1977), "Trükitud skeem II" (Printed Scheme II) (1977) or "Valgus elektrikilbil" (Light on an Electrical Switchboard) (1978). Where did this idea come from?

The portable radio was extremely important when I was young; people used to carry it everywhere to show off. When I went to Pärnu beach back then, I could hear all kinds of music. There's no such thing nowadays, everyone wears earphones. The Spidola, made in Riga, was a quality radio then, but I somehow managed to break the casing at parties and so I threw it away. But inside there was this printed circuitry—so beautiful! Everything I have done is somehow connected to me. It's not just any old electrical circuit I found somewhere. The fuse box painting is the main fuse box at the Tallinn Art Hall. You could light all the halls from there. It's on the right, between the front door and the stairs when you enter the Art Hall. I worked in that building for decades. Toomas Kohv photographed that fuse box for me and I painted it. But no one cared which fuse box it was when the painting was on show. No one asked.

So it's not a random choice?

No. That was my radio and the fuse box at the Tallinn Art Hall. Although the recent paintings are not that connected to me anymore. Although I did tear my computer to pieces to see the motherboard ... [laughs] Stunning! There was the Artists' Association back then and the Art Foundation, and I was the director of travelling exhibitions for the foundation. Quite a fancy name, the wage was also a bit higher, but I was basically just a transport worker. I think I started working there in 1973, so I knew the building, every door and every wall.

But the motif of the motherboard, where does that come from? Because the series of paintings "Motherboard" (I–III) from 2010 and the "Space" series (I–VII) from 2011, take a huge conceptual leap in time. These computer landscapes speak about today more than any other image could, and at the same time in the stricter sense, these are autobiographically tied to your work in the 70s. The series "Printed Scheme" from 1977 figuratively about the world of analogue electronics and then "Motherboard" from 2010 and "Space" from 2011 focus on the digital electronics of today: analogue signals are replaced by digital. 1977 versus 2011 — analogue versus digital? I don't know, I don't really know how to ask this question...

And I don't know how to answer it [laughs]. I wanted to test myself again, because everyone says that if you don't paint all the time then... I tried small paintings at first. Actually, I have collected details for years. When something broke, I took it apart to see whether there was anything nice to look at in there. I even put together boards which included all these objects, but I needed more material for a good photograph. So I started to visit electronics companies and computer repair shops. Finally, I found a guy who had three garages somewhere in the back of Mustamäe full of pieces of old computers and TVs collected for spare parts. I photographed these objects, but the lightning was too bad for my cheap camera or ... In short, there were problems. But Martin (Martin Pedanik, Urmas Pedanik's son, graphic designer and artist. – Ed.) helped me with the photographing.

 

 

Urmas Pedanik
Printed Scheme I
1977, oil on canvas, 120x140 cm
Image courtesy of the artist
Photo by Stanislav Stepashko, collection of Tallinn Art Hall

 

 

It's interesting to compare that this image of an electrical circuit is still so contemporary, though technology has changed tremendously in the mean time—the aesthetics are the same.

The back of the Spidola was soldered manually, now a machine prints everything. In general, I'm pleased with the feedback I’ve received so far. You expose yourself every time you put your painting on show.

Critics, Ants Juske, among others, have talked about successive waves of hyperrealism in Estonian art. He included Tõnu Virve, who graduated from the scenography department of SAIE in 1974 and painted the chresomathic hyperrealist painting “Eesti naine” (Estonian Woman) (1975), and Ando Keskküla, who went to work in the animation department at Tallinnfilm after graduating from SAIE in 1973, in the first wave. This is interesting; are hyperrealists drawn to film?

I haven't gotten away from films either; I made a puppet animation: Elbert Tuganov, "Giufa" (1979). A children's film for which I had to paint the backgrounds, I don't really remember the details anymore.

How common was the playful "first come, first served" attitude in those times? And were there any problems?

I agree that Tõnu Virve was a hyperrealist and Vladimir Taiger with his "Barracuda" (1975). It was interesting that everyone liked "Barracuda" in that young artists’ exhibition, but everyone was also against it. Like, how do you just cut a picture of a car out of a foreign magazine and then paint it? But I remember that it was well painted. That was the problem with hyper- or super realism: why are you painting something you haven't actually seen. I haven't heard that our hyperrealist artists had any problems. This was more a problem for the art theorists in the Soviet Union.

You studied industrial art, unofficially called design, at SAIE in 1974–1980. What did the artist-designer qualification on the diploma mean?

This meant that you were a product designer, your job was to design. Bruno Tomberg established this department and managed to run it so it became very popular. I took the entrance exams many times. I finally studied in the evening shift for six years. Actually, I was an external student of scenography at first and worked at Tallinna Noorsooteater (Tallinn Youth Theatre) at the same time, painting sets. This was Mari-Liis Küla's (scenographer – Ed.) idea that if I pass the entrance exams, I could start from the second year because I had passed the exams and tests in scenography with the others as an external student. But this wasn't allowed and so I was officially admitted in 1974. Studying design didn’t include anything traditional; you had to make something new. Design meant innovation. Publicly they said that they would teach you, but there are no jobs for you yet because society hadn't developed that far. We're teaching you for the future. But that meant our work had to be different from everything else that existed already––whether a key-chain or a house. That got you thinking. The other students in printmaking or fine art, surrounded by tradition, were actually envious of us because our department was progressive.

What was your graduation work?

I built a vehicle for travelling exhibitions as a final project; I was working with travelling exhibitions in the Exhibitions Department at the Art Foundation at that time. There were dozens of travelling exhibitions every year, I think, in culture centres all over Estonia. Whether there was an art week in some region or ... there were a lot of exhibitions. So I designed a car for travelling exhibitions, for transporting art, but this wasn't just a visual project. There was a car repair shop in Tartu, where they produced those hideous buses for transporting bread [laughs]. At the same time a company had purchased a fairly old vehicle from Coca-Cola that was used for delivering goods. I found it, took pictures of it and went to the chief engineer of the Tartu car repair shop. I told him my problem that I have to make a vehicle of this kind and would it be possible with their technology. They said, that it would be. So I drafted the design and the engineer did the technical design. But that wasn't the end of it. I got an A, graduated from school, and Ando, who was the head artist at the Art Foundation at that time said let's sell this vehicle to Moscow to the Union-wide Art Foundation. And we did! [laughs] They purchased the idea and then the project was buried somewhere. It would have been possible to produce this vehicle in the Molotov car factory. The project included all the fasteners for transporting art safely.

Did artists communicate with each other in the Baltic States, as the rest of the world treats Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as quite a uniform region?

There were Union-wide exhibitions for young artists in Moscow. There were quite large, three-metre hyperrealist works there, but unfortunately I can’t remember the names of the artists. Though I didn't see anything that special there. Then again, I didn't follow what was going on in Latvia or Lithuania much.

You have taken part in different survey exhibitions from 1972, it is only in recent years that you seemed to have preferred solo exhibitions.

The simplest answer is that there was only one gallery suitable for solo exhibitions in Tallinn at that time, Tallinn Art Hall Gallery, and that was it. There were some exhibitions at the current office of the Center for Contemporary Art, but these were more semipublic exhibitions. Young artist as I was, I actually had plenty of opportunities for exhibiting my work. There were the spring and autumn exhibitions, young artists’ exhibitions, some thematic exhibitions––about four or five a year.

You became a member of the Estonian Artists' Association as a painter in 1984, or roughly ten years after being accepted into SAIE. Tiit Pääsuke, one of the leading figures in painting at that time, wrote one of the letters of recommendation, so there were no problems with colleagues who graduated from the painting department?

No there weren't. I actually had exhibitions before I even went to SAIE. Though people wondered why I was not a member, but I was in no hurry. There was one great perk for the members of the Estonian Artists' Association in the Soviet era: one day off per week––it was the "creative day". It was also possible to buy paint through the Association, they also granted permission to buy cars or refrigerators, handed out apartments, studios, you got to go on trips and so on. At that time a Union-wide decision was made to work with the creative young people, and youth teams were created. I was assigned to coordinate the youth team of the Artists' Association. This meant that money was allocated from Moscow and all young artists who had an exhibition got pamphlets, posters, creative grants and so on, through our office. We wrote letters to Moscow with Jaak Kangilaski, who had a way with words, saying that we needed money for this and that, and we got it! [laughs] Estonia was favoured covertly because we were the smallest Soviet republic and could produce western-minded art here because the "damage" to Moscow wouldn't be as great as with some other, larger republics. And when someone had to represent the Soviet Union at an international event, Estonia was up for it again. Ideas were generated in ARS––Moscow only approved the designs (ARS was a public company in the Estonian SSR, which functioned like a factory producing art products and where many artists who had graduated from SAIE worked. – Ed.). Later in 1992 and 1998 we did two Expos with Ando. He designed and I found the resources to make it happen. This was a great time to make something in many ways: the state was still young, but the bosses were from the old period. When you needed something, you went and said: for Estonia, for the World Expo, and it was done, it was a matter of prestige.

The late 1980s was when you gave up painting, why?

Yes, I did paint a little, but didn't take part in any exhibitions. That's when the full-scale changes in society started to take place. I have never been a "great" artist, life is much too interesting for me. I think I was one of the first who joined the cooperative in 1988 or 1989. We joked among ourselves that if Estonians are ever deported to Siberia again, we'll be the first. At first it was a tempting challenge to do business.

But still—why has there been a pause of almost twenty-five years?

I cannot explain it so simply right now. Everything became somewhat commercial when Estonia regained its independence. Until then, artists had been like a family, we only had small quarrels. But then quite big problems came up, fights over money, letters complaining about each other, and the whole thing got a bit alienating.

So it wasn't like the Soviet period was all bad?

You know, I don't like it when some of the artists from our generation say that it was so bad, no one bought their works, they were persecuted ... Who said these things? The artists who sold the most! I worked at the Artists' Association at that time. In that sense, let’s be honest. It was what it was; we lived through that time; it wasn't that bad; we managed.

I stubbornly want to come back to the image of electrical circuits—where did this original idea come from?

I don't know. You somehow feel that you have to. I'm no theorist and I have actually painted so little and basically one and the same thing. I just liked it. Where that liking comes from, I don't know. It just does. When I started to paint motherboards and talked to some people about it, they said quite resolutely not to start with that old thing again [laughs]. But the feeling was stronger.

 

Andreas Trossek is the chief editor of KUNST.EE.

 

CV

Urmas Pedanik, freelance painter, born in 1949 in Pärnu. Studied industrial art at SAIE in 1974–1980. Has taken part in Estonian survey exhibitions since 1972 and Union-wide exhibitions in Moscow (and other places in Russia) since 1977. Member of the Estonian Artists' Association from 1984. First solo exhibition at Tallinn Art Hall Gallery in 1981; has had four solo exhibitions as of 2012. 

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