Welcome to PUBLICS to celebrate the launch of new book Crystal Grid by Paul Kuimet published by Lugemik Publishing, Tallinn. During the evening of March 22nd from 5.30 -7pm Kuimet will be in conversation with Tatu Tuominen and there will be a screening of Paul Kuimet’s 16mm film Material Aspects, 2020.

[…] How to give structure to something that itself is lacking one? How to present something like that? This is a question of visibility and making visible. What are the means for making visible something that always remains invisible? More precisely: the thing that remains invisible in real life, but of which we can get a glimpse in Crystal Grid, is the structure of capitalism. But how to display something like that?

The works are connected by a set of geometric shapes from a grid that is based on the roof structure of the central transept of the Crystal Palace, erected for the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. While the photographic material of the Crystal Gridcollages has been photographed in different botanical gardens around the world, the assemblages of the What It Is to Be What You Are Not series use images exposed to light-sensitive paper in the darkness of a photo lab together with leaves collected in the Tallinn Botanic Garden. Juxtaposed, the works raise different questions about the notions of place, form and representation in photography.

Material Aspects, 2020.
16 mm film projection, optical sound,
9 min 14 s loop

The essay film unfolds on the desktop of an unknown collage artist working sometime in the early 21st century. Browsing through various archival excerpts, magazines, books and photographs, the history of modernist steel and glass architecture is introduced. The film refers to the paradox Marshall Berman described in the early 1980s: the dystopian glass cities depicted in Soviet science fiction became a reality on the other side of the Iron Curtain under the conditions of the so-called free market economy. The best-known example is the transparent glass city depicted by Yevgeny Zamyatin in his 1924 novel We, in which the inhabitants are constantly monitored. The film’s medium and technique of slow cross dissolves evokes the idea of infinite transparency—of always looking through something to see its relation to something else, whether in architectural form or ideology. All of it depending on the point of view, of looking at things in a certain light. This is emphasised when the voiceover of the film suddenly addresses the viewer and tries to place their body in space and in relation to the film, its materiality and looping structure.

BIOS

Paul Kuimet (1984) is an artist who works with photography, 16 mm film, and installation comprising of these media. Although his work is often described by a technological way of seeing, his practice places emphasis on the movement and presence of the beholder in the exhibition space. Since 2013, his work has been interested in modernist forms. In his latest works he has concentrated not so much on the forms of modernism, but on its materials, such as steel and glass, and their relationship to the development of modern capitalism since the mid-nineteenth century. He received an MA degree from the Estonian Academy of Arts (2014). In 2018, he participated in residency programmes at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels, and at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York City. Since 2022, Kuimet is the Associate Professor at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Department of Photography.

Kuimet’s recent presentations include the solo and duo exhibitions Crystal Grid, Draakon gallery, Tallinn (2023); Landscape Passes Through the House (with Tõnis Saadoja), Tartu Art Museum (2023); Sidewalks and Desktops, WIELS Project Room, Brussels (2021); If Air Can Be Poured Like a Liquid, FUGA: Budapest Center of Architecture (2021); Endless Story (with Mihkel Ilus), Tallinn Art Hall (2020). His work has been part of group exhibitions and screening programmes such as the 8th Artishok Biennale – Botanical Witnesses, Tallinn Botanical Garden (2022); Observing Power, Estonian Museum of Architecture, Tallinn (2021); Trial and Error, Tramway, Glasgow (2018); Double Feature, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main (2018); Archeology of the Screen, Kumu Art Museum (2018) & BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels (2017). 

Tatu Tuominen (born 1975, Helsinki)is a visual artist whose work deals with the relationship between printed image and its history. His works are based on source images from diverse repositories such as books or various collections of photographs and prints: The imagery spans from 17th century etchings to modernist architectural plans. In Tuominen’s artistic process the appropriated pictures undergo a transformation, taking on novel material forms and contemporary contexts, thereby acquiring new meanings. He employs a multimedia approach encompassing collage, installation, moving image, computer-operated intaglio, cut paper and more. His artwork extends from intricate small-scale intaglio to building size etchings on concrete.

Tuominen currently holds the position of Lecturer in Printmaking at the University of the Arts’ Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki. He obtained his master’s degree from the same institution in 2006. Since then his work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Finland and internationally. Notable venues include MoCA Shanghai, Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum in Helsinki, and the Helsinki Art Museum. Additionally, in recent years, he has carried out several commissioned public artworks in Helsinki and Lahti.

Lugemik
Lugemik is an independent publishing initiative based in Tallinn, Estonia, founded in 2010 by designer Indrek Sirkel and artist Anu Vahtra.

In 2013, Lugemik opened its first bookshop on the premises of the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM), where it was open until 2020. In 2020, Lugemik Bookshop opened its second location under Tallinn Art Hall, which was closed due to the extensive renovation of the building in 2022. At the moment Lugemik Bookshop is open in two locations in Tallinn: at Kai Art Center in the Noblessner harbour area and at the Estonian Applied Art and Design Museum (ETDM) in Tallinn Old Town.

Book Details
Essay by Neeme Lopp
215  × 280 mm
88 pp
Offset printing
Hardcover (125 different cover combinations)
In English and Estonian
Graphic design: Indrek Sirkel
Colour correction: Marje Eelma
Reproductions: Stanislav Stepaško
Translation: Keiu Krikmann (est–eng)
Copy editing: Anti Saar (est), Bryne McLaughlin (eng)
Paper: Multi Art Gloss 150g, Munken Polar Rough 120g, Caribic Dark Green 170g
Typefaces: Century Expanded, Monotype Grotesque
Printed by Tallinn Book Printers
Supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia
Edition of 400
Published by Lugemik
ISBN 978-9916-9817-7-1
2023