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| Hardijs Lediņš and other alternative artists in the Moderna Museet Iliana Veinberga, Art Critic Exhibition REGARD: Subversive actions in normative space 31.03.–02.05.2010. Moderna Museet (Swedish museum of contemporary art) | |
| This exhibition, a joint effort by the year 2010 graduates from the Konstfack art school programme for curators, CuratorLab, was one of those occasions when people from various corners of the world come together to show to institutions and the dominating political discourses an alternative vision, where strategies inherent to the sphere of culture have been applied, but the aim is more than just form and aesthetics. The exhibition was devised by a group of curators: Alexa Griffith Winton from New York, Marina Noronha from Brazil, Aimar Arriola, a promoter of alternative environment from Spain, and Maija Rudovska, art historian and curator from Latvia. Common to them all is an interest in the social dimension of culture. This passion has been determined either by their own state of mind, or the surprising revelation discovered during the course of studies that in São Paulo, in New York, in the Andalusia region and in Riga there have been creative people who reacted, made attempts to get involved and to change, in their opinion, for the best (or at least indicate that changes are needed), the existing social order. | |
 Hardijs Lediņš. Human in the living environment. Video. 1987 | |
| A priest, a couple of designers and a large number of ordinary workers in the Unilabour group who in the 1950-60s tried to humanise Brazil’s wave of monstrous concrete housing developments by any solutions of design, art and environmental architectonics that were available. Hardijs Lediņš and the NSRD (‘Workshop for Restoring Unprecedented Feelings’) with sociological research into the standard dormitory suburbs being developed in the 1980s, who included elements of performance and creative fooling around as an antidote to the practices and euphoria of communist construction right here in Latvia. The Heidelberg Project, an artists’ commune which, by applying the so-called social resistance strategy, for a brief period conjured up an alternative ‘happy’ environment, illustrating the possibility for it to exist in a 1980s black neighbourhood in Detroit, U.S. Miguel Benlloch, a researcher, liberator and defender of political, social and bodily self-confidence in Spain, Andalusia, during the last quarter of the 20th century, a time when government policy tried to restrict an individual’s autonomy. Critical, positive, utopian or real interactions, but all of them with one thing in common: their medium was a creative strategy with artistic value added. | |
 s Lediņš. Human in the living environment. Video. 1987 | |
| The exhibition visitor was presented with video recordings and photographs of various performances, actions, processes and procedures, texts compiled by curators, all of which set into context the respective events, highlighting the reasons for their importance then and now. Soaring above specific geopolitical frontiers and eras, the viewer had an opportunity to receive a concentrated message on the ‘healing power’ of art. However, the curator group’s well-intended scheme to put together, from the material gathered, an exposition as an interactive archive, did not quite work out. The layout of the show (although purposefully care-less and conforming to the stereotype of alternative art practices with limited funding, based on enthusiasm) was not really thought through and soon revealed inconveniencing drawbacks. Information missing about the length of videos (in some cases they were almost equal to a full-length feature; for the sake of comfort this would require a different manner of presentation) and, given this, the limited number of chairs; the fact that videos of poorer quality were projected not onto a screen, but on a wall or left in the contrast of half-light; problems with the visual and audio quality etc. made it difficult to enjoy the exhibition as one whole, and challenged the patience of even the most favourably disposed visitor. These and other aspects relate not only to the curators’ professionalism or the lack of it, but also to limited funds; some of the video materials need serious restoration, maybe even a shorter version could be made for showing to the public, etc. Still, it should be taken into account that the exhibition kindly hosted by the Moderna Museet studio was the result of an educational venture, a joint vision by four very different curators in the Swedish educational, exhibition curating, institutional cooperation, work ethic and legislative environment, within its relative disadvantages and opportunities. It is precisely this experience, it seems, that has been the most waluable for the team of curators who created the exhibition. For the viewers, on the other hand, it was a unique opportunity to see the creative manifestations of Hardijs Lediņš and the NSRD in a museum as prestigious as the Moderna Museet, as well as a chance to learn about the cultural history of foreign – even exotic – lands and countries through authentic documents. And, of course, to be made aware that along with the artist, the curator also is an important force. /Translator into English: Sarmīte Lietuviete/ | |
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