10 written questions by Andres Tolts to Marko Mäetamm in Tallinn, 24 April 2000

	1. How old were you when you knew that you would become an artist? What were your first contacts with the visual arts and how did you reach neo-pop? I grew up in Karksi-Nuia, a small South-Estonian town set in beautiful surroundings. In my time it was no more than a village, surviving thanks to one huge agricultural enterprise. It repaired lorries and small Russian buses which for some reason were called diagnostical cars. Almost all the local population was employed by the enterprise as locksmiths, drivers and bookkeepers. There were also numerous kolkhozes and sovkhozes in the neighbourhood where one could work as a combine or tractor driver, or milk cows. Any kind of natural contact with art in such circumstances was unthinkable. I remember a stereotypical image I had at four or five years of age of a poet as a man with tiny weak white hands who was unable to do proper work. I certainly had no wish to become someone like that. In my last years at school when we had to undergo all sorts of tests to establish our true vocation, and think of further education, I discovered that none of what was on offer interested me. Nor was I especially talented in any subject at school. When asked about my future plans, I said I planned to go to a naval college since my father was a sailor. I almost believed my own story myself. I first became fascinated with art in my final year at school. I was about 17-18 at the time. It happened suddenly, and for no apparent reason. I started buying various art books and portfolios of graphic art, sold in almost every shop, and very cheaply. I began frantically copying anything remotely interesting, from pictures of foreign bands to Wiiralt's Hell. I learned by heart the art terminology in the Art Book for the Young. It felt as if a huge vacuum inside me was now rapidly filling up. I had heard about a highly prestigious art school ERKI (Estonian State Art Institute), practically impossible to get in. I decided, there and then, to go and study there. For that I resolutely set about visiting all kinds of art exhibitions, enrolled in the preparation courses and so forth. Then four years passed, which involved serving time in the Soviet army, moving to Tallinn and various other things, until I finally became a graphic art student at the Institute. So I can say that my first contacts with the visual arts made me wish to become an artist, and my wish to become an artist brought me into contact with the visual arts. As for reaching neo-pop, this too was for me equally unconscious and intuitional. In the late 1980s - early 1990s, no-one in Estonian art talked about authentic pop, to say nothing of neo-pop. The art history lectures of that time did not dwell on that subject either, incredible as it may seem now. I remember an incident in 1990 in connection with one of my pictures. It was titled Jamaaha, Kavasaki and Honda Tasting an Egg. A German exchange student saw it and asked whether I liked pop art. I replied that yes, I did, but actually I had hardly heard of the thing (only a few vague reproductions in the previously mentioned Art Book for the Young). A few years later, in 1992 or 1993, the Tallinn gallery Sammas exhibited my works together with those of the sculptor Hannes Starkopf. The exhibition was titled Subjective POP. No talk of neo-pop here even then. The reviews called it modern, hinted at Warhol, retro, American Dream, nostalgia - you name it. At the same time I chanced upon an article in a magazine about the invasion of neo-pop in British music. I therefore dare consider Subjective POP the first glimpse of neo-pop in Estonia, although it happened without me being aware of it. The term only became established in the second half of the 1990s, with the formation of a wave of younger artists who cultivated the aesthetics of the 'Flower-Power'. By that time, however, my own infatuation with pop began to subside. I now no longer perceive any connection between myself and neo-pop.
	2. You studied graphic art, and were one of the first MA students at our Academy of Arts. You are teaching there even now. How do you explain your interest in lithography, a technique invented in the late 18th century, and in teaching? What's your opinion of the oft-repeated proclamations that traditional techniques are dead and of the triumph of new media? It may sound strange, but I sort of stumbled upon graphic art. I chose it partly because the competition was tough, and partly because it seemed more understandable as compared with painting and sculpture, and did not need so much specific knowledge. I've had no cause to regret my choice, so it must have been right. Lithography attracted me in my second year. The fact that it was an ancient and traditional printing technique had absolutely nothing to do with it. It just happened to suit my manner of expression of the time best. And I liked the master who taught me. He taught me to print and I almost lived in his workshop. By the end of school, I had about 150 chromatic printings. As I was keen to go on using the workshop also after graduation, I stayed on working as a master. As for fascination with teaching, I wouldn't overemphasise its importance. I see myself primarily as an artist who works at his own projects. But I am a practical person, knowing full well that freelancing as an artist in Estonia is most difficult. As a lecturer in our graphic art department I can teach what I know, both in theory and practice. Besides, the problems of an active artist and an art student are very close, sometimes even coinciding. The emergence of new means of expression and art forms is normal and natural. They pose no threat to traditional techniques. One does not obstruct the other, and there will always be people interested in the ancient and the rare. At the same time I wouldn't be devastated if, for example, the same old stone lithography I'm teaching one day vanishes, became obsolete. It will happen anyway, because the stones used in printing are natural and their resources have limits. But as long as we have them, they are used. Just as nothing should be forcefully eliminated, nothing should be artificially maintained either.
	3. The beginners of the post-modern were in the habit of speaking about genius loci. Have you been influenced by the spirit of a place, and if yes, then how? What do you think of regionalism in art? In replying to the first question I spoke about the environment that suppressed any interest in art, rather than encourage it. It would be naİve to think that this has no impact on a person's development. It is entirely possible that I would now be doing something different, had I grown up under the watchful eye of parents-artists, with my sister running a successful art gallery. Perhaps I would then be a combine-driver or repairing small Russian buses somewhere in South Estonia. But I'm at a loss to imagine what I'd do had I been born in Berlin, Hong-Kong or the expanse of Siberia.
	4. You have been associated with the Kursi school. What exactly is it and what has brought its members together? The Kursi school is a peculiar phenomenon. In the early 1990s it was very much Tartu-focused and its members rebellious radicals. Their strategy was aggressive, their exhibitions rather resembled demonstrations of force. Exhibitions, for example, were set up simultaneously in as many places as possible; the days of the Kursi school were opened with a march in the Tartu city centre and that kind of thing. I was then a third-year student, forever eager to take part in any exhibitions. At a party I once met Peeter Allik and begged him to accept me in their group. Allik has a notorious temper, and I almost got beaten up. Later he said OK. It must be admitted that the Kursi school was a really hot name in Tartu at that time, almost like a rock band... I've no idea how or why the group came together in the first place - by the time I joined, it had already been going strong for a few years. To me, it offered a chance to present my work (Eha Komissarov noticed my work on one of the Kursi exhibitions and offered an exhibition in the Vaal Gallery).
	5. Your work displays your fascination with visual sign systems. I remember from my own younger days how Ando Keskküla and I once, in spring 1969, found an enamelled tin plate with the Shell emblem on it in Harju-Risti, an obscure sleepy Estonian village. We were so fascinated with it that we dragged it to Tallinn. Taken with pop-art as we then were, we thought it a true piece of art. Of course it was at the same time a message from the past - from the independent Republic of Estonia of thirty years ago. In this hopelessly remote village, Shell had actually had a petrol station. And we knew that despite the Soviet occupation, free worlds do exist somewhere where the Shell petrol stations still work and where such a sign has a merely consumerist significance. This kind of ambivalence contains certain irony. What's your opinion of this kind of ambivalence of signs and various background information that has been attached to them? I also remember a picture from distant past. I was riding a tricycle (I must have been very young) around a house in that small village. There was a clothes shop on the ground floor of the house which had a picture painted on the window. It showed a pair of trousers, a shirt and, if I'm not mistaken, a shoe. It was done clearly and ascetically, with even pastel colours. The images were surrounded by a fine black or dark grey contour. I stared at the window for ages and the aesthetic experience has stayed with me. For me, a child, the picture had nothing whatsoever to do with advertising, information about clothes sold in the shop or a work of art. It was just something completely captivating which cannot be explained rationally. Maybe this was where my fascination with sign systems started... As for the Shell sign, I also have a peculiar out-of-context relation with it. Several of my works have been inspired by it. (Shell-Portrait, What a Shell!!!) In addition, I have a half-finished story, still in draft, called Shell Religion. It is based on the company signs of cars and petrol companies. In the story, Shell is Jesus who sacrifices himself, thus creating a foundation to the Shell-World. It's rather remarkable that while your contact with the Shell sign occurred at a time when Shell stations no longer existed, I discovered this gripping aesthetic object when these stations did not YET exist here. So much for ambivalence then.
	6. I have this feeling that a certain element of timelessness in art is what enables us to share in the old art, produced long before our time. Don't you think that too keen a focus on topicality, the pseudo-social, has turned one part of art into political feuilleton, with all its cliches and restrictions. Topical art for me sounds just as hollow as the word topical itself (topical in Estonian means, word for word, 'echo of the day'). All art is social, because artists are social creatures. Stressing sociality rather turns it into pseudo-social. An artist is not a social worker.
	7. Miracles and producing miracles has a fixed meaning in theology. In Estonian, there are two words denoting the state of being surprised (imestama, from ime - miracle, and üllatuma - to be surprised). Isn't one of the tasks of art to surprise the viewer, be it with its subject matter or technique? Of course I don't mean here the collections of curiosities. For most of our lives, we live like machines, carrying out our daily actions automatically and without thinking. We don't remember whether we locked the door when we left home or how we put on our shoes in the morning, because all this is automatic. To shake us out of that 'sleep', our senses must be irritated, some noise produced, we need to be surprised (surprise may be both positive and negative). The strategy of those who produce visual noise (advertising agencies, designers, fashion-creators, architects etc.) is based on continual production of novelty. And it works. It works, because it relies on normal stereotypical reactions. It cannot be changed. An artist has to take into consideration the same kind of demands. The difference of art (compared with advertising, for example) lies in its subjectivity and in its existence independent of the prescriptions of the commercial world. Art is unpredictable and spontaneous, which makes guessing the changes almost impossible. The viewer, coming to the exhibition, does not want to see the same things as a year or two ago. He wants something new, he wants to be surprised. And a good artist gives him the opportunity to be surprised.
	8. Besides visual signs, words have had a special meaning in your art. Especially in the latest series. What is the significance of text for you? I've always considered text quite important. I've given my works long, shuffling titles. I did that especially during my student years. My friends often joked that I produced illustrations to the titles. And they were not entirely wrong. An interesting sentence or slogan indeed sometimes came first, and only then did I seek visual expressions for them. Later, in parallel with the 'shrinking' images, the titles began to 'shrink' too. I moved towards their maximum concentration, seeking an ascetic end result that would pass on the desired information with precision, without any waste. It went on like that until I noticed that I had reached a dead end - the picture had lost its readability. Again there was a need to explain the image. In the two latest series, the visual image indeed looks like a pictogram or a formula and the text has an explanatory function. A kind of inverse process is going on - the simpler the image, the more complicated is the contents and the more text it requires. This process has been progressive, and I'm currently working on a project where the share of pictures and text is more or less equal. I've begun to take interest in the traits and nature of my characters, their thoughts, dialogues, circumstances and the background where they function. It is quite impossible to convey all that with a static image, and I see verbal expression as a way out here.
	9. As far as I know, you have not had anything to do with pure conceptualism before. In a sense, then, you are a traditional artist who finds that the idea of a work of art is still retained when it is materialised and visualised. It seems to me that visual imagery and its modulating are important to you. Am I right? Two things I can't accept: firstly the flat, idea-less physical piece of work and secondly the conceptual 'something', only understandable to the author himself. An ideal work of art consists of both, i.e. an excellent idea which also reaches the viewer, and a convincing physical form. In that sense, I really am a traditional artist.
	10. What do you think of the ever more popular curator projects where the curator is no longer just a compiler and stager, but seeks to become the author of the libretto as well? The only thing left for the artist to do is to humbly produce something according to the prescribed idea and the prescribed theme. My attitude towards curator projects is tolerant. It is quite relaxing, sometimes, to work on a prescribed topic. When at a solo exhibition the artist has to see to both the theoretical (conception) and practical (actual work) sides, then in a curator project, a professional theoretician (art critic) works out the conception and offers it to a professional practician (artist). It is then the artist's choice whether to agree with it or not. Curator projects are often very well promoted, covering a wide field, they have a catalogue. All that makes them so attractive. Hence the frequent conflicts - the curator insists on an installation, but the artist, having produced small graphic art all his life, simply cannot comply. He is desperate and feels discriminated against. But the unfortunate, desperate graphic artist simply forgets that participating in curator projects is strictly voluntary.
	| 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 |