Lilac

“In addition to showcasing the works of some of Estonia’s finest artists, the exhibition’s curator seeks to add a context that, in the current socio-psychological climate, feels inescapable: the need to reflect on the choices and inevitabilities faced by the individual when relinquishing personal will and identity in order to belong to a larger collective,” writes curator Jevgeni Zolotko. He measures both art and the artist, creativity and life by the same demanding standard – one that arises from choices that tend to vanish in zones of comfort. Choices in which freedom, understood as the self-evident right to self-expression, must – albeit unwillingly – be relinquished.

Zolotko delves into the writings of French social psychologist Gustave Le Bon, who, while scrutinising the relationship between the human mind’s capacity for progress and the static nature of faith, acknowledges the illusory nature of religious dogmas while also recognising their inevitability and power to unite people. Yet the belief systems that sway the masses do not interest Zolotko. For him, even in times marked by wars waged in the name of patriotism, political machinations, and the trampling of the weak by the powerful, the ultimate measure remains the helpless, silent, and overlooked individual struggling to make sense of life.