Jaan Toomik
Menstruation
| Artist: | Jaan Toomik |
| Title: | Menstruation |
| Date: | 1989 |
| Technique: Material: |
oil canvas |
| Height (cm): | 248.0 |
| Width (cm): | 175.0 |
| Description: | Jaan Toomik who has during the last decade primarily been known as a video-, installation- and performance artist, begun his career in the late 1980s with expressive paintings, some of almost nightmarish quality. The body and an aggressive relationship to it, distorted limbs and bloody wounds that refer to his radically violent theory of human personality, are re-occurring motifs in Toomik's work from this period. “The human body is treated as an impersonal lump of meat and an anonymous object, a so-called ‘human factor' that can be manipulated and has no control over how it is treated." “Menstruation" shows a bleeding female body with spread legs. The upper part has been torn off and the spurting blood is directed to the crescent moon. As the picture consists of two parts the body is being cut in half for a second time. /…/ Toomik's figural deformations can be seen as an attempt to ‘destroy the diving suit called body', to move away from the ‘bodily burden'". At the same time the mind is encapsulated in itself, detached from the body and simply waiting to be let out of its cage. In Toomik's work the body represents a person that is being shaken awake by pain and violence. Through pain both the body and the mind are more clearly ‘present', more perceptible, more alive, and perhaps able to rid themselves of the ‘diving suit' for a moment. Anu Allas * Heie Treier, Kunst kui agressioon. - Vikerkaar, 1992, 9, p. 33. ** Raivo Kelomees, Keha, koht ja ruum. Jaan Toomiku näitus Tallinna Kunstihoone Galeriis. - Vikerkaar, 1993, 7, p. 31. |
| Exhibition history: | 2016 Kumu permanent exhibition Conflicts and Adaptations |
| Related categories: | Art during the Soviet Era |
| Copyright notice: | Art Museum of Estonia |
| AME collection: | Paintings collection |
| Collection number: | M 6948 |
| Accretion number: | EKM j 44539 |
| Muis reference | http://muis.ee/museaalView/1339871 |
| File info: |
Source type: digital photography File type: TIF File size: 110.56MB Resolution: 5135*7523px @ 300dpi |
