Allow Yourself to Change
Painting at the Time of Artificial Intelligence
ARS Project Space
26.04–18.05.2024
The essence of painting has always revolved around its humanity, with its unique flaws and virtues – the uniqueness and imperfection of the human hand, the inability to perform movements quickly and flawlessly, and the incapacity to repeat them identically have been at the core of painting throughout its centuries-long history. While today's artificial intelligence can create flawless forms at lightning speed, repeat them endlessly, and draw from the entirety of human visual culture.
But what happens when the slow process-based art of painting meets the instantaneity of machine art and its method of involving global data masses rapidly and effectively? What role could art oriented towards deceleration play in an era of total acceleration, where people increasingly entrust themselves to technological systems for the sake of efficiency, competitiveness, and economic growth, the mechanisms of which they do not fully understand?
The exhibition features five Estonian artists who in recent years have dedicated themselves to exploring the relationship between painting and artificial intelligence, merging traditional painting techniques with various digital technologies. Vano Allsalu feeds artificial intelligence with his signature style paintings and maps its capabilities in abstract expression; Gerda Hansen plays with the idea of whether a painter in the era of artificial intelligence can step into the same river twice; Siiri Jüris allows her figural-abstract paintings to mutate with the help of digital technology; Carl-Robert Kagge utilizes the generative fill function of Photoshop to create painting screens; and Mart Vainre has developed an ouroboros-like analog-digital-analog paint processor. The exhibition curator is Liisa Kaljula, who works at the Painting Collection of the Art Museum of Estonia and has curated several painting exhibitions.
The preparation process for the exhibition is different from the usual curated group exhibition – the curator and artists have regularly met in the participating artists' studios to discuss the new situation in art brought about by the emergence of artificial intelligence: could painting, with its slowness, physical labor, and celebration of human error, be the counterculture of the digital acceleration era? The temporary community that formed among the participants has helped to make sense of this moment when the paths of painting and artificial intelligence inevitably intersect and the human and the mechanical intertwine.
Artists: Vano Allsalu, Gerda Hansen, Siiri Jüris, Carl-Robert Kagge, Mart Vainre
Curator: Liisa Kaljula
Graphic design: Carl-Robert Kagge
Exhibition project manager: Mart Vainre
Technical support: Johannes Säre
