11.06. - 27.09.2020
"Fairy-tale beauty and the associations a person lives through during his development". Works by Kaljo Simson.
Kaljo
Simson (1929–2017)
was an artist of the universe and a colour shaman. Naive art as a
phenomenon irritated him.
Kaljo
Simson graduated from the Estonian State Art Institute in
Architecture in 1970. However, he did not realise himself as an
architect, but as a painter and an inventor. From early 1970s, Simson
earned living by making portraits of children at kindergartens. In
total, he made thousands of portraits over several decades.
It is difficult to view Kaljo Simson’s life separately from his creative work. His works did not fit into the mainstream Soviet Estonian art or the adapted western art, that is, alternative art.
Kaljo
Simson looked for ideals elsewhere – the universe, and the
perfection of skills and striving for fairy-tale beauty became his
criteria. The art of the universe was reflected at its best in his
philosophical series Profile
of the Eye,
of which nearly all works are displayed in the Kondas Centre.
This
exhibition introduces the extraordinary life, the underrated works
and the estranging artist’s position of Kaljo Simson, and seeks to
get rid of quite a few stereotypical attitudes of the 1950s–1980s
approach to art in Estonia.
The exhibition was supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.
The
Kondas Centre is grateful to Helena Trei, daughter of Kaljo Simson.
Mari Vallikivi
_huge.JPG)
