1987– · Estonian artist (born 1987) Eesti Kunstimuuseum; Tütar galerii
trained at Estonian Academy of Arts
“Urmas Lüüs is an Estonian artist working in the fields of jewellery, sculpture, installation, writing, music and theatre.” That’s the short explanation on the artist’s website. Embroidery, video and photography can be added to the list of permanent media with which he is familiar. Lüüs’s diverse artistic practice is based on a material mystery physically embedded in everyday objects, often beginning with an obsessive process of accumulation. For example, his last solo exhibition at the Tütar Gallery in 2023 was based on over 7,000 photographs taken in cemeteries. The exhibition
As an artist on the theoretical horizon of neo-materialism, Lüüs inverts the most important principle of conceptualism, which states that “thought should be more intense than the force of its embodiment”
. The credo of Lüüs is reflected in the belief that the artistic text is kept in operation by the energy of the personal poetic manipulation of the material. At the most general level, this implies a conscious opposition to the dominant patterns of behaviour of both the industrial production society and the service-based information society. The medium/genre dialogues that characterise Lüüs derive from the arsenal of practical craftsmanship of the applied artist. The system is based on the eloquence of a seemingly useless decorative gesture.
As an artist, Lüüs has an uncanny enduring relationship with the aesthetic of saturated poverty. In his case, it ranges from the imagery of religious kitsch in Catholic cemeteries to dusty souvenir horns on the walls of hunting lodges; and from tasteless nature images made from amber shards to Richelieu embroidery. His relationship with these object worlds, picked up from the peripheries of our aesthetic focus, is anything but nostalgic-sentimental camp. It is characterised by the retroactive excitement of the lived-through, collected and piled-up material into grotesque images and witty stories.
For sale now
23 works at Tütar galerii, €661–€3,920. Prices as the galleries state them.
23 works with a picture; the first 23 here, all in the catalogue. Pictures for public-domain works, live gallery listings and the works galleries and artists show on their own pages, from those servers.
A strip of pictures, the count and a link back, for a blog, a course page or a museum's site. Paste both lines: the second is the link that tells search engines where the pictures live.
Museum records from MuIS and the EKM Digital Collection; gallery stock from the galleries' own catalogues; auction results as Haus Galerii, Vernissage, Allee galerii, Vaal galerii, E-Kunstisalong, Eesti Kunsti Oksjonid and Kunstikoda published them, and the lots Osta Noort Kunsti offered (it publishes no results). Full catalogue · Corrections, removals, questions: info@museaal.ee · Privacy
Raamid
Toos
Kirvepea
Sõrm seeriast “Kes aias, kes aias?”
Peegel
Kipsist pea seeriast “Härra N-i elu ja surm. Urmas Lüüsi kodanlikud ruumid”
Keraamiline teos seeriast “Härra N-i elu ja surm. Urmas Lüüsi kodanlikud ruumid”
Mask (2021–2023)
Pitsid
Kirves
Raam seeriast “Härra N-i elu ja surm. Urmas Lüüsi kodanlikud ruumid”
Küünlajalg
