Blog — high and low culture

Have you ever felt that the art world is like an exclusive club, where a gatekeeper with glasses and a short fringe stands at the door, and if you don't use words like "deconstruction," "transgression," or "posthumanism" in the right sentences, you won’t be let in? This club is not for me. I've never felt the need to belong anywhere. Not that I was ever warmly invited in the first place. Art as merchandise and art in a museum? Yep, both. I am an artist, and yes, I love making money. A lot of money. And create great art while...

The material in my art is the human being – that hairy, crazy creature who thinks they’re somehow special, but in reality, just runs around in a cage of instincts and complexes. Human nature is endless material, absurd and brilliant all at once. I engage with it consciously – constantly analyzing myself and observing others, like a scientist watching a dancing germ under a microscope. I see people in layers – the body, self-expression, and then the layers underneath, the initially invisible part that actually dictates everything else, even the body. Since I am a woman, my art is also...

In the exhibition “Contemporary Capitalist,” Katrin Valgemäe revisits her childhood in the USSR and the early 1990s in newly independent Estonia. Drawing from her memories of Finnish TV, advertisements, and foreign goods, she explores the paradox of being an outsider to the capitalist “paradise.” Through personal, nostalgic recollections and distorted memories, Valgemäe builds a playful reality that merges socialist influences with modern life, creating a symbiosis that evokes recognition yet feels uniquely new.