10 Questions to Ando Keskküla from Jaan Toomik

	1. You will be 50 shortly. This is an age when a person has lived 7x7 years. In many cultures this means achieving a certain stage of maturity. What is most important for you at present? There is less and less time. In every sense. Time is turning into a substance which is almost materially perceptible. The choices are clarified, and this brings along reconciliation. The essential thing is to realise the necessity of making a few significant choices within the limited range of possibilities and trying to make the most of them.
	2. In small Estonia, you are the rector of an important institution, the Academy of Arts. At the same time you have been involved in rather grand-scale art projects: Expo, São-Paulo and the Venice biennials, for example. Doesn't this scattering of your energies have a negative effect on the mentioned fields of art? Quite the contrary. Academies are conservative by nature. To find a balance between traditions and innovations is one of the key problems for the Academy. The Academy's readiness for social partnership both locally and internationally depends on that. We have no shortage of traditions, but the innovations side is far more complicated. The rector's activities must largely be directed outwards and are inevitably connected with his personality, work and ideas. The E-Media Centre at the Academy has doubtlessly influenced Estonian art in the late 1990s. The Centre has helped a number of artists to realise their projects. There are various international events where the name of the Academy is mentioned in their publications only because of its connection to the Centre. The foundation of the Centre was directly related to my own work, to my interest in media art which emerged in 1994. It was not possible to be seriously engaged in it before establishing a practical and theoretical basis for it. This is only one example of how the rector cannot be an hourly farm hand as some would prefer. I keep wondering why my work always finds realisation in a new centre, a gallery, an organisation or some other type of institution, instead of in my individual humble art that might bring fame. Mention should be made of gallery LUUM (now carrying the stupid name of Linnagalerii i.e. Town Gallery); another gallery currently housing Sammas, as well as the gallery of the Academy of Arts. Let us recall that in the early 1990s, plans were afoot to turn the back room of the present Art Hall gallery into a shop storeroom, before I managed to prevent this. Not to mention various curator projects for contemporary art. Perhaps the jubilee catalogue should be compiled of thing like that instead?
	3. Is dedication important to you? Look at the previous answer.
	4. What do notions like money, power, fame mean to you? Freedom, but only for those who are prepared for it. Freedom in this context is ambiguous. Let's recall Erich Fromm who claimed that man was free when he was voluntarily doing something that society expected him to do anyway. It would be hard to think of a better definition of total slavery - most of us are doing exactly that, with the three above-mentioned masters keeping an eye on us.
	5. What has Estonian art gained from Interstanding - the series of new exhibitions? What has it given to you? This question can be answered if I first rephrase it. What can Estonian art gain from a series of art events and conferences which derives from the supposition that Estonia is and has always been part of Europe, both spiritually and geographically, and that an international forum of modern art is equally possible in Estonia, Amsterdam or Helsinki. I am positive that international art events here offer our artists wonderful opportunities to exhibit their work along with internationally well-known artists. International attention then focuses on us as a favourable art environment, and this is far more useful for our art colony as a whole than an exhibition of one artist or other abroad, promoted by a Finnish curator. Interstanding has also been a stepping stone for several artists to reach the next international exhibition. This is an entirely different philosophy from the recently promoted principle of 'our native culture'. The latter is based on an image of Europe as something uniform and separate from 'us'. A place where everybody wants to go, because it is somewhere else and therefore beautiful. What is imported from Europe differs from 'our' culture. We like to think that the ancient/real values have survived in our culture. Every local expression that is similar to that of 'over there', is therefore nothing but a sham, a pretence, because it is not 'us'. Taking 'ours' 'over there' becomes a value in itself, because 'ours' then turns into something almost sacred. Interstanding instead derives from the understanding that European culture has been changing and is still doing so as a result of integration.
	6.Do ideology and strategy exist or function for contemporary art in Estonia? Yes and no. They do not function on a conscious level, much less on state level. A few strategies do exist, thanks to the will and enthusiasm of some people. But they certainly function via mass hysteria - the less it is consciously perceived, the more totally they function. In other words - they function via the memes described by Richard Dawkins. 7. What is the strongest motivation for your art? All-embracing dissatisfaction.
	8. Do you have soul mates in Estonian art? Soul mates emerge on the basis of art trends. Support groups and art groupings then appear. This could be called an active affinity. With the vanishing of ideas, only passive soul mates remain, traditionalists who never tire of repeating the same old truths over and over again. The means employed are not of particular importance here; a video artist does not have to be an exception here either. An individualistic and deeply personal creative work can have no soul mates. Perhaps only those who have realised that the one true value in art is the profundity of an artist's experience. But these people seldom meet and do not talk about it. Another answer to that question could be: a few. I actually do not see why soul mates can only be sought in Estonia; they are in Finland, Holland, Latvia - everywhere where people are interested in how the media space develops, and in the possibilities of the existence of a human quality in that space which we have habitually associated with art. Media activity is today's avant-garde. Interestingly enough, artists are the ones who now raise the question of freedom and equal opportunities in society which is more than ever defined by means of media technologies. The writers who used to enlighten people, are at present more concerned with trying to earn a few pence on library lending rights. The avant garde has always been sensitive to mechanisms of power. Take the relations between television and video art in recent history. The avant garde is always trying to deconstruct the technology of power. It seems to be copying the tactic tested in revolutions where the first thing is to seize the means of communications. If things were all right with Estonian art, if its younger and more pretentious part were able to react quickly, Estonian Telecom with its huge profits would not have been able to raise its rates yet again. It would have at least had to suffer a few embarrassing moments, like various other dishonest companies abroad that fell under the attack of artists. Art like that has even acquired a name - the Art of Campaigning. Interstanding is involved in that too. But it is very difficult to measure its importance for Estonian art, and for me personally. Perhaps the answer to question three lies here? 9. The part of women in shaping your personality? Decisive. Suffice it to say that I grew up with the neighbours' three daughters. I preferred them to boys and dolls to cars. 10. Jaan Paavle's role in Estonian art? Mysterious.
	| Estonian Art 2/99 (6) | Published by the Estonian Institute 1999 | ISSN 1406-5711 | einst@einst.ee | tel: (372) 631 43 55 | fax: (372) 631 43 56 |