zooom Print

KIWA is multichannel meta-artist, based in Tartu and Tallinn, Estonia. Currently he is resident artist at EMS/Fylkingen in Stockholm. He actively explores and blends different media, from paintings and conceptual objects to total audiovisual environments: all together functioning as a hypertextual research of meaning-making and cultural codes on different levels, collective and personal myths. He blends the meaning of authorship on different levels. He is interested in quote, pastiche, games of language and identity, (post)psychoanalysis and schizoanalysis were self-explanatory as artistic methods; an important place is also taken up by such keywords as conceptuality, simulacrum and absurd. The art of Kiwanoid is a labyrinth, or rather a labyrinth in a labyrinth. KIWA is also active as lecturer in the Estonian Academy of Arts (since 2006) and curator (since 1999). He initiated a series of multimedia events with a code name "Metabor" (2001-2004) and publication of anthology of experimental literature "Nutritive Milk of Mother Heroine - A Textual Lens" (2006). Last year he also finished his first full-length documentary movie "Wariazone" (with anthropologist Terje Toomistu) about Indonesian transgender phenomenon. Participates in exhibitions since 1995, his last personal shows took place at RRR (Vienna), Vaal gallery (Tallinn), Y-gallery (Tartu), Galerie Rivoli 59 (Paris) and Draakoni Gallery (Tallinn). Recent grpup shows and festivals include: Henie Onstad (Norway); The Kitchen, Yvon Lambert Gallery and Renaissance Society (USA); Tate Modern and Milch Gallery (UK); Stedelijk and DeAppel (Netherlands); Tseretely gallery and SKIF festival (Russia); Seccession and CAT/MAK (Austria), 1st Electronic Festival (Belorussia), Rivoli59 and Chateau de Tours (France), NU Performance Festival and Kumu Art Museum (Estonia); Black Leather club and Manizales Theatre Festival (Colombia) etc. Works in collections of Art Museum of Estonia, Tartu Art Museum, and private collections in Estonia, Europe and USA.