Late Soviet Tallinn print triennial

The chapter examines, using the case of the Tallinn Print Triennial, the attempts to adapt the biennial-type exhibition format in the context of the Soviet Union. Estonian artists initiated the Tallinn Print Triennial in 1968 with the primary aim of establishing a tradition in the spirit of international biennials, but until the end of the Soviet period, the exhibition participation remained regionally limited to the Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The central focus of the chapter is the triennial’s attempts to expand and the possible reasons for its failure. In retrospect, the unfulfilled international ambitions make the case especially intriguing, as they expose growing contradictions between the horizons of reviewers’ expectations increasingly considering the international artistic context and the art cultivated by the narrow Baltic triennial exhibition format.