Kumu’s 20th Anniversary Summer
Text Kumu Art Museum Photo Stanislav Stepashko, Marii Tunnel
Kristi Kongi’s exhibition is open until 11 October 2026.
This year, Kumu Art Museum celebrates its 20th anniversary. Over the past two decades, visitors to the Grand Hall of Estonia’s striking angular museum building, designed by architect Pekka Vapaavuori, have enjoyed a series of major international exhibitions. This summer, however, Kumu has, for the first time, entrusted the Grand Hall to an Estonian contemporary artist. The result is an unprecedented celebration of colour.
One of the defining elements of painter Kristi Kongi’s work is colour, and it is at the heart of her new solo exhibition, “Chromatic Drift”, for which she has created a number of new works. The exhibition offers visitors a fully immersive sensory and spatial experience. Kongi’s colours and motifs have escaped the canvas, spreading across the floor, walls, windows and even beyond the gallery space. It is colour therapy in the truest sense.
New exhibitions can also be found on Kumu’s other floors. On display until the end of summer are paintings and drawings created during the travels of Karin Luts, one of the leading figures of classical Estonian women’s art. Visitors can recognise scenes from Venice, Paris, as well as places in Spain and Sweden. On the fifth floor, the contemporary art exhibition “The Triumph of Galatea: Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” explores thought-provoking questions about art in the era of AI.
There is plenty to look forward to this autumn as well. In September, Kumu will open two new exhibitions: one focusing on Sámi contemporary art, and another exploring the cultural heritage of the Finno-Ugric peoples and the Indigenous peoples of the Nordic region. There is much to anticipate.
To learn more about this and similar topicsartificial intelligence Art Museum Contemporary Art Indigenous peoples of the Nordic region Karin Luts Kristi Kongi Kumu travel paintings
