Kaido Ole, Marko Mäetamm, John Smith
Holocaust
| Artist: | John Smith (1943 - 2006) |
| Co Artists: | Marko Mäetamm (1965 - ), Kaido Ole (1963 - ) |
| Title: | Holocaust |
| Date: | 2001 |
| Technique: Material: |
oil canvas |
| Height (cm): | 160.0 |
| Width (cm): | 200.0 |
| Description: | Marko Mäetamm and Kaido Ole are the artists hiding behind the pseudonym of John Smith (also: John Smith Iz Velikobritannij). They work as a team and make technically precise, overly large paintings that combine the sublime and the tragic, the sharp and the trivial, and form them into an absurd comic image, a cheeky black joke. “John Smith Iz VB is like a true conductor, a genetic engineer of cultures. With an inexhaustible creative energy he directs and leads the world's positive and negative poles, weaving its texture that is difficult to define being simultaneously characterised by tranquillity and anxiety, life and death, happiness and fear, shame and pride." John Smith parodies the production principles of a contemporary company by creating functional and ultramodern products and by being in the right place at the right time and acting according to order- and market demand, investing in secret, like a parasite on an existing ground.* “Holocaust" reminds us of a snapshot taken from the backseat of a car familiar from dozens of films, a panoramic view through the windscreen. It shows the artists (Marko Mäetamm in the driver's seat and Kaido Ole next to him) and a Hollywood logo on the slope of the hill that has been replaced by the word ‘holocaust'. The distortion comes from an acoustical and visual similarity between the two words. We can see in the work either the author's totally carefree attitude or a sharp social and political statement. A replacement such as this can take place smoothly in the field of visual culture where many words are first adopted as a designed logo and only afterwards, if at all, become conceptually rooted. As the work was created before the subject of the Holocaust became a common topic of discussion in Estonia, a prophecy like this undoubtedly confirms that John Smith is in fact dealing with the 'superhuman'. Anu Allas * Eha Komissarov, A Punishment or a Gift? Examples of New Estonian Grotesque Figural Painting. - Estonian Art, 2002, p. 7. |
| Related categories: | Contemporary Art |
| Copyright notice: | Art Museum of Estonia |
| AME collection: | Paintings collection |
| Collection number: | M 7122 |
| Accretion number: | EKM j 49075 |
| Muis reference | http://muis.ee/museaalView/1258302 |
| File info: |
Source type: digital photography File type: TIF File size: 189.72MB Resolution: 9274*7148px @ 300dpi |
