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Collection highlights
“I also remember an image from the distant past. I was riding a tricycle (I guess I was very young at the time) around a house in that small village. On the ground floor there was a clothing store with a painted picture in the window. There were a pair of pants, a shirt and, if I'm not mistaken, a shoe. The picture was made with even, pastel colours in a clear and ascetic fashion. The images were surrounded by a delicate black or dark gray line. I looked at the window for a long time and the aesthetic experience was imprinted in my memory forever. To me - a child - it had nothing to do with an advertisement, information about the clothes being sold inside, nor with art. It was just something completely alluring that I can't explain rationally. Perhaps since then I have been attracted to different sign systems…" Mäetamm has defined his works and all contemporary art as a traffic sign: mobile, clear-cut, emotionless, bright and with easy-to-read information. Despite the random objects (Cassette) and situations (“Colourful Friends"; “Three in a Flower Garden") and their accentuated meaninglessness in his work, Mäetamm's joyful sympathizing with the objects does not allow us to take them as neutral. The clumsy penguin-like characters in his image inevitably make us grin. The image of Jesus Christ on a cross wearing a suit introduces the artist's grand series, created some years after, that ponder over the nature of God, the Devil and the act of Creation (“Chemistry of Being" 1999; “Me Supernatural", 2000), and shape the themes and questions into similar traffic signs and schemes. The “Shell Portrait" does not have a face - it has been replaced by a logo of the gas station in the background of the picture. “In addition there's a work in progress: I'm planning to write a song titled “Shell Religion". It is based on car models and petrol companies. In this song, Shell is Jesus, who sacrifices himself and creates the Shell World." Anu Allas

Marko Mäetamm
Colourful Friends

 
Artist: Marko Mäetamm (1965 - )
Title: Colourful Friends
Date: 1995
Technique:
Material:
lithography
paper
Height (cm): 43.1
Width (cm): 55.2
Dimensions: sheet size
Description: “I also remember an image from the distant past. I was riding a tricycle (I guess I was very young at the time) around a house in that small village. On the ground floor there was a clothing store with a painted picture in the window. There were a pair of pants, a shirt and, if I'm not mistaken, a shoe. The picture was made with even, pastel colours in a clear and ascetic fashion. The images were surrounded by a delicate black or dark gray line. I looked at the window for a long time and the aesthetic experience was imprinted in my memory forever. To me - a child - it had nothing to do with an advertisement, information about the clothes being sold inside, nor with art. It was just something completely alluring that I can't explain rationally. Perhaps since then I have been attracted to different sign systems…"
Mäetamm has defined his works and all contemporary art as a traffic sign: mobile, clear-cut, emotionless, bright and with easy-to-read information. Despite the random objects (Cassette) and situations (“Colourful Friends"; “Three in a Flower Garden") and their accentuated meaninglessness in his work, Mäetamm's joyful sympathizing with the objects does not allow us to take them as neutral. The clumsy penguin-like characters in his image inevitably make us grin. The image of Jesus Christ on a cross wearing a suit introduces the artist's grand series, created some years after, that ponder over the nature of God, the Devil and the act of Creation (“Chemistry of Being" 1999; “Me Supernatural", 2000), and shape the themes and questions into similar traffic signs and schemes. The “Shell Portrait" does not have a face - it has been replaced by a logo of the gas station in the background of the picture. “In addition there's a work in progress: I'm planning to write a song titled “Shell Religion". It is based on car models and petrol companies. In this song, Shell is Jesus, who sacrifices himself and creates the Shell World."
Anu Allas
Related categories: Contemporary Art
Copyright notice: Art Museum of Estonia
AME collection: Prints and drawings collection
Collection number: G 27377
Accretion number: EKM j 44809
Muis reference http://muis.ee/museaalView/1501465
File info: Source type: slide 6x6/7/9
File type: TIF
File size: 41.40MB
Resolution: 3954*3657px @ 2000dpi
 
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