Kaarel Kurismaa

Kaarel Kurismaa (*1939 Pärnu, lives in Tallinn) is among Estonia’s most important contemporary artists. His versatile oeuvre explores sculpture, painting, stage sets, and design. Kurismaa is best known for his kinetic works, which he has been making in the tradition of the ready-made since the 1970s out of found furniture and electronics. This way of working was originally determined by a lack of materials during the Soviet period. With their round, streamlined and voluptuous forms, most of the artist’s objects gain anthropomorphic features, making many of his works into ​“human machines” with their own character and expressions. This impression is heightened by the fact that many of his works incorporate mechanisms that produce sounds, so that they are capable of certain utterances and communication. This all results in retro-futurist and animist objects based on a combination of the industrial aesthetics of the 1970s and 1980s and analogue technologies.