In the Church of Santa Maria della Penitenti, the Estonian space is occupied by clay and cement sculptures that evoke the inevitable frailty of human beings in relation to nature.
Edith Karlson (b. 1983 in Tallinn) is Estonia’s pick for their National Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Art Biennale. Her project Hora Lupi is the start of her journey or, in her words, the start of her challenge. Her creative attitude builds complex narratives in form of art installations, whose protagonists are sculptures of different sizes. Karlson picked the eighteenth-century Penitenti Church to install her Estonian Pavilion, a place so full of character that contributes immensely to the atmosphere of the exhibition. Everything, here, lay untouched for decades, even dust. The artist used the space as a metaphor of the human condition, which is as wistful and incomplete, as full of cracks and dents as the church is. However, through the cracks may come light, a redemptive beam of light. The whole area is occupied by clay and concrete sculptures that evoke the inevitable limit and transience of human beings when compared to the great cycle of nature. Hora Lupi is an exploration of man’s primitive instincts in their triviality and solemnity, a way to question redemption in an undeserving world. Edith Karlson stages an existential narrative of the animalistic nature of human beings, showing how sincerity and candour may often look brutal and violent, though also poetic and a bit absurd, gentle and melancholic, a mirror of ‘our world of today’.
Entering the Penitenti Church feels like plunging into another world dominated by strange creatures, giants, mermaids, and animal creatures, all composed in an apparent chaos that finds its harmony and meaning in the installation as a whole and at the same time in each figure’s uniqueness. Where does the idea of Hora Lupi come from and how did it come to life? What story does it represent?
Hora Lupi began with the Penitenti Church. From the first moment I stepped into the church, I had a clear vision for each space – what I want to show and how. I was so enchanted with these spaces that images just immediately started appearing in my mind. Since the space itself is so amazing, it made me confident as well, because I understood that my contribution in this fading splendour will be minimal, the spaces are perfectly fine without it. I wanted my art to blend into the space as if they’d been there for a long time, each space telling a different story, and all of these stories are connected by the title Hora Lupi, which means “the hour of the wolf”. The expression “the hour of the wolf” was popularised by Ingmar Bergman and it refers to a time between three and four in the morning. Supposedly, this is also a time when most people are born and die, it is strategically the best time to attack your enemy, because people are not quite present in their bodies. It is a time and a feeling that is hard to articulate.
Your narrative is full of complex references and meanings, it is permeated with history, philosophy, religion, legend. How important is the past for imagining and building the future? And how does the vision you propose restore a national identity that the Pavilion is called upon to offer in the context of the Biennale?
I feel looking at history is a great way to analyse mistakes. At least, it provides the opportunity to do so in hindsight. However, despite knowing our history, repeating the same mistakes and forgetting seems to be a part of human nature. My goal with Hora Lupi has never been to explicitly work towards restoring the national identity, because I’m afraid that had I taken a very conscious approach, I would have missed out on a feeling – again, something that is not easy to express in words. And I think national identity and its preservation actually is connected to complex feelings like fear, ignorance, grief, cruelty, bewilderment, sadness, submissiveness, and hope. And all of that is represented in my work quite densely.
Foreigners Everywhere is the title of the 2024 Art Biennial. Your exhibition seems to approach the theme from an existential point of view, focusing on human nature, its limitations and inadequacy in facing the contemporary world. What is your idea of ‘foreigner’, ‘different’, ‘strange’? Who is ‘the other’ and how could we trace and recognize the other in your work?
There is probably nobody that has not found someone or something strange a little frightening. It is human, they say. It is a normal instinct and in nature, it is necessary to survive. I have found myself utterly strange when an emotion has pushed me to behave shamefully. But also, when I did something, I had though I never could… Was that really me? It is not always the case that only bad things feel strange. Good things, too, may feel strange. What I want to say is that strangers and strangeness are truly everywhere, on every level. The more important question is what we do with this knowledge and feeling, how do we behave so that we do not hurt others. I personally think we can overcome the fear of the strange with curiosity, a desire to understand and by getting to know people or things more closely, as that usually evokes empathy. With Hora Lupi I really work through these feelings.
Lastly, what role does the public play in your work?
My work is based on my very personal approach to a variety of subjects but it is, in the end, meant for the public. That is also something that makes my work challenging and interesting for myself. How to show people my ideas while keeping my privacy but being honest and open and understood at the same time? That is a challenge and I think I like challenges.
