The Mnemosyne: inside Mariann Metsis' visual moodboard

Inspired by Aby Warburg’s titanic visual atlas, – the oldest form of moodboard to date – The Mnemosyne: inside curated moodboards is where we ask artists to walk us through their artistic research with an archive of visual bits (archived images, camera roll pictures, book pages, videos), to contrast algorithmic feeds and restore the fun in personally-curated visual boards.

‍In this chapter, we asked Tallinn-born artist Mariann Metsis about her practice, inspired by hauntology and a constellation of figures that serve as talismans and recurring icons throughout her work, such as a sleek black dog, Isabelle Huppert, and L'Inconnue de la Seine. In this interview, Mariann talks about theatre, Soviet cartoons, and her exploration of the phantasmagoric spaces that emerge between one painting and the next.

MM: Isabelle Huppert in Mary Said What She Said

I’m just happy to be alive now, when there’s Isabelle Huppert. I often ‘cast’ her in my paintings as an excuse to look at her face for days. In Mary Said What She Said, she plays Mary Queen of Scots in her final hours, her monologue falling apart, coming together, strong, indecipherable, manic, held together, falling apart again. Directed by Robert Wilson, whom I also want to sneak in here; please look up his design for a beach chair (and of course his other productions). 

MM: Karin Luts

I recently saw Karin Luts: Pictures from Travels (a comprehensive overview of her work) at Kumu in Tallinn. I've always felt a strange kinship with her: our lives are separated by almost a century and been shaped by completely different circumstances, yet I recognise the same worries and desires (which feels somewhat comforting).

MM: Liina Siib
Liina’s eye is so sensitive yet idiosyncratic and sharp; I’ve become obsessed with her work. I’m also so honoured to be in a duo show with her in Galerina in London. Go see!

MM: Hedgehog in the Fog
Soviet cartoons were really something else. Growing up with it, the sense of melancholy, mystery and uncertainty of Yuri Norstein’s Hedgehog in the Fog, is now deeply ingrained in my disposition to art and life.

MM: Gisèle Vienne

I first encountered Gisele Vienne’s work in Paris in 2016 when my friend Lowe took me to see This Is How You Will Disappear. A foggy forest, lanky adolescent figures – some are mannequins, some aren't (and you mix them up) – a droning score by Stephen O’Malley and Peter Rehberg. Any description would fall short. She’s really great.

MM: Anne Carson
Carson has held a special place in my heart (and influence on my work) since university days. In Merry Christmas from Hegel, she articulated something I’ve tried to tap into in my work: the real meaning, breath and ‘speculation’ happening in the gaps between the paintings.

MM: Amy Sillman
Her writing, like that of many of my peers, really opened up painting for me in a radical way. Her approach to paint as material really suits my taurean temperament and gave me permission to think of painting as something messy, contradictory and alive rather than a fixed position or argument to defend.