Virve Sarapik (b. 1961) is an art and culture scholar and a professor at the Estonian Academy of Arts Institute of Art History and Visual Culture. She defended her doctorate in 1999 at the University of Tartu in the field of semiotics and cultural theory, and pursued postgraduate studies at the universities of Oslo, Helsinki, Oxford and Ljubljana.
In addition to EAA, Sarapik has worked at the Estonian Academy of Sciences Under and Tuglas Literature Centre (1998–2002) and the Estonian Literary Museum (2003–2013). She has also been the principal investigator of several research themes that have received public grants. Since 2017, she is the head of the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture at the EAA.
Sarapik’s research interests focus on the relationships between different art forms – literature and visual art – and metatexts that intermediate those relationships (criticism, art historiography). At the theoretical level, she has mainly engaged with topics of picture theory and spatial representation, a line of research that was closely linked to the Koht ja Paik / Place and Location series of events and publications (1998–2007). The empirical material for her research has above all been sourced from the late Soviet and transition period, but she has also studied the modernization processes in early 20th century Estonian culture.
Since 2003, Sarapik has been the editor-in-chief of the journal Kunstiteaduslikke Uurimusi / Studies on Art and Architecture. She was one of the founders of the Etüüde nüüdiskultuurist / Studies in Contemporary Estonian Culture series of conferences and publications, and has edited several collected volumes on the culture of the Soviet period.
Main publications
Monograph
Keel ja kunst. Oxymora 3. Tallinn: Underi ja Tuglase Kirjanduskeskus, 1999, 336 pp. [‘Language and Art’.]
Books, special editions of journals (in English)
Virve Sarapik, Andreas Ventsel (eds), Kunstiteaduslikke Uurimusi / Studies on Art and Architecture, vol 26, no 1-2, 2017. [Special issue ‘Art and Ideologies’.]
Eva Näripea, Virve Sarapik, Jaak Tomberg (eds), Koht ja paik/Place and Location VI. Studies in Environmental Aesthetics and Semiotics. Tallinn-Tartu: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseumi kultuuri- ja kirjandusteooria töörühm et al, 2008, 354 pp.
Eva Näripea, Virve Sarapik, Jaak Tomberg (eds), Koht ja paik/Place and Location V. Studies in Environmental Aesthetics and Semiotics. Tallinn-Tartu: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseumi kultuuri- ja kirjandusteooria töörühm et al, 2006, 320 pp.
Virve Sarapik, Eva Näripea, Kadri Tüür (eds), Koht ja paik/Place and Location IV. Studies in Environmental Aesthetics and Semiotics. Tallinn-Tartu: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseumi kultuuri- ja kirjandusteooria töörühm et al, 2004, 184 pp.
Virve Sarapik, Kadri Tüür (eds), Koht ja paik/Place and Location III. Studies in Environmental Aesthetics and Semiotics. Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Arts 14. Tallinn: 2003, 464 pp.
Virve Sarapik, Kadri Tüür, Mari Laanemets (eds), Koht ja paik/Place and Location II. Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Arts 10. Tallinn: 2002, 544 pp.
Kaia Lehari, Virve Sarapik (eds), Koht ja paik/Place and Location I. Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Arts 8. Tallinn: 2000, 190 pp.
Articles in English
CIHA Congresses and Soviet Internationalism. – Krista Kodres, Kristina Jõekalda, Michaela Marek (eds), A Socialist Realist History? Writing Art History in the Post-War Decades. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2019, pp 240−259. [Das östliche Europa. Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte 9.]
Virve Sarapik, Andreas Ventsel, Ideology and Art. – Kunstiteaduslikke Uurimusi / Studies on art and architecture, vol 26, no 1-2, 2017, pp 7−14.
How to Write Soviet Estonian Art History: Three Attempts, from Stalinism through the Khrushchev Thaw and Beyond. – Kunstiteaduslikke Uurimusi / Studies on Art and Architecture, vol 24, no 3-4, 2015, pp 150-167.
Boris Bernstein, Virve Sarapik, Young Estonia and The Early Twentieth-Century Cultural Utopias. – Journal of Baltic Studies, vol 45, no 2, 2014, pp 207-228.
Disainikateedri algus. Immitsev utoopia / The Beginnings of the Department of Design: A Seeping Utopia. – Mart Kalm (ed), Kunsttööstuskoolist Kunstiakadeemiaks. 100 aastat kunstiharidust Tallinnas / From the School of Arts and Crafts to the Academy of Arts. 100 Years of Art Education in Tallinn. Tallinn: Eesti Kunstiakadeemia Kirjastus, 2014, pp 332-363.
Kunstnik ja pärisnimi. Raul Meele juhtum / The Artist and the Proper Name. The Case of Raul Meel. – Eha Komissarov, Ragne Nukk, Raivo Kelomees (eds), Raul Meel. Dialoogid lõpmatusega / Dialogues with Infinity. Tallinn: Eesti Kunstimuuseum, 2014, pp 137-174.
Semiotics at the Crossroads of Art. – Semiotica, no 195, 2013, pp 69-96.
Virve Sarapik, Piret Viires, Solitude in Cyberspace. – Pille Runnel, Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt, Piret Viires, Marin Laak (eds), The Digital Turn. User’s Practices and Cultural Transformations. Frankurt-am-Main: Peter Lang Verlag, 2013, pp 237-249.
Autumn in a new residential area. – Interlitteraria, no 16(2), 2011, pp 502-519.
Film Reception in Estonia in the Early 20th Century: From Fairground Shows and Conjurer Acts to Respectful Drawing-Room Entertainment. – Kinokultura: New Russian Cinema, Special Issue 10: Estonian Cinema. Toim Eva Näripea, Ewa Mazierska, Mari Laaniste, 2010.
Virve Sarapik, Piret Viires, Solitude in Cyberspace. – Agnes Aljas, Raivo Kelomees, Marin Laak, Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt, Pille Runnel, Piret Viires et al (eds), Transforming culture in the digital age. Tartu: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum, 2010, pp 351-355.
Anti-futurism of Young Estonia literary movement. – Interlitteraria, vol 14, no 1, 2009, pp 142-161.
Picture, Text and Imagetext: Textual Polylogy. – Semiotica, no 174, 2009, pp 277-308.
Semi-closed openness: transformations of Estonian art and ‘meta-art’ in the 1990s. – Cornelius Hasselblatt (ed), The End of Autonomy? Studies in Estonian Culture. Maastricht: Shaker Verlag, 2008, pp 69–84.
_topias and Islands. _toopiad ja saared (kokkuvõte). – Virve Sarapik, Kadri Tüür (eds), Koht ja paik / Place and Location. Studies in Environmental Aesthetics and Semiotics III. Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Arts 14. Tallinn: 2003, pp 107–129.
Landscape: The Problem of Representation. – Virve Sarapik, Kadri Tüür, Mari Laanemets (eds), Koht ja paik / Place and Location II. Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Arts 10. Tallinn: 2002, pp 183–200.
1990. aastate eesti kunst ja postsemiootiline pööre. / Estonian Art of the 1990s and the Postsemiotic Turn. – Sirje Helme, Johannes Saar (eds), Ülbed üheksakümnendad. Probleemid, teemad ja tähendused 1990. aastate eesti kunstis. / Nosy Nineties. Problems, Themes and Meanings in Estonian Art on 1990s. Tallinn: Kaasaegse Kunsti Eesti Keskus / Center for Contemporary Arts, Estonia, 2001, pp 279–314.
Artist and Myth. – Folklore, vol 15, 2000, pp 39–59.
Fish: Concerning Characters and Action. – Folklore, vol 14, 2000, pp 7–40.
A Verbal Space – Intersecting The Visible. – Kaia Lehari, Virve Sarapik (eds), Koht ja paik / Place and Location I. Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Arts 8. Tallinn: 2000, pp 90–111.
The Problem of Titles in Painting. – Sign Systems Studies, vol 27, 1999, pp 148–167.
The Rainbow, Colours and Science Mythology. – Folklore, vol 6, 1998, pp 7–19.
Red, The Colour and The Word. – Folklore, vol 3, 1997, pp 93–131.
The Rainbow and Science Mythology. – H. Arnkil, E. Hämäläinen (eds), Aspects of Colour. Publication Series of UIAH 42. Helsinki: 1995, pp 209–216.