As if interpreting the old adage “out of darkness comes light,” this fall, three artists explore their shadow sides. In his exhibition “Library of Dust” (now a recently published book from Chronicle), photographer David Maisel takes a strangely transcendent tour of what was once the Oregon State Insane Asylum. “The air is dank and cool,” he says. “The room within is lined with simple pine shelves, stacked three deep with some 3,500 copper canisters.” Holding the cremated remains of psych patients who died at the hospital as far back at 1883, the urns no longer have any identifiable labels but have corroded with an unexpectedly brilliant array of color. Bringing these vessels out of internment, Maisel illuminates a forgotten past, creating a visually poignant monument to the unknown deceased.

And the mother of all new luxuries. Off with whose head?

TALLINN, ESTONIA
tallinn.ee/eng

Estonia is officially the most wired nation in the world, and with that comes all the free-market fervor old Soviets were always sniffing at. Its buzzing capital is split exactingly between its utterly charming, spit-polished medieval Old Town, with a stylish café or bohemian bar on virtually every corner, and its modern City Centre, with designer shopping and lots of sleek, occidental upscale nightlife. Chic hotels (Merchant House, The Telegraaf, the sublime Three Sisters) are swiftly proliferating. If it helps, imagine an entire city being Nolita. but with excellent Russian food and affable locals. —Ken Scrudato