PRESS RELEASE

ERKI KASEMETS's (1969) personal exhibition TALLINN 2011. Filter-tipped cigarettes will be opened in Hobusepea gallery from 5pm tp 6.30pm on May 24, 2011. The opening will be followed by free performance „ASTRAL“ alias „SPIRIT“ by Polügoonteater in Kanuti Guild Hall at 7pm.
Also, there will be a mini conference „TALLINN 2011“ in Hobusepea gallery – the time and performers are to be announced soon.

Current exhibition has been made of thousands of packs of cigarettes. The potential value of the exhibition material for creative industry could be approximately close to a million. Exhibition serves as a time travel through smoking as a cultural phenomenon during the layers of the last few decades, including the examples of exotic post-soviet kiosk business, various labelling (tax stamps, warnings) and other changes of pattern.
At the present day, smoking has become one of the visible objects under attack at the national level. Would the so-called „plain packet“ draft act proposed to the EU change anything?
Can everyday routine and the order of daily activities be changed that easily? What if the „cultural time“ stops at this point? What will replace this daily ritual and harmful habit that helps to arrange and measure?

Erki Kasemets

Exhibition will be open until June 6, 2011.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Vedelik and Rakvere Theatre.