Elus esinevad asjad. Popkunst lääne eeskujul argipäeva dokumenteerijana

• Main Author: Anneli Porri
• Format: Article
• Language: Estonian
• Published: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum 2005-01-01
• Series: Mäetagused
• Online Access: http://www.folklore.ee/tagused/nr29/porri.pdf

Pop art, which emerged in the UK and the United States in the 1960s, depicted media objects, mundane daily life and consumer goods. Many have agreed that the critical turn in pop art is marked by the 1956 collage "Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?" by Richard Hamilton. In this collage the artist combined materials advertising various consumer goods, comic strips and interior design. By the end of the 1960s, pop art as a visual style also emerged in the creative works of Estonian artists and designers. The first elements appear in the creation of the group of artists Visarid; authentic pop elements are also used by the artists of SOUP 69. The article observes the mundane banality of life in the Soviet Estonia and how and whether it is expressed in fine arts by means of pop art. Opportunities for working with the visual style after a long period of cultural and political isolation came with what was called "Khrushchev's thaw". During this period the exchange of information with the Western world improved considerably; in 1965 the sea route between Helsinki and Tallinn was reopened after twenty five years. Also, the Estonians living in the Northern part of the country could expand their horizons by watching the Finnish television. In Great Britain and America, pop art shocked people accustomed to versatile living environment by transgressing the line between good taste and bad taste. Until then art aimed to counterbalance the routine and mundaneness of everyday life, providing the artists an aesthetic oasis and keeping the circle of literati with good taste closed. In the Soviet Union this kind of critique was inconceivable, since pop art promoted what people lacked in daily life. The Soviet planning economy was unable to supply the population with commodities, which led to a strong fetishising of the western goods. This led to the gradual construction of an identity that was based on being opposed to everything Soviet, and was expressed in the attempt to imitate westerners in both behaviour and clothing. Proceeding from the aesthetics and the choice of topics, pop art could be unmistakably associated with the Western society and was therefore publicly condemned. Still, people found ways to put the alluring visual language into proper use: the one-dimensional and transparent aesthetics of pop art was most convenient to apply in the so-called small media: areas of art that remained in the periphery outside the art hierarchy, depicting, among other things, objects characteristic particularly of pop art. Theatre design (Leonhard Lapin), illustrations for youth magazines (Ando Keskküla, Andres Tolts) and animated cartoons (L. Lapin, A. Keskküla, Rein Tammik) were the most suitable and extensive sublimation channels for talented designers and architects. An interior design magazine Kunst ja kodu, or Art and Home, which was published in Estonia but circulated all over the Soviet Union, often applied the visual language of pop art in its designs. Kunst ja kodu represented an avant-garde achievement, reproducing the creation of consumer artists or offering tips for interior decoration on photos, i.e. the work was not created in the form of an assemblage, object or painting, but the image characteristic of pop art was obtained in the form of a photo reproduction accompanying the article as an illustrative means. Even more progressive compared to the magazine Kunst ja kodu was the youth magazine Noorus, or Youth, which published illustrations by both the initiators of the group SOUP 69 and members of Visarid. Owing to these two magazines it is possible to talk about repro pop in the Estonian context. In their works the artists employed abstract rather than material values, symbols and allegory rather than clearly outlined icons. The most explicit images of the period were bus tickets, tetrahedral milk cartons, vacuum cleaners, pillows and canned soup. In Estonia, pop art did not serve to reflect the surrounding life. Regardless of the claims by members of Visarid and SOUP 69, pop art in the Soviet Estonia attempted to discuss the same objects using the language that was used in the Western world. A clear reference to this is the poster of a soup can designed by L. Lapin for the first SOUP 69 exhibition in the Pegasus café. The can, borrowed from Andy Warhol, is opened, with a spoon approaching from the top, perhaps to empty its contents. It seems that in this context the young artists opened the can to get in there, and finally see all the things that are discussed in magazines of visual art on the other side of the Iron Curtain.