Trickster Magazine

Kärt:

The couch we are sitting on is an installation from my exhibition „abstractions“ that took place in ArtDepoo gallery in the summer of 2020. Maybe a year before or so we somehow step by step became friends with Patrick and ended up making our first exhibition „drowning“ together inside my „abstractions“. 2020 was mental in every possible way.

Patrick:

A lot was happening at the time and I can’t remember any specific reason why we kept on going. It was natural, even logical way to act and it has stayed the same throughout all these years. It has gradually grown into this undefinable form of relationship and there’s a reason for it.

If Patrick/Kärt was a plant?

HAMMER/SOOME is a quiet misty jungle with mysterious voices and extravagant, flamboyant blossoms hidden in the great green. Some might be toxic.

Kärt & Pärnu?

I used to ride through it most of my childhood to go to my grandparents’ farmhouse in small place called Kabli near the Latvian border. It was mostly just a place to get the groceries from a big supermarket and then quickly leave. In the summertime my grandfather took me with him to Pärnu marketplace to sell gladioli flowers and bulbs. He was a specialist in gladiolis and we had a big field of them near the house. Flowers were more important than potatoes to him. His favourite was called White Butterfly. Pärnu means my grandfather Valentin and flowers to me. I think I went to Pärnu beach for sunbathing and swimming (for what it’s actually carved in people’s brain, being the capital of summer in Estonia) for the first time last summer with Patrick when we took a car one random hot day to check out an avant-garde exhibition. It was an extremely hot day and we spent an hour on the beach before heading back. Holy Dinner wasn’t yet scheduled then, although it had been on our minds for a few years already, we didn’t have any luck with the galleries in Tallinn. Luckily, few months later Pärnu City Gallery found it interesting.

Patrick & Pärnu?

For me, it's always been the place that seems so close, yet so far away. Just when everywhere else is miserable and gloomy, and the only thing I want is to be alone by the sea on a random weekday afternoon, staring into the void. I can't seem to find the same feeling in Tallinn, no matter how long I search. It's just not there. That 'I have to pack my things & iron the good shirt & fill up the tank & take the 35mm with me' feeling. And plan all that out just to be able to take some time off and be completely alone with myself. That's the feeling I enjoy and miss the most. As our cottage was located on the shore of Kolga Bay, in a completely different direction from Tallinn, we didn't just casually drive through Pärnu. But the sea guards both places. And that's where I’ll always want to be, by the sea.

Describe HAMMER/SOOME as a creative partner?

When you have this one person representing the other half of your aesthetical brain, there’s no need to speak. Or if any then it’s already your own thoughts or a done deal. Nothing can go wrong. One word speaks more than enough. No need to kill your brain with useless yapping. We have a different skillset but similar understanding of aesthetics and spacial poetics that somehow merge together self evidently.

What gets on your nerves about HAMMER/SOOME?

Mostly nothing. We manage to balance each other. If you respect someone as a person with all the special features they bring with their personality then there is an understanding that covers all bases. Everything out of order can be turned into a joke. Life is not that important anyways.

What you hope visitor feels at your exhibition?

Welcomed, at peace, interested. Yearn for hope and love.

Make ???, not art.

MAKE MONEY NOT ART

Make art, not ???

MAKE ART NOT SHIT

What soundtrack plays at HOLY DINNER?

Klassikaraadio.

HOLY DINNER is a third exhibition project by artist duo HAMMER/SOOME.

HOLY DINNER dives into a form of love that is the holy act of having dinner together. Lending some details from the infamous „Last Supper“ with all its mystical controversy. The act of making and offering food for another person is as common and casual as it is a gesture of intimacy, care and support. An expression of love without words. There is something ritual and solemn in eating together. The guest shall always have the best. There shall be only the best dishes,best goods, better tableware, shiniest cutlery. The food is cooked with ultimate care and attentiveness. There’s a little splash of extra for the guest. The room is tidier, the table is cleaner and there tends to be an apologetic behavior around it. Excusing yourself throughout the room while leading your guest to the carefully set table with all its details. Consciously or not - everything is a bit better. Some things are hidden, some brought out, focusing on details and worrying about the atmosphere – is this good enough? A loving worry that creates a certain holiness in the room.

Holy Dinner without the drama.

Holy Dinner is a room-specific installative exhibition: around one real table
different elements of a real dinner meet through textile, stone, silver, glass, paper and many other materials. In this holiness, a somewhat religious altar-like dinner table is born. Love goes through the stomach, emotions are in details and in between them. Have a seat.