Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (CAME)
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Modern art and contemporary art is not always the same and Estonian artists are fully aware of that. Just the same way as they are convinced that each of these forms of art deserve its own, independent exhibition space, although for a long time such space didn't exist.
In 2007, a group of artists, who could no longer tolerate passivity of governmental institutions, decided to squat the top floors of the former city heating plant. Paradoxically, the space above the old boiler house didn't have any heating at all. Despite all hardships, they established something like an unconventional, museum-like contra-institution there, advocating for contemporary art and step by step drawing closer to its final goal - turning it into the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia.
CAME has never had sufficient funding or a suitable space for a real art collection. Yet nevertheless such a collection exists - non-material and intangible for the time being, existing more at a conceptual level.
The very first actual display of museum's collection was taking place from June 19 to July 17, 2011. Various mutually favorable agreements and donations had given rise to a contemporary art exposition named "COLLECTED PRINCIPLES".
Symbolically, this exhibition could be compared to lifting a pot lid for the wider public to view what's boiling inside. It revealed peculiarities of Estonian contemporary art, which in its turn unveiled what stands between art and institutions, what sort of relations exist between artist and institutions - is it interaction or quite the opposite - inertia.
CAME is sited in the territory of the former gas plant (1860), which later on was fully reconstructed during 1912-1913 and turned into an electric power station that operated until 1979. Following to that, until 1990's, the facility served as a city's heating plant.
Currently massive reconstruction is taking place, planned to be completed by 2015 when we will witness a complete rebirth of the complex into a large scale cultural center Kultuurikatel or "cultural kettle", which Estonians without too much diffidence compare to the famous Tate Modern in London.
Põhja pst 27a/35
ekkm-came.blogspot.com
kultuurikatel.blogspot.com
07/2011