Aagh! Õehh!, 2013, Hop Gallery, Tallinn
"There is a part of me that does not want to be here. The routine of daily life is like a joy and a curse. What a relief we can all watch those soapies from England and elsewhere, otherwise we would never get away. The cleaning, the washing, the drying – I still have to ask them all to put their clothes away. Don’t they realise! But then who else? Who else can I get angry at? Who else would disappoint me? Who else would be worthy or unworthy or just… ?
Day in day out – sometimes it provides its own escape, like a mantra that puts us all to sleep. But then something breaks the spell and I find some little hand has scrawled a monster in crayon on the wall, near the front door, next to the umbrellas and skateboards and the bicycle. Aagh! What if I drew on the wall? What then?”
Ulvi Haagensen was at the gallery every day drawing on the walls, and while she drew she thought about routine, love, anger, doubt, constraint, freedom, leaving, staying, what remains, what doesn’t…
….but only… after she’d hung up the last load of washing!
Michael Haagensen, exhibition press release
At the start of the exhibition the walls were white and empty, but as the days progressed they became covered with overlapping, chaotic charcoal drawings of washing hung out to dry. The exhibition ended with a "wash day", where I washed all the drawings off the walls.
Day in day out – sometimes it provides its own escape, like a mantra that puts us all to sleep. But then something breaks the spell and I find some little hand has scrawled a monster in crayon on the wall, near the front door, next to the umbrellas and skateboards and the bicycle. Aagh! What if I drew on the wall? What then?”
Ulvi Haagensen was at the gallery every day drawing on the walls, and while she drew she thought about routine, love, anger, doubt, constraint, freedom, leaving, staying, what remains, what doesn’t…
….but only… after she’d hung up the last load of washing!
Michael Haagensen, exhibition press release
At the start of the exhibition the walls were white and empty, but as the days progressed they became covered with overlapping, chaotic charcoal drawings of washing hung out to dry. The exhibition ended with a "wash day", where I washed all the drawings off the walls.