|
|
| Half a step outside the comfort zone Elīna Dūce, Visual Arts Theorist A conversation with the artist Baiba Baiba Exhibition of drawings by Baiba Baiba Drawn from the Heart (of Beauty, Fear and Other Fictions) 09.08.–18.09.2010. Gallery Istaba | |
| The first and largest exhibition of Baiba Baiba is yet to come. The name has not been written twice. It is the name and the surname, to which Baiba refers ironically as her only small project of conceptual art concerning the inheritance of the surname through the male line, about the reactions provoked in people by such a trivial breach of convention, and how overly seriously people take themselves and the accepted norms of society. In the 1990s Baiba went to America and, according to Linda Lūse, manager of the Gallery Istaba, “lives the beautiful life of an artist in New Jersey (NY), in an industrial neighbourhood inhabited by artists”. | |
 Baiba Baiba. 2008. Photo from the artist's private archive | |
| Elīna Dūce: Why did you leave Latvia in the 1990s? Baiba Baiba: My departure Latvia for America was not a conscious, preplanned choice. I cannot even tell when exactly it happened, because I was going back and forth, visiting and returning, at the same time studying at the academy, and never, even until this very moment, did I ever think that I would stay in America longer than a year or two. E.D.: Do you keep in touch with artists in Latvia? B.B.: As I was a student at the “Rosies” [Rozentāls Art School] and at the academy, then among the people I know there are very few who are not in some way or other connected with art. E.D.: From afar, does art in Latvia look different? B.B.: Art, like any other field in general, is boring as a whole, it’s only individual artists and some of their works that are interesting. And when those rare flashes occur, they are wonderful events, regardless of where they come from. I have never been attracted by socalled high art, which is cold and intellectualised. For comparison, it seems to me that an old woman selling her crocheted doilies in the street relates more about her time and environment than a supposedly complicated work with countless references to history, politics, etc. E.D.: Which are the works and/or artists that sweep you away against the general boring backdrop of art? B.B.: Every two months or so I do a round of the galleries in Chelsea (NY) and usually from the huge number of works I look at only some, maybe three stick in my mind, and that is very much for me. During my latest “rounds” it was the renovated 1960 installation Roxy’s by U.S. artist Edward Kienholz (in the David Zwirner gallery), and the “tapestries” by El Anatsui, a Ghanian working in Nigeria (in the Jack Shainman gallery) which moved me to tears: ornamental drapes of regal splendour crafted from metal bottle caps and various colourful scraps of garbage that were at the same time very ethnic and very contemporary, addressing globalisation, portending power, joy and deep sorrow. And then there are the artists with whom it is not enough merely to view their works at an exhibition: their books must be kept within reach. For me they are: a Mexican grabador (engraver) Manuel Manilla (mid/late 19th century), American naivist Henry Darger, from those living – draftsman Raymond Pettibon and Canadian artist Marcel Dzama, as well as William Kentridge from South Africa who has, among other things, created – in my opinion – the most beautiful stage design for ‘The Magic Flute’. But the main thing is, I am lucky to be living together with, as I like to joke, my favourite artist totally unknown in Latvia, Artūrs Virtmanis, who inspires me most. E.D.: How do your drawings come about? From an external impulse, or do you wake up in the morning with your head full of ideas to be “put down on paper”? B.B.: In my case the impulse comes more from a sort of neurotic desire to doodle and scribble on anything that resembles paper, perhaps even unconsciously. After a longer telephone conversation I sometimes happen to see before me a small germinal idea of a future work, so I am always at a doodle’s distance from a drawing. It also tends to be that when my heart is full, I purposely take a white sheet of paper to unravel those knots. | |
 Baiba Baiba. From the series 'Different Anatomy Lesson'. Gouache on paper. 28x38cm. 2003. Photo from the artist's private archive | |
| E.D.: What do you think about the beautiful in a work of art? During one of the earlier biennials in the Luxembourg pavilion they screened a film(1) compiled of quotations by various art critics, researchers, curators and artists. One of them was: “Art has not to be ugly to be clever”. B.B.: I didn’t see the film, but I agree with that: art has not to be ugly to be clever, but I believe its purpose is also not to be either nice/beautiful or clever. The concept of beauty and wisdom both in art and outside the context of art is rather vague, definition depends on the time, the place, and on the individual viewer or reader. Somebody might be yearning for sweet thoughtless peace, another – for a kick in the pit of the stomach, to be at last woken up. (It seems to me that unlike the viewer, the artist is seldom troubled by the issue of beauty in their works – this being a theoretical problem – except in applied art and crafts.) Speaking about art in the context of the market, one may presume that whatever is in fashion is “beautiful”. In some corner of the world these may be paintings with maidens lost in thought, holding pears or grapes in their hands, in some other – neon lamps, video cameras in washing machines, in yet another – a heap of several tonnes of vaseline, and it all keeps changing so rapidly that you needn’t look for examples in too distant a future, when in the East they used to admire the “beauty” of tiny feet crippled on purpose. Very recently in a museum I chanced upon Damien Hirst’s shark which had managed to “grow old”, losing all its coolness and glamour of the 90s only just gone by. From all the pomp only a large fishtank with a sad-looking fish remained. However, back in those same nineties, two Russian-born American artists, Komar & Melamid, had a project addressing the issue: in order to create a kind of perfect painting, they carried out interviews in several countries about what a beautiful painting should look like. It all ended on a very sad note, with very similar-looking “blue landscapes”. The artists themselves said later that in search for freedom they had found slavery. Beauty is not the purpose of art (at least not when creating art), even if an artist goes out of his way to achieve this, it’s beyond his control. Beauty lies neither in the subject nor in the technique, not even in the idea. For me art is something like an experience of consciousness, it has to be hermetic (from me, about me, for me) and half a step outside my comfort zone. It has to be something more than a pleasant occupation (enjoying oneself with textures, witticisms or regurgitated citations); in order to achieve the feeling of satiation, it has to bring a certain charge of energy, and if you succeed, you can send your “picture” out in the world with your mind at rest, for the work to live or to fall to dust, or you may put it away in a folder to lie silent. E.D.: I see in your works an illustration to the saying “to dress up for the meat market” (with the idea of standing out from other “tender morsels”), reminding us that a body in principle is nothing aesthetic, we only try to maintain it to be neat and pleasant. You have said yourself about the works of the exhibition that “this is an endless therapeutic drawing project, an attempt to embrace the dark side of one’s world”. Do you, by drawing grinning faces, skinless bodies and muscles intertwined with blood vessels, get rid of the thought about the transitory period that people spend in their individual bodies/”in their skin”? B.B.: My aim is by no means to rid myself of an obsessive thought, but rather to welcome it, to accept and to tame it. I also look from a different viewpoint at “mugs” and “unaesthetic” bodies, etc. – similarly as for study sketches at the Rozentāls Art School or the academy, where the body of an emaciated little man or a curvaceous middle-aged woman were much more interesting than an angelic youth with still undeveloped facial features. Even when I am in the kitchen and preparing a leg of lamb for grilling, and dividing it up by muscle groups, in no way do I see it as anything ugly, I’m only aware that our body parts are not that much different, and both the skinny little old man and the leg of lamb are very attractive to my draftswoman’s eye. When I call my works self-healing and mention “the dark side of my world”, I mean this not in bodily and aesthetic context, but rather in the emotional, psychological context. What’s more, none of my drawings are without a touch of humour. E.D.: Drawn from the Heart (of Beauty, Fear and Other Fictions) reminds me of a formula for human existence/life. What about joy and happiness? B.B.: Joy and Happiness stand above all that, but the spheres that are capable of eliciting the biggest fears also are the best point of reference, which turns the focus back to the beautiful, when one’s sight has become blurred due to all kinds of imaginings. E.D.: You have designed print patterns for textiles, and this and that for private commissions. But you’ve also had unusual (as you call them – “surprising”) commissions? What are they? B.B.: For quite some time I have done drawing commissions for various designers and companies, patterns for dresses, wallpaper, neckties, painted shoes and clothes as oneoffs for fashion shows; I have designed packaging, coats-of-arms and monograms for buttons, retro style advertisement posters, etc. Sometimes I haven’t even had the time to find out what they were for, I left that to the agents, but the “surprising” ones have come independently of them. For example, a young Swiss film director, having seen my playing cards published by the Istaba gallery, wanted to feature my drawings in his film. Thus, guided by actors’ photographic portraits, I had to draw a cocaine-inspired vision by Freud in which his father, supervised by a Rabbi, is flogging his mother who lying in ecstasy. The opportunity to illustrate a handwritten book, of which there is only a single copy, by Sarah, Duchess of York was also unexpected. Or the very latest project, now ongoing for two years, a Broadway show based on old comic books about Spiderman, for which I draw everything that there is on the stage: rows of houses, skyscrapers, street lanterns, beds, television sets and telephones (the list is very long). I would have never imagined myself anywhere near stage design, but it has turned out that this commission has been the closest to my heart. | |
 Baiba Baiba. From the series 'Ink-noir'. Gouache on paper. 28x38cm. 2008-2010. Photo from the artist's private archive | |
| E.D.: The film on Freud set your drawings “in motion”. Have you ever fancied trying your hand at comics or animation? B.B.: I already mentioned William Kentridge – he is an excellent example; unexpectedly for himself, animation tore him away from a career based on mediocre gallery art (slowly lapsing into apathy), and made his vision soar to unprecedented heights. I very much admire and appreciate him, but I have never thought of choosing this path myself. The technological aspect has always repelled me. The thing that fascinates me in drawing is its primordialness. This is from where everything begins, be it a dress, a house or an aeroplane; this is the way how the consciousness materialises. What happens after, transformation into a varnished, framed painting or any other “product”, does not grab me that much. E.D.: When creating stage design and special drawings for designer clothing, you are forced take into account other people’s opinions, the way others see things. Does this not bother you? B.B.: No, it doesn’t! Mostly, those who commission something have their own vision/idea of what they want. From me mainly they expect just “my hand”, which they have chosen because they have already seen some of my previous works. I offer options, technical solutions, but for my own good I mustn’t develop an emotional attitude towards it all, even on those occasions when the commission is completely incompatible with my ideas of what is nice, tasteful or suitable for the specific circumstances. As a result I am the winner, because I have been compelled to widen my field of perception, more often as not even changing my attitude from initially mocking to altogether approving. E.D.: When does the Spider-Man show open? B.B.: It was meant to be launched last February. Currently the premiere has been scheduled for autumn, but in reality it looks as if it will take place early next year. This will be a major event for me, and it will be an event anyway, as Spider-Man is the most expensive Broadway show ever(2). E.D.: How important is it for you to be a Latvian in America? B.B.: The fact that I am Latvian is a big part of me, something that cannot be changed by going away anywhere, it is a fixed fact, nothing worth being proud or ashamed of, and I do not see anything special in that. I love Latvia’s long shadows, the sea, the pines, and it is really great if I can find somebody who can join me in a Līgo song, but it may happen, however, that the song is the only thing in which we find a common language, and at the same time I may develop a deep understanding with a person from another social system, with a totally different experience. If any division among human beings should be significant, then for me a person’s field of activity or interests seem much more important than ethnic background. Unlike Latvia, where it seems at times that nationality is brought to the foreground, here it is of secondary importance. People have a certain interest in the origins of your accent, the language you speak and what you eat, but that doesn’t affect their evaluation and seldom creates tension. This is definitely an American / New York phenomenon, but this is the rare place where a Latvian, a Russian, a German, a Jew, an Arab, a Korean, a Japanese, etc., can sit together at one table on a festive occasion, and every time I become aware of this situation in my kitchen, my international Christmas or Easter becomes even more loving. The way one looks at things here, the issue of national identity is more like the rhyme from childhood: “a little kitty and a little bunny met each other on the road and wondered…” Baiba Baiba (born Lukstraupe, in 1969, Rīga) graduated from Janis Rozentāls Rīga Art School (1988) and studied graphic design at the Academy of Art of Latvia (1991–1994). From 1996 to 2008, while living in New York, she has created drawings for Ralph Lauren, Tommy Bahamas, Brooks Brothers, Paul Stuart, Woolrich, American Eagle, Donna Karan, Sarah, Duchess of York, etc. Baiba has illustrated the collection of poems Franču lirika 19. gadsimtā (‘French Poetry in the 19th Century’, Rīga: Omnia Mea, 2004), a fairy tale by Kārlis Skalbe Le Moulin du Chat (Rīga: Omnia Mea, 2005) and the book of Spanish fairytales Brīnišķā pērle (‘Wonderful Pearl’, Rīga: Omnia Mea, 2006). She has drawn playing cards published by the Istaba Gallery (Rīga), created the stage set for a miniature theatre performance by Doug Fitch, Peter and the Wolf (and the Duck!) (2007), drew the scene of Freud’s vision for the short feature Dr. Freud’s Magic Powder (2009) directed by Edouard Getaz, and from 2008 to 2010 has been working on the stage scenery for Broadway musical Spider-Man. Participation in exhibitions: Renewal – Eastern European Women Artists (2003, CASE Museum New Jersey), Second Nature (2004, Fish Tank Gallery New York), the 26th Exhibition of International Art on Fan (2005, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art in Japan) and International Art on Fan (2005, Silk Gallery, Seoul). (1) Antoine Prum „Mondo Veneziano”. 32’00”. 2005 (2) The director of Spider-Man is Julie Taymor, stage designer – George Tsypin, music by Bono (from U2), The Edge. www.spidermanonbroadway.marvel.com /Translator into English: Sarmīte Lietuviete/ | |
| go back | |
