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| Maarit Murka and the power and feebleness of her hair Sniedze Sofija Kāle, Art Historian Maarit Murka. Hair Power 24.11.2010.–15.01.2011. Gallery 21 | |
| Gallery 21, in addition to exhibitions by new home-grown artists, continues its successfully begun and praiseworthy policy of attracting promising newcomers from neighbouring countries. This time the solo exhibition Hair Power by Estonian artist Maarit Murka (1981) was on view. For active followers of art and those interested in exhibitions in neighbouring countries Murka’s works will already be familiar, as for example those from the 2008 Baltic Biennale in Saint Petersburg’s Manege. From 2000 until 2004 she obtained her academic artist’s education at the Estonian Academy of Arts, then continued with Masters studies at the Helsinki Art Academy (2004–2006), but since 2009 has been studying cinema scriptwriting at the Baltic Film and Media School. Maarit Murka works mainly with painting, frequently creating larger-scale installations and supplementing these with video works and objects. The most important thing to the artist is the message connected with the analysis of society and the self, often using references to art history (How to Explain Jaan Toomik to a Dog (2008) – a citation from Joseph Beuys’ famous 1965 performance How to Explain a Painting to a Dead Hare) and provocative images and ideas (The First Painting After my Grandmother Died on 29.09.2007 – if Hitler could have occupied himself with art, wouldn’t history have a different scenario?). In painting Murka mainly uses the expressive technique of photorealism, subjecting it to various experiments: for example, in the solo exhibition 0`43 self-portrait series the artist repeated one and the same composition, but changed the effects of consciousness (alcohol), physical condition (licking the paint onto the canvas) and the surrounding environment (darkness) on herself, and in this way investigated how her feelings changed in the process and how the end result was transformed. The solo exhibition Hair Power offers an opportunity to judge a number of the artist’s qualities – her ability to work with photorealism techniques, to create a video story or an installation, and to present an interesting idea. The adaptation of the show’s exhibits to the Gallery 21 space has been a difficult test for the narrative flow; the limited size of the rooms was the reason why a number of works proposed for the show had to be left out. On opening the door to the exhibition, one had to ignore the first hall and turn to a space located to the right, to the series of black and white paintings featuring the face, overcome by suffering, of Maria Falconetti in the lead role in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 film ‘The Passion of Joan of Arc’1. The film has won acclaim with the unparalleled acting of Falconetti, as in the hour and a half length work most of the attention is focussed on her face, in which it is possible to read all of her psychological experiences even without a commentary. | |
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| In this exhibition Maarit Murka has investigated the various meanings associated with hair. Hair is one of the most impressive parts of a human body, and can be quickly and effectively transformed. Women, mostly, have become wise to this practice, amenable to quick changes; in this way it is possible to mark a new stage of life, with a novel cut or a different hair colour, helping to create and in the end, finally, to believe also in the renewed self-image. To illustrate the mythical and symbolic power of hair, Maarit Murka has selected an example from history which, in some institutions, has continued even today, this being the enforced cutting of hair. Maria Falconetti’s Joan of Arc eloquently reminds us how humiliating and painful it is, the aggressive interference with someone else’s body (although in her case the said condition was connected to a whole series of events). Regardless of the presence of the 21st century, in society’s consciousness hair continues to be something more than just an extension of the body: in it there’s freedom, savagery and sexuality. For a majority of people, hair is the most essential component of the self-image and so in order to damage an individual’s selfconfidence and to undermine their former identity, the practice of cutting of hair has been continued, for example, in the military services, which are based on collective obedience. In the second hall, a television set showing a video work had been placed in an impressive clump of natural hair. Cut hair, paradoxically, loses all of its power and attraction, and in its place takes on something repellent. It must be said that the combination of these two elements in the one place is commendable. However, the low placement of the screen interfered to a degree with the ability to fully enjoy the video work in which the artist could be seen cutting her mother’s and father’s hair, in the intimate environment of her parents’ house. The cutting of hair can also be a process of mutual trust which, like a ritual, brings closer the people involved. The coloured canvasses set out in the third room were a sort of epilogue immortalizing the instruments of our actions – the hands, which control the way the power of hair is used. In conclusion it should be mentioned that “hair research projects” can be found in Latvian art as well. For example, from 1977 to 1979 Modris Tenisons let loose his long tresses and unkempt beard and observed society’s reaction, but Maarit Murka had brought together a number of different aspects. It’s another question whether the captivating ideas outlined in the annotation were so easily to read in the works themselves. However, I was glad of the opportunity to see Murka’s conceptual painting in Riga, once again proving that it isn’t the medium that determines whether art is contemporary. /Translator into English: Uldis Brūns/ 1 The borrowing of film scenes to express her idea has already been used before in the artist’s Uma series of paintings. | |
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