Paul Kuimet

Paul Kuimet (1984) explores a world in his work that can only be experienced through a camera lens. He creates photo installations and films, which he shoots on 16 mm film. His practice centres on modernist forms and materials such as steel and glass, examining their relationship to the development of capitalism since the mid-19th century.

One of Kuimet’s earliest photo series – “In Vicinity” (2010) – presents a personal and collective experience of the 21st-century Estonian landscape. The series also captures new residential districts, where middle-class dreams meet relentless emptiness. In the exhibition “Viewfinders” (2011) at Tallinn Art Hall, Kuimet continued to explore questions surrounding the urban environment and the formation of its identity, placing the viewer at the heart of contradictions between objects, landscapes, and place names. As a documenter of the urban environment, he has also contributed to the book “Notes on Space: Estonian Monumental Painting 1879–2012”, which records local art history. The photographs published in the book combine a cool style, arithmetic clarity, and conceptual romanticism.

Kuimet’s films “2060”, “Exposure”, and “Golden Home”, produced between 2014 and 2017, express an interest in modernist forms. “Golden Home” originated from photographs depicting a terraced house named Kuldne Kodu (Estonian for Golden Home), built in the 1970s by the Pärnu KEK construction company (architect Toomas Rein). The film was inspired by the architectural similarity – but ideological contrast – between this building and a nearby apartment block built in the 2000s. Both films are defined by their dialogue with space, use of continuous repetition, and a meditative rhythm.

The exhibition “Late Afternoon”, held at the Tallinn City Gallery in 2016, examined reflections in architecture and interiors, the shifting qualities of light, and the subtleties of modernist experience of space. The works explored the viewer’s relationship with both real and photographed environments, as well as with movement and stillness. A highlight of the exhibition was “Perspective Study”, which featured reflections of the Atomium building, constructed in Brussels in 1958. The piece also connected to Kuimet’s ongoing interest in modernist utopias and their everyday manifestations. His films and photographs captured office spaces emptied at the end of the workday, where anonymous furniture, piles of documents, and a solitary potted plant on a windowsill combined to evoke a world that is at once ordinary and aestheticised.

In 2020, Mihkel Ilus and Paul Kuimet presented a joint exhibition titled “Endless Story” at the Tallinn Art Hall, reflecting on the continuous transformation of forms, impermanence, and transitions – where every ending contains the possibility of a new beginning. “Endless Story” was open to the public for just one week before a state of emergency was declared in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak. However, visitors could still access the show through a virtual platform, and Tallinn Art Hall reopened its doors at the end of May. As the exhibition was already grounded in reflections on periods of change, it gained new layers of meaning within the context of that unprecedented moment. Premiered at the exhibition, Kuimet’s essay film “Material Aspects” delves into the aesthetics and layered meanings of modernist architecture in the contemporary world. Through footage of skyscrapers, industrial elements, and architectural motifs, the film draws a connection between the all-encompassing reach of the financial sector with the closed spatial logic of Stalinist architecture. Accompanied by optical sound, the work establishes a meditative atmosphere, encouraging reflection on the information overload characteristic of modern life. The site-specific photo installation “Untitled (Main Hall)”, displayed in Tallinn Art Hall’s main exhibition space, created a dynamic setting where viewers encountered the shifting nature of space and time through the interaction of light, shadow, and the arrangement of photographs. Kuimet also presented photo collages from his “Crystal Grid” series, which has become a central focus in his more recent work.

In 2023, Paul Kuimet held a solo exhibition titled “Crystal Grid” at Draakon Gallery, showcasing 25 new works from a series of the same name, which began in 2020. The collages were presented in groupings of two, three, or four; placed side by side with plant fragments that, in reality, originate from locations hundreds or even thousands of kilometres apart. Alongside the exhibition, Kuimet published an artist’s book featuring two of his series: “Crystal Grid” (2020–2023) and its offshoot “What It Is to Be What You Are Not” (2022). While “Crystal Grid” is composed of photographs taken in botanical gardens, “What It Is to Be What You Are Not” combines exposures on light-sensitive paper created in the darkroom with leaves collected from the Tallinn Botanic Garden.

In the same year, Paul Kuimet and Tõnis Saadoja held a joint exhibition titled “Landscape Passes Through the House” at Tartu Art Museum, where contemporary photography and painting engaged in a dialogue with works by old masters. The exhibition’s title was drawn from Kuimet’s film “Le paysage passe à travers le bâtiment”, inspired by a phrase he encountered a decade earlier describing modernist buildings through which the landscape seems to flow. Kuimet’s photographs and films, shown alongside Saadoja’s paintings, explored various ways of experiencing and representing landscapes: is the depiction of a landscape in art a direct experience, a mediation, or merely an image? In addition to new works, the exhibition included lesser-known pieces from the museum’s archives. These historical works did not seek to define or dominate the landscape, but instead allowed it to surface in an open form.