One man, one animal and helluva lot of blood and intestines.
Mr. Urmas-Ott opens his fourth jewellery exhibition 58°30’26″N 22°43’37″E in A-Gallery at 6pm on March 4, 2016. The main material used for the current exhibition is the dead body of a wild boar killed in the island of Saaremaa. Exhibition will be open until March 28, 2016.
The hunter was already on his way back home when his two Siberian laika dogs smelled something and rushed into the dark night. While following their tracks, the hunter discovered that the dogs had already killed a wild boar. At the same night the meat was prepared for the exhibition and the rest of the dead body was packed into garbage bags and stored in the artist’s basement. During a month, the bloody carcass was formed into a jewellery collection.
More than once Urmas-Ott was blamed for brutal and unethical action when preparing for the exhibition. Indeed, the repugnant aspect is definitely there when it comes to the dead body on the floor. Yet, for Urmas-Ott this was a natural, a carnal phenomenon. Robustiousness lies in the fact that the work has been dirty. Scattered brains are in a worn enamel sink. Blotchy skin hanging on an apple tree while hungry crows tearing it into pieces just like in some Nordic saga.
Yes, it is dirty but not unethical. For instance, for every 10 grams of mined gold there will be 20 tons of toxic waste including mercury and cyanide whereas about 180 millions of tons of it reaches rivers, lakes and oceans every year. The civil war in the Republic of Congo is largely financed by the local gold mining industry – the war where more than 5 million people have been killed and more than 200 000 women have been raped. 600 000 illegal child labourers, 15 million miners living in poverty, hundreds of thousands of seriously ill people… In light of these facts one cannot say when there is more blood on one’s hands, comparing shiny gold jewellery to a wild animal killed for food.
Mr. Urmas-Ott
Mr. Urmas-Ott is an experimental artist duo of Urmas Lüüs and Hans-Otto Ojaste. Their objective is to combine various media into a huge, living and breathing organism whose heart is made of the art of jewellery. Mr. Urmas-Ott has held three personal exhibitions (“Shelter 2415”, “Silence Between the Fall and Rise of Mankind” and “Waste of Time”) and two curatorial exhibitions (“DIY1” and “DIY2”). In 2010, Mr. Urmas-Ott was awarded Roman Tavast Young Jewellery Artist Prize and in 2012 the Prize for the Best Exhibition of the Year by A-Gallery.
Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
