TALLINN.- The international group exhibition “The Art of Being Good” is now open at Tallinn Art Hall. The exhibition looks at the ethics of making art in a complicated world that is struggling with global crisis, an attempt to produce a visual experience that takes the needs of our urgent situation seriously.

It is likely that the inhabitants of every era have felt that they are living in a time of impending ruin. Almost daily, we read new reports in the news about the problems faced by a different species, the increased rate of glaciers melting, or the effect of climate change on human habitation. What we now know, is that the reason for all of this has been our eagerness to extract resources from the Earth and, for the first time, we are able to draw a direct line between our day-to-day behavior and these dire global developments.

“Truly, the art of being good is the art of moving, step by step, through right and wrong choices and decisions made with good intentions, and reaching a new level of conscience and integrity. But what good is all this personal integrity and material morality when the scale of the challenge, such as the climate crisis and environmental degradation, is utterly global? When obstacles come from diverse societal understandings of morality, and from relentless materialism driven by the competition between countries, companies, and groups?” Aet Annist asks in her essay published in the exhibition guide. What would an artwork responsible for the era look like?

“Although tackling the ecological, social and economic components of the crisis is normal in art, artworks and exhibitions rarely direct attention towards their own role in the ruinous sequence of events. Therefore, we see a record of the people living in poverty, who don’t receive a cut from the profits of exhibiting the work depicting them, and artworks created from poisonous artificial materials, which warn us of the impending plastic dystopia,” writes Siim Preiman in the text accompanying the exhibition.

The value of each artwork or event can neither be judged solely on its ecological footprint, nor indeed on its social impact, but we what we can judge is the ethical balance between the form and content of a single artwork. The exhibition “The Art of Being Good” offers alternative ways to continue vital (art) practices in our stressful and informationally polluted situation. The artists participating in this exhibition work across very different subjects and materials, using a variety of methods. All of their work is nevertheless connected to their own values and actions as individuals.

The 2019 exhibition programme at Tallinn Art Hall directs special attention towards the possibility of being good and ecologically responsible in the circumstances of certain ruin. Five exhibitions congregate around these themes, of which “The Art of Being Good” is the third. The previous exhibitions were Taavi Suisalu’s “Ocean Botlights” at the City Gallery and Britta Benno’s “Dystopic Tallinn” at the Art Hall Gallery. The curator of this series of exhibitions is Siim Preiman.

A public programme will take place during the final weekend of the exhibition, from 30 August till 1 September with talks, tours and film screenings.

Participating artists: Dylan Ray Arnold, Carl Giffney, Diana Lelonek, Taus Makhacheva, Georgi Markelov, Eléonore de Montesquiou, Jana Shostak, Hanna Piksarv, Liina Pääsuke, Bita Razavi, Uku Sepsivart, The Idiots, Roi Vaara, Mari Volens.