Upcoming
Jaanus samma
FOOL
7 March – 18 APRIL 2026
Robert Grunenberg is delighted to present the exhibition “Fool” by Jaanus Samma.
For his debut solo exhibition at the gallery, Jaanus Samma presents Fool, a survey of new and selected works that interrogate masculinity as a historically constructed, fragile and contested apparatus of power.
Working across textiles, sculpture, drawing and metalwork, Samma examines the molding of masculine ideals through the lenses of classical antiquity, folklore, nationalism and collective memory. By invoking figures such as Apollo and Hercules alongside Baltic and Viking iconography, the exhibition traces the persistent influence of heroic archetypes on contemporary notions of strength, authority and identity.
The exhibition title draws on Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the carnivalesque, positioning the fool as a quintessential trickster. Within this framework, the fool acts as a disruptive agent who inverts hierarchies – turning the world inside out – to challenge dominant power structures. In Samma’s practice, this figure becomes a tool for destabilizing and reimagining the masculine subject.
This subversion extends to Samma’s use of floral motifs, which he deconstructs through a range of aesthetic registers. His approach borrows from the vivid, pop-like immediacy of folk patterns as well as the dense, narrative complexity of late-medieval mille-fleurs tapestries. While flowers carry a deep art-historical lineage, Samma repurposes them to carve out a space for vulnerability and tenderness within the traditionally rigid masculine narrative.
As writer Jeppe Ugelvig has noted, Samma’s practice often locates queer subjectivity and desire within seemingly heteronormative symbols. By reclaiming and re-coding folk culture and national iconography, Samma reveals these signs to be fluid rather than fixed. Presented in Berlin – a city defined by historical rupture and a transformative queer legacy – Fool invites viewers to interrogate inherited ideals and reconsider how bodies, identities and power are represented and remembered.
Jaanus Samma (born 1982, Estonia) studied graphic art at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, and continued his studies in fine art at the École Supérieure Estienne, Paris.
He represented Estonia at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) with the project NSFW. A Chairman’s Tale, presented in the Estonian Pavilion.
Recent solo exhibitions include “Elisarion: Elisàr von Kupffer and Jaanus Samma” at Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn (2024), “Iron Men” at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Estonia, Tallinn (2023), “Still Lifes on National Motifs” at the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, Tallinn (2022), “Folklore” at Galerie Robert Grunenberg, Berlin (2021), and”Otherness, Desire, the Vernacular” with Carlos Motta at Temnikova & Kasela Gallery, Tallinn (2021). Further solo exhibitions have been held at the Nomas Foundation, Rome, and the Museum of Occupations, Tallinn.
His work has been shown in major international group exhibitions and biennials, including Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, the Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, the Kaunas Biennale, Momentum Biennial, and the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts.
Samma’s works are held in public collections including the Art Museum of Estonia, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, Malmö Art Museum, and Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf. He is a fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program (2024–2025).
Opening
6 March 2026
6 – 9 PM
Exhibition on view
07.03.2026 – 18.04.2026
For more information, please contact the gallery: mail@robertgrunenberg.com
This exhibition is supported by
