Eesti kunsti oksjonid

Lithograph on paper. 1981.
Signature: “Deemon lahkub” “Демон уходит” литогр. litograafia 22/55 / J. Arrak 81.

The early 1980s were a landmark year for Jüri Arrak (1936-2022), as it was then that his works first entered the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York – a dream that seemed completely utopian to Estonian artists at the time. The escape route for local creatives was provided by German-born Elena Kornetchuk, who managed to secure an agreement to export art from the Soviet Union, and thus the works of Estonian artists also reached the US market.

In 1981, Arrak completed the painting “The Demon Leaves”, in which a character with a long pink tongue leaves the owner’s mouth. After that, Arrak repeated the motif in his prints but presented the work in a mirror image and with a slightly different background. The evil spirit flying out of the character’s mouth is reminiscent of medieval art, since motifs of exorcism of evil forces were often used at that time. It is a kind of ritual of purification, letting go of all that is bad and the beginning of a new life. Arrak has used a similar allegory of breaking free from the burden of the past and moving forward later, for example in the work “The Werewolf”, 1989 (private collection).

The piece is reproduced in Jüri Hain’s book about Jüri Arrak.

Text: Katre Palm