Naked Man and Woman are waiting for You in Pärnu again. Yes, the international nude art exhibition takes place for the thirteenth time already. This summer we don’t intend to feed You only with the beauty of human body. We try to give You fresh ideas and reflect the tensions of the modern world.

Our star artist for this summer is sculptor Betty Engholm from Denmark. With her husband Torben   Michelsen, the celebrated landscape architect, Betty has created a wonderful art world in their farm close to Sorö, in the middle of Sjaelland. Fields and pastures of that 200-year-old farm are decorated with her huge ceramic figures, beds, chairs. We couldn’t bring all of these heavy objects to Estonia but visitors of the exhibition are welcome to enjoy that wonderland with the help of a video review.

Our guest country for this summer is the Republic of Belarus. We are happy to introduce living and developing surrealism from the country where Marc Chagall was born. Contemporary Belarus artists have developed also suprematism of their compatriot  Kazimir Malevich. Young artists Ruslan Vashkevich and Vladimir Tsesler reflect relationships between human beings in a new way as the context has changed after a long experience of totalitarian regime. Man and woman are not just a polarized couple to produce new working class but an intertwined and very complicated sexual spiral. The painter Slava Zaharinski is interested in man and woman appearing on barricades with Jesus Christ and red flags. The link to poetry by Alexander Blok is obvious. The photo artist Andrei Chchukin covers the human body with gold, and the print maker Valeri Slauk undresses men to send them back to upper branches of trees. The whole exposition of Belarus artists proves an immense energy and brightness of art life in the republic where differently from the rest of Europe democracy is under construction.

The annual and traditional art exhibition Man and Woman exposes fantastic concrete figures by Emma Asplund and Magnus Östling from the Swedish art studio INUTI. Their fairly touching sculptures ask with a deep cry from the bottom of the soul – why are we different? Peter Kaun from Finland shows that one way to escape from our reality is just to change to a bronze bird.

The only Estonian artist who exhibits his very sensitive ceramic figures made of local clay, is Kauri Kallas. Other Estonian artists used quite unusual material for our nordic country. The young sculptor Kirke Kangro exhibits her giant dark men made of earth. Her powerful figures create a sharp contrast to the marble work of other Estonian sculptors who created their masterpieces in the material beloved by Michelangelo and Amandus Adamson. With support of the Estonian Cultural Endowment we brought marble blocks directly from Carrara, Italy. Hille and Lembit Palm, Ilme Kuld, Ellen Kolk, Hannes Starkopf, Lea Armväärt succeeded to complete their masterpieces for the opening of the show. We do hope that Riho Kuld and Elo Liiv will finish their art work before the exhibition closes in August, 28. Anyhow, we are very grateful to all of them as their marble work will stay in the collection of the museum.

Workshops How to Save Landscape and How to Animate Clay were given by Betty Engholm and Torben Michelsen in June 2nd. Estonian professional artists and architects as well as boys and girls from Kihnu Island attended that day. All fantastic figures created together with the Danish artist will stay in our collection, too.

We are very grateful to all artists for their masterpieces donated to the museum.

Mark Soosaar,
Curator