PRESS RELEASE

ANU JUURAK's (1957) personal exhibition Criminal Minds will be opened in Hobusepea gallery at 5pm on March 31st, 2011.

Current exhibition examines forms of contemporary distress such as fear, suspicion and anxiety. The artist presents an environment compared to a criminalist's office where all kinds of drawings, evidence, and speculations can be seen. Exposition has been compiled with random stories picked from media and other sources, thus excluding the attitude of know-it-all. Hopefully it won't produce more fear but rather helps erasing the existing one.

In cultural contexts, fear stories are quite typical and they have been told in various ways since the beginning of times. Contemporary globalizing economy is accompanied by fear for strangers and the conception of global terrorism; environmental issues produce myths about climate catastrophes; space research cause speculations about geomagnetic storms etc.

It must be reminded that the object of fear is only a social construction that helps society to encode itself and the surrounding world. During the times of big crises, when considerable changes take place in society, mystified and semiotically construced outbreaks of fear and various forms of hystery arise. It's easier when there is a real enemy or something to be blamed for – with abstract and invisible fear things get more complicated. Then, danger not only causes fear but fear itself constructs threats and either discriminates a minority (culprit) or intervenes from outside (enemy). Times of crises are perceived as the end of history and the total degradation and perdition of existing culture. Most probably the existing crises makes way to another crises and another culture, differing from the present one, hopefully free of fear.

Exhibition has been titled after the American criminal series „Criminal Minds“.

Anu Juurak

Exhibition will be open until April 11, 2011.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Forum Cinemas AS.