On Thursday, 28 March at 6 p.m. Raul Meel, one of the living classics of Estonian art, opens his solo exhibition Letters from Estonian Songbirds at Vabaduse Gallery. The exhibition will remain open until 24 April 2024.
Since the late 1960s, Meel started to write poetry text-pictures (a term coined by the artist himself) using the sounds made by various Estonian birds. Combining concrete poetry, visual poetry and sound poetry, Meel has transcribed birdsong and presented them as systematic series characteristic to his work. To create his visual and vocal poetry, the artist has turned to the descriptions, transcriptions and hearings of bird sounds. In addition to the information found in ornithological handbooks, he has reminisced what he himself had noticed, seen, heard, experienced and reflected upon, while in nature.
Raul Meel:
“Despite all the research efforts I had made, gaps remained in my imaginary/soon-to-be-born book/books. To fill these, I wrote poetry, produced sounds, and sang myself, instead of the birds. In this way, I persuade the potential viewers-readers to regard my books as living poetry and art, rather than any other kind of collections of text-forms. [– – –] I think that ornithologists, while trying to make real observations, always also wonder, yearn, imagine, poetize and love birds – because how could one approach them without poetry and art?” – From the introduction to the first edition of the artist’s book Letters from Birds (1974).
The Vabaduse Gallery exhibition presents Raul Meel’s series of text-pictures Letters from Estonian Songbirds which is part of a larger series of albums Letters from Estonian Birds. Its first printed edition, black and white at the time, was published as part of the artist’s book Letters from Birds in 1974. In 2004, the series was reissued in the artist’s book The Chicken Flies, and in 2013, it was presented as an artwork consisting of 32 digitally printed graphic sheets as part of Margit Säde Lehni’s curatorial project While Walking on Salads in the framework of the exhibition Afterlives of Gardens at the Kumu Art Museum. The texts displayed in the exhibition are accompanied by Fred Jüssi’s sound recordings of birdcall captured in Estonia.
Raul Meel (b. 1941) is one of the most recognised Estonian avant-garde artists who has been participating in exhibitions since the beginning of the 1970s. He is known as a pioneer of concrete poetry in Estonia, a printmaker, painter, sculptor, installation and fire performance artist, author of numerous artists’ books, and also a beekeeper. Thematically, Meel has continuously focused on the relationship between nature, technology, poetry and art, his art being an amalgam of visual art and literature, language, text, word, syllables and music, sound, voice, and phonemes.
Meel has exhibited over 300 original artists’ books and albums in more than 50 languages, participated in over 600 group exhibitions and held over 100 solo exhibitions. He has received numerous art awards both in Estonia and internationally and his works belong to museums and private collections all over the world. Meel’s book Solomon’s Song of Songs (2010, edition of 100) is part of Herzog August Bibliothek’s collection in Wolfenbüttel in Germany and has been recognised as one of the most original and beautiful books in the world. He has been a member of the Estonian Artists’ Association since 1987.
Vabaduse Gallery is supported by the Estonian Ministry of Culture, Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Liviko Ltd.