THE ART SALON ALLEE ...

is now located at new rooms at Pikk St 34 (entrance from the Green Market side). During the exhibitions the salon is open Mon-Fri 10.00-18.00, Sat 11.00-15.00. Exhibits will be announced on the web site in the News section. At other times you can come the salon by making an appointment beforehand, tel. no: 6464500, mobile no: 5127677 or by email: info@allee.ee.

JUBILEE-EXHIBITION OF VALVE JANOV

Artsalon Allee opened on the 31st of January in 2006 an exhibition of the works of Valve Janov, named "Happy Birthday, Vaavi!". This exhibition is dedicated to the artist´s 85th birthday. Exhibited flower-paintings both from her earlier and later creation. What could be a more better motive for a birthday, than flowers?

Valve Janov was born in Tartu. She started to study art in 1938 in "Pallas" and continued in 1944 in the Tartu National Institute of Art, where her main teachers were J. Võerahansu, E. Kits and A. Vabbe. She was not allowed to graduate, despite all that, she took everything from the teachings. The political situation during the 1940s-1950s was complicated and Janov created in a minimum level, she started to participate actively in exhibitions again in 1959. With Kaja Kärner, Lüüdia Vallimäe-Mark, Silvia Jõgever, Heldur Viires, Lembit Saarts, Valdur Ohakas and Henn Roode, she was one of the famous friendship of Ülo Sooster.

Janov painted in an imaginative room, where the time had a different meaning. Through form, colour and line, shapes, that did not exist in the real world (not in that way they were painted on her pictures), suddenly became alive. In the foreword of a catalogue in 1971 she has written: "I like to depict flowers, fish or houses, that I belive do not exist."
As an artist, Janov had many ways to observe the surrounding world. There were some new orientations in the works of Janov´s and other artist´s in Tartu in the end of 1950s - disclaiming from reality, even more free attitude towards colour and form and through that the way to abstract art. Artists started to use collage besides other classical forms of technique, Janov became one of the most masterous user of collage in the Estonian art after the war. In the 1960s syrrealism with metaphysical elements invaded into the creation of almost every artist in Tartu, including Janov. Ülo Sooster, who lived and worked in Moscow, was a necessary link between the art of Estonia and other world. After his death the connection broke. Expressing itself in a closed aura depended on the inner strength and the resistance of the artists. So the creation of an imaginative creation-room was justified, above all to be able to survive mentally.

In this exhibition it is possible to see different depictions of flowers. They are for example placed into the darkness of the night, or they have became silently standing trees, mystical moon on the backround. And then there is a nicely set bouquet that is placed into a homely milieu. Here and there we can see a specially deep blue, that is a reference to example of Paul Klee. A significative discovery is the central composition. To observe an object, Janov used different positions and painted two independent works. In one she sees entirety that consist in obligatory elements like form, colour and line. In the other she opens the composition up into pieces and paints a picture by using only colour and line, leaving the depiction at the same time clear and understandable. "The room does not loose its meaning, there are other qualitys applied to achieve it - it is carried out by the relations between cold and warm and by the game with surfaces" (E. Lillemets). This kind of double-depiction is unique in Janov´s creation. It gives us a chance to understand the way how the artist was thinking and the logic of other works that are painted with a contour. This exhibition is a proof that there are many levels in Janov´s creation that have not been discovered yet.

The exhibition is opened until February 11th.

Article about the exhibition: http://www.epl.ee/artikkel_311139.html
Also read: http://www.postimees.ee/080206/esileht/kultuur/191261.php

EXHIBITION OF VALDUR OHAKAS

On Thursday, the 29th of December (16:00 p.m.) artsalon Allee opened an exhibition of the burnt works of Valdur Ohakas. They are saved from the fire in Ohakas´ studio in 1991.

Valdur Ohakas is somehow known mostly as a painter of brown pictures. This kind of painting has deeper roots and this was a way, that was not able to be born, if the artist had not been so interested and attracted to nature. But at the same time - green colour, as it is in the nature, that he really loved - was as an oil-colour on canvas totally insufferable for the artist. In his brown pictures he just displaced the green with brown, but observed closely the colour-forms in nature - green simply became grayish-brown, yellowy-green became orange-brown etc. Valdur Ohakas was a powerful painter. Painting was not for him a job, it was more like a necessity, throught what he took out his moods. The object that he painted, was just an excuse, that created a possibility to search for solutions in colour and form. He examined closely big masters, he appreciated and honoured them, but never replicated them. Picasso was and stayed as his idol - Ohakas admired his talent of drawing and ability to balance the picture. The linear balance went out of hand but Ohakas balanced it with colour. With curt tools he tried to express everything that was important and not to notice anything else. In the 1960s, he often used boundary lines, in his later years he did not consider it necessary any more. It is wrong to think that in the 1960s he painted burbly and concise pictures and later, in the time of so-called brown paintings, he forgot about everything he had known before. He could have never been able to bridle his spontaneous temper, or offer quality through uniform paintings, if he had not gone back to his old love Picasso or just simlpy post-impressionistic, powerful, built-on-contrast way of painting, that allowed him a burbly brushstroke.

In this exhibition You can see small-formated pictures the artist painted besides monumental and museum works. The artist´s widow Eetla Ohakas has said, that these games on colour and form were necessary breaks between other work. Bright colour-solutions, deformed figures, syrrealism in its grotesque form, Matisse-like compositions, flat-surfaced still-lifes, intuition of the presence of Picasso and friend-schoolmate Ülo Sooster. But still Ohakas-like at the same time. These small-formated paintings are considered to be one of the most interesting part of Ohakas´s creation. The pouring of emotions into form and colour during his breaks just for a moment - to return back to landscapes. When the home-studio of the Ohakas´s family burned down, a lot of priceless cultural-repository - books, self-made and givend paintings - were destroyed. Only a few works, that were collected into a paper-case, were saved. The tracks of fire - charred surfaces, burnt colour, the compositional entirety of the flame-shadows and the knowledge of ruination of many artworks - this makes You think about vulnerability and the fragility of art.

In this text are used the materials compiled by Külli Aleksanderson (From Tartu Arthouse) and Eetla Ohakas.

Article about the exhibition: http://www.epl.ee/artikkel_308699.html
Also read: http://www.ekspress.ee/viewdoc/693A36892B08D2E1C22570F100497A0B

PHOTO EXHIBITION

From the 6th-22nd of October artsalon Allee exhibited - Hilja Riet "Estonian Artists in photo 1947-1960".

Hilja Riet was born on the 8th of January in 1905 (on the 26nd of December in 1904 by the old calendar). Her father, Jaan Riet was a photographer in Viljandi and opened with a permission from the governor his own photo studio already in 1898, that later on became very successful. In 1915 architect Karl Burman designed a house that besides living quarters had also a lab, a darkroom, a waiting room and a studio, where the ceiling was made of a special toned-down glass. Hilja helped her parents in the studio already as a child and learned about all the ways of photography. She studied in the "Pallas" artschool during the 1920s, where she had a good preparation in building up a composition and in organising a picture.


In 1928 a "Leica" camera was ordered from Germany and Hilja started taking pictures with it - Peeter Tooming says that those artistic photos are the very first ones in Estonia, taken with a "Leica". The camera was small and did not need a tripod, this gave the photographer more freedom to move around while taking photos. Trying to find ways to implement her knowledge and skills took her to photographing a series of still-lifes, flower pictures, compositions and holiday-cards. The main thing about those cards was their quality - she finely used the textures´ and structures´ behavior in the light of different materials, with multiple reflections and optical effects she created pictures, where the feeling of the entire room was cognizable. During the years 1930-1940 Hilja took pictures with a big studio camera of 176 plots; they were copied into thousands of postcards and added more popularity to Riets´ photostudio-shop. A special cream-colored paper was ordered from Germany to make the postcards. Those postcards, where on the backside was pressed or typed "Photo Hilja Riet", were in almost every Estonian home and are kept even nowdays. By her own words, Hilja started to make those postcards as a hobby, when the daily work in the photoshop ended and was very surprised by their quick popularity herself. The Jaan Riets´ photostudio was nationalized in 1940 and closed in 1948, Hilja Riet was not able to continue her work as a professional photographer, except in Vanemuise and Ugala for just a very short time, recording the life in theatre. Hilja took part in many photo exhibitions and got awards, but her first personal exhibition took place, when she started to get 90. When Peeter Tooming wrote about this exhibition, that took place in 1994 at the photo-cellar "Lee", he described her holiday- and other postcards as impressionistic still-lifes.

Besides postcards, culturally valuable are also photos, that are taken of Estonian artists and were made during the years 1947-1960. This was not an ordered work, it was also just a hobby for Hilja. The photos are produced artistically, but this fact is not hidden. It does not matter that in real life, an artist is never so well dressed into an ironed suit: a place, where art is created, is never in perfect order and it is normal, if it is just a big mess. It is rare, that the artist looks right into the camera, he or she is mostly captured from the side, to bring out something the most characteristic about the artist. These photos have the same "feeling" and "touch" inside them, as the holiday-cards - all the toneshadows and fore-, center- and backfronts are perfectly used, accents are set in place with skillful focusing. There is nothing "one too many", everything is set and feels unforced. The photographer has placed the artists to poses that are the most characteristic to them, for example to finger their palette, to draft while laying on the bed or to contemplate over something while smoking in front of an easel. Hilja Riet has kept those photos and negatives carefully until nowdays, but in exhibitions they are not (except some) been outplayed yet, many of them are used in different publications.

By the maintained list, Hilja Riet took pictures of 43 artist, making over 200 shots. Most of them are taken with a handcamera on a 6x6cm film. In this exhibition You can see 72 photos, that gives a chance to take a look inside of the studios of artists, who now have became classics for us. Some of the photos are being exhibited for the very first time. The exhibition will stay opened until the 22nd of October.

This text concists information from articles that have been published before:

http://www.sakala.ajaleht.ee/271204/esileht/artiklid/5013933.php
http://vana.www.sakala.ajaleht.ee/index.html?op=lugu&rubriik=77&id=7198&number=373
http://vana.www.sakala.ajaleht.ee/index.html?op=lugu&rubriik=52&id=7286&number=378

Aime Jõgi article in "Sakala" 12.10.2005.a. "Hilja Riet märkab karakterit", link: http://sakala.ajaleht.ee/121005/esileht/5018072.php