Raoul Kurvitz, Urmas Muru & Peeter Pere                                                                                                                              Curator Eha Komissarov

On Friday, 27th of April 1990, an unusual crowd could be seen in the evening hours on Väike-Karja street trying to enter a large building from one of the narrow doors. Until then this part of the building had not yet found use, but now it hosted an opening of an art gallery... Estonia's first privately owned art gallery, VAAL, presented itself with its white rooms, lighting imported from Finland, and opening the first exhibition: an artist group titled Rühm T presented artworks by its three leading artists, Raoul Kurvitz, Urmas Muru and Peeter Pere.

35 years later, Vaal is celebrating its anniversary with the same artists’ group. "Still in business!" a media-savvy but art-distant reader might say, like someone who has noticed our cowboy-capitalism era and the opening and closing of art galleries during the subsequent economic crises. Today, the longevity of galleries speaks well of their real role in the art scene.

In the 1990s, Estonia was caught in the winds of perestroika. With newly regained independence, galleries began to pop up in quite different locations, wherever traces of the art scene could be found. The surging of galleries as institutions wasn’t then just a well-meaning idea from people involved in all kinds of semi-official trade, as one might think from the perestroika recommendations at the time. The creation of new galleries during the ruble era was not driven by the wishes of street vendors, but by the outdated system of the Soviet Artists' Union, which was funded by the state and set up in 1943 - during the war - to carry out orders from Moscow. New galleries provided exhibition spaces for artists and, to the best of their abilities, handled the sale of their works, leading to the onset of the art market. Galleries have also served as starting points for lifestyles that offer a certain intellectual challenge, and today, the noticeable growth in the popularity of art purchases by individuals can certainly be regarded as the result of the galleries’ efforts.

35 years later, Vaal Gallery has invited the same collective, Rühm T, to celebrate its anniversary and as a fitting tribute to their initial exhibition. The "DIRTY SNOW" is not a retrospective, as a quite large number of works from the original exhibition were acquired by the audience. Rühm T, which at the time juggled with the notion of expressionism in the media, essentially and prominently stood up against the ruling canon of art. Rühm T looked at the vital actions of people, argued with the creators of expressionism, dealt with the present existing divides of the social structure, creating new site-specific visuals, expressing new experiences that influenced the artists, all of which allowed them to form new approaches straight from everyday life. Rühm T was armed with a transcendental speculative philosophy that allowed them to choose, organize and interpret their sensual experience. Their original exhibition is remembered even now by the special performance in the old Vaal Gallery's courtyard, from which an original video is presented in this exhibition.

Vaal Gallery then took the orientation to the art forms reflecting the vital changes, and the exhibition of Rühm T at the opening of Vaal Gallery helped to communicate that message. Now in Vaal Gallery's birthday-show, the artists of Rühm T also present their latest contemporary works alongside their retrospective artwork.