Kris Lemsalu opens solo exhibition in Austria

Estonian artist Kris Lemsalu has opened a solo exhibition, “Masquerade,” at the Francisco Carolinum museum in Linz, Austria, ERR reports. The exhibition will run until April 2027.

Lemsalu, who represented Estonia at the Venice Biennale in 2019, is known for imaginative sculptures, installations and performances that bring together human and animal worlds, nature and artifice, humour and existential questions.

The new exhibition explores identity, social roles and transformation through the idea of masks. “A mask allows us to become someone else while also revealing how changeable our sense of self is,” the exhibition text says. “Between concealment and revelation, protection and deception, transformation and self-awareness, the mask opens up a space where identity appears not as something fixed, but as a fluid process.”

Working with artist Michael Kleine, Lemsalu has created a large installation combining objects from the museum’s collections with new ceramic works to form a fantasy world. Maria Venzl curated the exhibition.

Last year, Lemsalu exhibited “Nirvana” at Temnikova and Kasela Gallery. This spring, her work was included in an exhibition of Estonian women artists at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.