"Urban Utopia II"

Pärnu Linnagalerii 4.06.–21.06.2025

Urban Utopia II is a group exhibition featuring nine artists working with printmaking: Britta Benno, Riin Maide, Mark Antonius Puhkan, Lilli-Krõõt Repnau, Helen Tago, Liis Tedre, Kadri Toom, Vello Vinn, and Marje Üksine.

The artists explore the city as a poetic and mysterious environment. Their works seek out the invisible, marginal, and absurd in urban space, imagining new landscapes, patterns, and forms inspired by these discoveries.

In this exhibition, the urban environment is not merely a man-made setting or a system of infrastructures, but also a place layered with hidden meanings. What unites the artists is their ability to move beyond the surface of urbanity into realms where the city begins to dissolve or blur, giving way to something else entirely. Sometimes it is emptiness or a wasteland where thoughts can roam freely. Other times, buildings give way to abstractions and schematics, and cities transform into directions, clouds, towers, or geometric forms, becoming entirely novel places. In some works, the artist simply draws attention to the often-overlooked details of city life, revealing unexpected, utopian cities hidden within the familiar urban environments.

The exhibition brings together artists from diverse backgrounds and generations from young, emerging illustrators to established masters of Estonian printmaking. This creates a multifaceted collection that blends masterfully executed traditional printmaking with experimental visual language and explorations in technique and three-dimensionality.

Urban Utopia II is an expanded continuation of the group exhibition of the same name held in summer 2024 at Truus Gallery. Over the past year, the number of participating artists has more than doubled.

On June 7 at 3:00 PM, a public discussion on the theme of the city in contemporary printmaking and artistic practice will take place as part of the exhibition. The talk will be moderated by Jan Kaus.

The exhibition’s graphic design is by Aimur Takk. The accompanying text is written by Jan Kaus.

Curation, coordination, and exhibition design by Riin Maide and Liis Tedre.

Supported by: Estonian Cultural Endowment

linnagalerii.ee/