New Exhibition Opens
Text Susanna Poikela Photo Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design
On 24 October, the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design will open the exhibition Neanderthal Beauty Clinic. This gallery installation, created by Madlen Hirtentreu and Darja Popolitova, is a speculative beauty installation in which the artists explore how beauty treatments have become rapidly consumable commodities. At the same time, they reveal how practices marketed as self-care can conceal mechanisms of bodily control and subjugation.
Hirtentreu and Popolitova’s installation presents an aesthetic laboratory with an undefined temporal origin—part sanctuary, part clinic—where medical and cosmetic objects intertwine. Together, they form an attempt to reinvent yet another absurd beauty ritual that promises the body eternal youth.
For Neanderthals and modern humans alike, appearance has been closely tied to a sense of belonging. Archaeological findings suggest that Neanderthals adorned themselves with natural materials such as stone beads, bird claws, and red ochre. Beyond decoration, these practices likely expressed community bonds, status, or hierarchy within their groups.
Whereas ancient beauty rituals were connected to nature, environment, and community, today’s beauty ideals demand that the body continuously adapt to ever-changing trends. This constant pressure to conform alienates people increasingly from their own bodies.
Neanderthal Beauty Clinic juxtaposes the technological and the natural, the ancient and the contemporary, and asks under what conditions belonging is possible in today’s society.
The exhibition “Neanderthal Beauty Clinic” will be open until 22 February 22, 2026.
Read more about the exhibition here.
To learn more about this and similar topicsArt Exhibitions Beauty Contemporary Art Design Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design Exhibitions Neanderthal Beauty Clinic
