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| Riga Airport. Baroque memories Pēteris Bankovskis, Art Critic Exhibition The Way 22.07.–03.10.2010. Riga International Airport | |
| An exhibition of contemporary art The Way will be on show until 3 October at Riga International Airport. The exhibition is being organised by the contemporary art project kim? or, to be more precise, a ‘working group’ consisting of Zane Čulkstēna, Zane Onckule, Daiga Rudzāte and Ojārs Pētersons. Presumably, the title of the event – The Way – was not picked out of the blue. Of course, the first thing that comes to my mind is that banal road metaphor. It is so banal that in the jumble of connotations it has already served for a longer period of time as a powerful stimulator of verbal diarrhoea: all those ‘Buddhist’ roads and Heidegger wood-cutters’ tracks, Russian musclemen and the little child at the crossroads. Yet without all the banalities, without that sitting around at the crossroads (at the airport, in this life on earth) a human being would not be human. However, the ‘way’ has many more nuances of meaning in another context, namely, when speaking about manner, modes, habits. Therefore it can be safely asserted that something has been organised at Riga Airport where eternal travellers tell (show) the way to other travellers, and they show this in a way that they are used to doing. In the guide to the exhibition which, apparently, is available to all interested parties at the airport, we can read the motto of Nicolas Bourriaud, at present a very well-known figure in narrow circles: “The thing which all objects that are known as “artworks” have in common is their ability to bring sense to human existence – to show the way in this chaos which is reality.” In the same place we find the declaration of the ‘working group’, which states: “The theme set for this exhibition maximally expands the boundaries of exposition, offering artists a thematically wellnigh endless space for ‘discussion’, and the opportunity for themselves to become shapers of the exhibition concept via the whole spectrum of movement, emotion, feelings, sounds, events and frozen images.” Let us leave aside the “spectrum of frozen images” for archaeologists of future centuries, but I will immediately justify myself that I put ‘working group’ in inverted commas not because of any ironic or otherwise suspicious attitude towards the said professional practitioners of contemporary art. And not just because Bourriaud put the term ‘artworks’ in inverted commas. In Bourriaud’s case, the marks are more like the desperate desire of an intellectual who is self-indulgently tangled up in expounding to grasp for a moment something for which a stable identity of any kind is constantly being denied, both by him and his colleagues. | |
 Artist group F5. Riga Portal. Object. 2010 | |
| My wish, by putting the group of exhibition creators in inverted commas, is almost the contrary. If you wish, you may even call it a criticism of institutions. That is, by withdrawing ‘working group’ from the core text I am trying to knock out from beneath its feet the incredibly stable stool of bureaucratic order, well-known since the Soviet times. Surely you must have read: “… the Ministry has formed a working group which has been entasked with assessing the possibility of establishing a working group with responsibility for …”. Well, look here, I refuse to believe that the curatorial idea of the most honourable members of the contemporary art project kim? would operate in the style of total bureaucratic inclusion. In such inclusion it is simply fitting to ‘study’ artists’ creations in the network of multi-centric topology of discursive practice and in the heteronomy of rhizomes and situational deviances. No, I remain hopeful that the unhealthy Latvian ‘Eastern-European, post-totalitarian traumatic’ mindset, as opposed to the hiccups of defunct Western Europe, is still prone to common sense. I want to believe that the bittersweet lethargy from late-period ‘Soviet’ times has left behind (or more precisely, preserved for winter consumption) a morsel of intellectual and mental capacity for at least a couple of generations. Hence the inverted commas. Does the aforementioned bear any relation to the exhibition, or am I just writing for writing’s sake? We shall see. Oh dear, and the quote of Nicolas Bourriaud, the inventor and apologist of Relational Art, chosen as the motto of the exhibition by its curators cannot, in my opinion, be taken seriously at all. Because if we assume that the objects exhibited are ‘artworks’, then whatever they may be doing at the airport, they have no chance of bringing any sense into the chaos of existence. Therefore, either these are not ‘artworks’, or Bourriaud’s statement is in itself meaningless. The latter assumption is more likely to be true. Because it is quite difficult to accept that reality is chaos. For a severely ill schizophrenic, perhaps it is so. But this is also hardly likely: the feelings and actions of a person who (this is just an example) is spied on through his wristwatch by aliens are determined by (dear oh dear!) even far too strict regularity. The same goes for the rest of us. And an airport is the least chaotic place. Yes, while looking on from the side, some romantic in his noble pessimism could say that at an airport people flow past ceaselessly, wander around, drink coffee, munch buns, check the time, occasionally run, lounge around and generally behave like ants or even worms. However, we are not romantics but rather realists, and we are fully aware that there aren’t many man-made systems which are as orderly as an airport: everything here has been calculated, checked hundreds of times, stipulated in numerous circulars and regulations. Yes, it could be said that this crystal-cold orderliness is hostile to the tactical intentions of certain individuals (and also here we cannot manage without romanticism!), intentions such as smoking anywhere, the uninterrupted carrying around of guns and explosives and others. Apart from tactical spontaneity, there is also human strategy, namely, the very simple programme which has been wired in every person along with their living soul: to live their life from birth till their dying day as determined by fate (God), rather than falling victim to technological mishaps or the whims of passers by. Yes, an airport is the kingdom of absolute order in that meaning of ‘absolute’ which unfailingly complies with human understanding of engineering, and those concepts which are considered to be true attempts to study the so-called personality and relationship psychology of individuals and groups. Hence by bringing ‘artworks’ into the airport, the signs of chaos, messages and instructions are in fact being brought into the kingdom of order, so that a person is persistently itching to do something which they are not meant to do. Artists usually plead that they want to provoke society, to awaken thinking, so on and so forth. At the same time, none of these provocateurs, even if they were to be the Chapman brothers themselves or fans of bodily fluids, would want somebody to awaken their thinking by stabbing a knife in their back or letting a whole Boeing go off to the Elysian Fields with its heroic contents. In short, an airport is not the place for contemporary art exhibitions. The curators should have realized this when airport officials asked to review the list of artworks to be displayed, again and again, and declining anything that would breach safety regulations or could be used in an aggressive or threatening manner. Thus, it’s not that the artists were given the chance of creating the ‘concept’ of the exposition, but rather that staff of the airport participated in the creation of the ‘concept’ in the most direct manner. All in all, it should be said out loud that the event can only relatively be described as an exhibition. Firstly because, whatever the ‘concepts’ may be, the exhibition as a collection of artistic (well, whatever) expressions does not form a cohesive whole. What cohesiveness can we talk about if objects are displayed in different zones of accessibility and it is impossible for a person willing to see the exhibition in its entirety to get an overall impression of the event as a whole? It is similarly impossible for inbound, outbound or transit passengers, not even mentioning the idle visitor. I managed to see it all only because a pre-arranged employee of the airport went before me – a sort of Biblical Miriam or Debora with prophetic abilities, thanks to the special pass and permit. | |
 Triin Tamm. Works of art should not... 2010 | |
| Secondly, and more importantly, at airports there are mostly no viewers as such, as a species. You may object that there are, in fact, many people circulating around. But are they interested in looking for and finding pieces of art which sometimes are hard to distinguish from other airport facility objects? The answer is – no, they’re not. Maybe some chance oddball. Perhaps. But for others, most definitely, interest in art or an attraction is completely squeezed out by worries about one’s seat in the airport lounge area or on the flight; often, maybe even always, faced with the relaxedness of seemingly nonchalant global pen-pushers, it is the worry and concern for one’s own life. Of course, this is ‘socialised’, hidden, masked concern, but that’s how it is there. At airports this tension can be felt in the air, in the smells and the noises. But if there is no exhibition, then what do we have? It’s a completely strange situation: artists, with the help of a curator and airport staff, have set up a likelihood of occurrences, free of any common denominator, that cannot be systematised. The likelihood of occurrences – it’s like this: quite by chance, without an exhibition guide or map, you as a passenger, or someone saying goodbye, or someone else, arrive at a place where you may notice (though, equally – not notice) something which, in your opinion, should not be there. Something that stirs your curiosity and makes you go up closer. Then, it could happen that you also notice an annotation, it may happen that you read it and then you realise that it’s some kind of art. In 90 and even more cases out of a hundred, you are a person who doesn’t give a fig about art, let alone contemporary art. You simply shrug your shoulders and pass on. But somebody definitely will take a look. In the departure hall, where people queue for check-in, photographs of Drusti by Kaspars Podnieks have been displayed. Supposedly, passengers who have spotted these photographs are, just like the Riga Airport employees, satisfied with what there is to see. After all, the photos are of nature and any talk of nature, and its fragility, makes the heart of a ‘modern human being’ beat faster in theoretical sympathy. Many probably think to themselves that this is some kind of advertising campaign. Copies of the English-Latvian Phrase Book Laimīgu taciņu (‘Lucky Path’) by Anta Pence and Dita Pence – small, handy brochures – are placed on a shelf as handouts. Possibly this is the only product of the “exhibition” which has enjoyed widespread and diverse interpretations. The reason is simple: people at airports, like everywhere else, avidly grab and take along anything, if it is clear that it’s for free. Of course many, before taking it, will timidly cast a look around to make sure there are no observers to watch them reaching out for the desired object. The little phrase book itself is interesting and witty. The Riga Portal constructed by the group F5 is also witty. In a narrow passageway where transit passengers often rush through, huffing and puffing, they have set up doors with an inviting inscription, but if you open them, in front of you there is just an abandoned chunk of tatty brick-built wall, without any hopeful glimmer of light. It’s a sort of practical joke. I imagined how, hiding around the corner, the pranksters are rolling with laughter while some sweaty family man, who is already panicking about missing the flight and whose children suddenly need to use the toilet, opens the doors and bounces back in an insane rage. Yes, you could say that here the artists really have offered a ‘discussion’ space which the domburi, burkovski, pozneri and sobčakas [Latvian TV presenters] can only dream about. A different approach is Handful of Earth by Līga Marcinkeviča, which like the phrasebook by the Pence sisters is also meant to be taken away. These are bags of earth from Latvia’s regions for people leaving the country and going abroad. Here the artist is addressing people who are still attached to their birthplace, something that modernity is diligently trying to eradicate. Of course, it is also about superstition, about hope that a bag containing the sands of memory will somehow stabilise and normalise a spirit doomed to dwell in a body which has been geographically displaced. Moreover, the departing person may take not just the one, but three handfuls of earth, just in case. This is a very ‘Latvian’ kind of artwork, and it may be impossible to understand by anyone else. Other works also are on display, for example, the installation Here, There, Nowhere by Kaspars Groševs. This is a wooden box attached to the wall, it’s quite likely that the majority of airport visitors will never notice it, because they won’t be able to distinguish it from boxes of technical appliances and equipment. If someone nevertheless were to figure out that this is a work of art, then it transpires that in order to enjoy this ‘audio art’, you need your own headphones. Not everybody carries around such a thing on a daily basis. I, for one, didn’t have any, so I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t hear Black Music Box by Raul Keller either, because on that day it wasn’t working. I guess something had broken. Otherwise, not bad at all – a proper little black box with a handle. What else? Jānis Filipovičs had put on display a small painting, which on closer inspection turned out to be made out of steel springs, looking like a handsaw with a ‘classic’ silhouette of Riga instead of saw teeth. The other painting by the same author has actually been painted. It depicts an ‘aeroplane’ with both ends the same, with a cockpit at either end, but without wings. Those familiar with Dr Dolittle will recall the Pushmipullyu. A video clip by Katrīna Neiburga, On the Way, is to be watched on a TV set surrounded by fire-extinguishing appliance cupboards and other technical bits and pieces. Possibly there are people who love watching television wherever they are, even at airports. At Cairo Airport, for example, at night you can watch how a mullah explains the Koran in Arabic – for hours. It had been intended that the object Air Pocket by Kristīne Plūksna would be hung from the ceiling to scare people passing by, but this had not been allowed. So the formation, similar to a midget flying saucer, stands obliquely resting in a corner. I also saw By Oneself, which was called a mechanical object and made by Dace Džeriņa. There’s a drawing of a rocking chair, which really depicts the swinging of a rocking chair. Žilvinas Landzbergas has made a multitude of wooden windmills that really spin in the wind. With the aid of animation and a kind of automatic writer, Field Research by Maija Kurševa tells us something about gardening, possibly influenced by the game ‘Farm’, popular among office workers. The Self Portrait by Evelīna Deičmane seemed to me like some kind of anachronistic monologue of surrealism, somewhat alien to Latvians. What else? There was something else, but you can’t remember everything. I try to imagine which of the things I would remember, and for what reason, if I hadn’t gone there for a special purpose and under special guidance, and if I hadn’t been previously warned that I would have to view an exhibition. Really, what would I remember? An empty Fanta bottle, which I almost tripped over? A sudden poke of an elbow in the ribs from a hurrying passerby? Of course, I would like to be saying – I remember that wonderful exhibition. But I won’t. It may be that modern artists and curators have an irrepressible urge to be socially active and to form relationships with the social mass based on dialogue and politics. But I must agree with Russian critic Grigory Revzin, who admits that such relationships cannot even be established, because this kind of art expresses the feelings and intentions of a small group, a coterie that keeps tabs on who came to the opening of the previous exhibition and attempts to figure out who will be coming to the next opening. I haven’t been attending openings for a long time. Perhaps because I don’t drink lukewarm white wine any more. /Translator into English: Filips Birzulis/ | |
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