eiko ojala’s mind notes

THE FIRST QUESTION that came to mind when I stepped into Rüki Galleri to see Eiko Ojala’s new exhibition was: “Is Eiko a woman or a man?” With a name like that, it would probably be a man, but I wasn’t sure. Maybe she was Japanese? Like Miho, Yoko, Eiko. The woman behind the counter told me that Eiko Ojala was a man and an all-around nice guy. “In my opinion, he’s quite friendly,” she added. Her name was Inessa. So, Eiko and Inessa — these were my main characters.

Rüki Galerii was once stored rye flour. The gallery is located behind the new SEB bank on Tartu Street in the heart of Viljandi. The place is wide and spacious, and precisely for that reason ideal for experiencing Eiko’s exhibition “Mind Notes.”

The technique here is pigment print. At first glance, it’s hard to tell what’s going on. It looks as if someone has cut figures out of paper and glued them all together. But that’s not the case. It’s simply a 3D effect. There are various shapes: men, women; some are lying down, some dancing, some running together, some standing under an umbrella. Incidentally, the figures do look Japanese. They have black hair. Pale skin. There is indeed something Japanese about them. Even though Eiko Ojala is an Estonian man.

There are two buckets on the right. One on the left. Seeing them, I asked Inessa if the roof was leaking. Inessa said no. The buckets were part of the exhibition, she explained.

Inessa also tells me that Eiko Ojala is a famous artist: “His pictures have even appeared in The New Yorker.” And not only. The Washington Post. National Geographic. Time. Le Monde. Wired. Politico. It’s a great honor that “Mind Notes” is here, in Rüki, in the quiet small town of Viljandi.

In the corner are information sheets in Estonian and English describing the concept of the exhibition. These images speak about the body: how the body reacts even when consciousness ignores it. Disturbances, fatigue, comfort. The Silicon Valley “live-to-work” mentality is one influence. The fiction of Franz Kafka is another. How authority functions through spaces, processes, and customs, and how a person goes along with it until they no longer perceive that this is how they are behaving.

Ojala’s human figures express this through restless poses. They are strange, admittedly. They bring to mind characters from the film Backrooms, though it’s hard to say why. Also Playmobil toy people. The prices are high. A picture of people standing together under an umbrella costs 1,500 euros. But these are not exactly the kind of pictures you hang on your bathroom wall. At the same time, they are unique and, in that sense, welcome. After all, when you go to an exhibition, you expect something different. Something new.

I think a visitor who comes here will not be disappointed.

Looking at these images — for example, a dancing person — I’m reminded of old drawings of shamans, where someone “flies” together with some spirit. Like in old Tibetan art, where the gods strike different poses. Overall, the exhibition is a haunting, strange place. Inessa says it reminds her of the series Severance, which depicts a gloomy biotechnology company whose employees have undergone a severance procedure that separates a person’s memories between work and personal life. That seems about right.

Later, when I wrote to Eiko, he sent me the text he read at the exhibition opening in August. He adds that this was actually his first solo exhibition and therefore especially personal.

“As the name suggests, ‘Mind Notes’ — these works are connected to our senses and how we notice and interpret the messages they send us,” he wrote. “Especially in situations where we don’t pay attention to ourselves. Or rather, one could ask whether we notice those messages at all. The claim of this exhibition is that, as it were, we don’t.”

And the buckets? They symbolize repetition. At first, the visitor notices that there are three buckets of water. But over time, the water quietly evaporates. They become part of the exhibition’s rhythm.

My main question, of course, was how the author himself feels about his exhibition. In general, Eiko Ojala is satisfied. “Tranquil Viljandi was the perfect place for this,” he answered me. “But no artist can ever be fully satisfied with their art. One must always keep pushing forward.”

‘Mind Notes’ opened at Rüki on 16 August and will remain through 26 September. An Estonian version of this review first appeared in Edasi. More of Eiko Ojala’s art can be seen here. And Inessa (Saarits) is an artist herself.

the klimt robbery

LINDA AND HER HUSBAND stole Gustav Klimt’s paintings from an exhibition in Helsinki. They decided they would show the Austrian symbolist painter’s artwork to the public, but only at extortionate fees. Just one viewing of one Gustav Klimt painting would cost around €10,000.

“But that’s not fair,” I told Linda. “Gustav Klimt’s work should be freely available to the public. Every man, woman, and child deserves to see The Kiss and Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I for free, if not for a small, but meaningful donation to a museum. It’s the only right thing to do.”

Linda was not listening. “We stole the Klimt paintings to enrich ourselves,” she said. “Besides, they are such masterworks that the public should be willing to pay their entire life savings just to appreciate Klimt’s golden phase for a few moments. If you want gold, you should pay gold.”

I tried to find Linda’s husband, a conductor named Siim, to convince him of this art theft travesty, but he was too busy moving the Klimt paintings from their getaway van into a secret warehouse. They were long past middle age. Wasn’t Linda 60? Her hair was still chestnut, with streaks of gray, and she was in incredible shape. I threatened to report her to the art police.

“You will do no such thing,” she said. Then, with an unbuttoning of a button and the unzipping of a zipper, she became quite persuasive. “You will not turn us over to the police for stealing Gustav Klimt’s paintings,” Linda said while licking me. “And I won’t stop licking you until you change your mind. Oh, you are yummy,” she said, looking up. “Well,” I said. “You might be right.”

karl pärsimägi’s ‘your art is long’ at the tartu art museum

IT SEEMS TOO OFTEN these days that we default to minimalism. We want subdued tones, empty spaces, love expressed with silence, tears that flow only in private. Less is always more, we are told. But in the art of Karl Pärsimägi (1902-1942), I have found the opposite to be true. This is a colorful world. In Pärsimägi’s world, less is never more. More is just more. His exhibition at the Tartu Art Museum, Sinu Kunst on Pikk! (“Your art is long!”) (23 May – 25 October) is worth a visit. A modernist from Võrumaa with a south Estonian sensibility, Pärsimägi was prolific and well traveled. The exhibition hall can barely contain his output (a 350-page book has just been published devoted to it). Pärsimägi was famous for painting nude models, but his most beautiful paintings are of women doing everyday things. Reading a book in Reader. Stuck in a blissful moment in 1936’s A Portrait of a Woman with Pearls. My own favorite is 1935’s Young Woman in Blue with a Red Tie. It’s the reason I visited the exhibition. I wouldn’t call Pärsimägi or anyone a genius, as I am not an expert art critic, nor do I ever want to be. But I can say that I came away from the exhibition feeling happier and freer than I had in a long time, and inspired to do, as Pärsimägi did, more! Alas, Pärsimägi’s time ran out. He was arrested in Paris and shot by the Nazis in Auschwitz, some say on account of his sexuality. He was remembered as a reclusive, eccentric character, who liked to visit his siblings in Viljandi and Võru. In his self portraits, he reminds me of Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett after his LSD-fueled mental collapse. An interesting character for sure, one who made memorable art. And also, I think, one worth building on. I see his work as just a start. There is more to be done.

An Estonian version of this review appears online in Edasi magazine.

kristi kangilaski’s ‘however it feels’ at rüki galerii

THE TEMPERATURE has remained below freezing this winter, but artist and illustrator Kristi Kangilaski has brought some warm tropical colors to Viljandi with her new exhibition, “However It Feels.” The exhibition opened on 15 January at the Rüki Gallery on Tartu Street and will last until the end of February.

Kangilaski was born in 1982, the same year that Brezhnev died, though before his death which means that, in all likelihood, she is not the reincarnation of Leonid Brezhnev. In fact, it’s the opposite: our Kangilaski is no fat, hairy Communist. Rather, she’s a tall, charming woman who at some point tattooed the words “left” and “right” on her wrists so that she wouldn’t forget which was which. With her hat and long dark coat, this Estonian Academy of Arts-educated artist resembles Mary Poppins from a distance. Her well-marked, magical hands never rest.

When she is not at work as the Viljandi city artist, Kangilaski has created a whole exhibition-full of acrylic paintings. She works at home, somewhere between the bedroom and kitchen, and her warehouse is a corner in her daughter’s room. She uses acrylic paints because she likes to work quickly and acrylic paints dry quickly. “I’m an impatient, restless person,” she says. The paintings emerged according to how she happened to feel. She had no certain plans or preconceptions. Slowly, the collection assembled itself. Almost all of the paintings were undertaken in 2025 — one of them was even finished this January.

At the opening, wine and grapes were served.

At the exhibition, a visitor encounters images of people, horses, elephants, black cats, crocodiles, birds, and bears. In part, the atmosphere is playful and childlike. When I arrived to the gallery the second time to view the exhibition, an entire art school class was there and some little boys even hid themselves beneath the gallery couch and still wouldn’t come out, even when I tried to join them there.

Yet, as another viewer remarked to me, there are also more serious themes. The painting “Black Cat” depicts a mother’s difficult daily life, and “Crocodile” shows a woman seated at a table, with a man’s shadow in back, and that fearsome creature behind them. There is also “Fire Heads,” two red heads in opposition, which brings to mind an argument.

The style is interesting. I was reminded of Picasso and Modigliano’s primitivism as well as Viljandi’s own Paul Kondas, the godfather of naïve art. But Kangilaski herself can’t say exactly what style it is or what inspired it. “I’m especially inspired by different arrangements or compositions that happen appear before me,” she says. “And I have always loved colors,” she adds. “Inspiration is drawn from everything around me.”

Kangilaski agrees that the current colorful exhibition does leave one feeling as if they’re in the jungle. And in the jungle, one can experience all kinds of emotions. The artist has even considered bringing some palm trees to the gallery next time she has an exhibition and I have agreed in principle to help her move them. When she is not out looking for palm trees in Estonia, Kangilaski paints on. As an illustrator, she is just about to begin a new book project.

An Estonian version of this review appears this month in the Estonian magazine Edasi.

alonette, lisanna, and tomás

Alonette, Lisanna, and Tomás, in that order.

I WAS HAPPY TO CATCH the most recent loft concert at Tomás del Real’s house in Viljandi this past Saturday. He calls these intimate musical events the Viljandi Home Sessions, or VHS. This one was VHS Volume 5. I have been to every single session. The last session, about two weeks before Christmas, featured Lonitseera band members Kaisa Kuslapuu and Kristin Kaha doing renditions of obscure Estonian holiday songs. That was undoubtedly the most unique and chaotic session, as there was a dog present and the electricity went out. In my opinion, they undersold themselves. Kaisa’s keyboard playing was fun and unorthodox, her singing is always great, and Kristin has some alarming and impossible notes stored away in her vault of a mouth. There were certainly a few “holy shit” moments. But, in true Estonian fashion, when I complimented them on their performance they sort of shrugged and said, “Eh, it was okay.”

This session had more of the cuddly folkie feel that Tomás was probably going for when he dreamed it up. No dogs or babies were present, and no electrical outages occurred. A fox did visit Tomás on the day of the session, maybe to provide him with some luck. A singer songwriter from Chile, Tomás has lived in Viljandi for some years now. He opened with some of his songs, including a new one, “Algún día,” which I felt innovated on the material he recorded for Principios de Declaración and Notas Rotas. I wouldn’t say it was better, but there were some changes and melodies in there that surprised me. Some new landscapes emerging from familiar terrain. Then came Lisanna Kuningas, who played three of her own songs on the guitar. Lisanna is also the keyboard player for Araukaaria, and did a wonderful session with the band’s singer and guitarist Pepi Prieto in November. These were really fun and enjoyable.

And then there was Anett Tamm, performing songs from her 2025 album Compass under her artist name Alonette. I personally found the melodies to be interesting. Every time I thought I knew where a song was going, she turned it around and went sailing off in another direction. I’m a taller, larger person, and when I am at these sessions, I like to lie in the floor in the back. It’s just more comfortable for me. There’s a nice strobe light employed, and so when I look at the ceiling back there, as the performers play, it’s almost as if I am staring up at the stars as they shoot over me. Because of this effect, while listening to Alonette, I had the sensation that I was drifting through space. Her songs have an amorphous quality to them, they expand and contract, and so I started to feel like I was watching the aurora borealis. At one point, I looked over at Tomás as if to say, “She is great, isn’t she?” Tomás just nodded as if to say, “I know.”

Thanks for the music and thanks for the photos Tomi Palsa.