Sõpruskond, kunst ja suhted keset kulmineeruvat kriisi – kihhotism üleminekuaja Eestis 1985–1992
A Circle of Friends, Relations and Art during the Culminating Crisis (1985–1992): Quixotism in Transition Estonia

Summary/Abstract: The article is based on the need to provide societal background for concrete artistic phenomena. Here I cover the coming together of a group of people, at first in the form of a circle of bohemian friends and later as an artistic group called Quixotists, and interpret the artistic actions that had direct impacts on their world view. This circle of friends which formed over about five years starting in 1985 consisted of the artist Jaan Toomik (b. 1961), his poet younger brother Tõnu Toomik (1965–1992), the poet and artist Jaan Paavle (1940–2010), the writer Tarmo Teder (b. 1958), the entrepreneur Jaan Jaanisoo (b. 1958), who was also involved in painting, performance art and installations, and the painter Vano Allsalu (b. 1967). As time went on, the role of performative arts became more important in their circle and in their collective identity. Their different attitudes towards performance art in the end also formed one of the causes of polarisation and the falling apart of the group. In the local art history, Quixotists as a group were important as modernisers and transformers of a cult of irrationality indirectly stemming from surrealism. Their appearances in performances turned out to be historical through the manifesting of personal truths, but remained relevant only for a brief period, therefore acting as a breaking point, a redefinition of reality which was previously determined by earlier conventions typical of the Soviet environment.

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