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| Constructing Postmodernism in the post-Soviet space Laine Kristberga, Screen Media and Art Historian The international contemporary art exhibition Ingredients 27.04.2013.–02.06.2013. Riga Art Space | |
| The impressive contemporary art exhibition Ingredients organised at the Riga Art Space provided Latvian audiences with an ex cellent opportunity to see the works of art of internationally acclaimed artists alongside local authors, to submerge oneself in critical analysis of film and video works or in deep selfreflexion, to enjoy the exhibition as an architectonically structured space and to indulge oneself in a world full of surprises that in this labyrinth so reminiscent of Borges waited behind nearly every corner as the viewers were coming across the visually, intellectually and semiotically stimulating works of artists representing diverse dis ciplines and conceptions. According to curator Inga Šteimane, the title chosen for the ex hibition makes one think about components on various levels. Firstly, each artist is an element of the exhibition. Secondly, contemporary art also consists of several components, the mutual overlapping and blending of various definitions of genres and implementation: sculpture, painting, film, theatre, etc. And thirdly, the exhibition was arranged following the guidelines of Postmodernism, thus Postmodernism with its characteristic scepticism, irony, deconstruction, referencing, fragmentarism, eclecticism and destruction of the traditional art hierarchies must be treated as a movement with coexisting diverse features. Of course, already around 2006 the question about the death of Postmodernism was actualised. A number of theoreticians wrote about the end of an era and proposed new terms and definitions for describing culture and society (hypermodernity, the altermodern, digimodernism, etc.), yet so far none of these theories has taken root. The exhibition dedicated to Postmodernism at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Postmodernism – Style and Subver sion 1970–19901 also indicated to a certain period with a beginning and an end. Therefore Postmodernism as a conception most likely seems a bit tired, and does not sound like music anymore to many of us. Tiredness at this exhibition, though, was not evident, on the contrary – the mutually enriching and at the same time very con- tradictory works encouraged and even provoked viewers to engage, discuss, criticise and analyse, and thus to become an active ingredient of the exhibition. Šteimane, too, noted that irrespective of the attempts to formulate the new epoch with “postpost”, “neo”, “meta”, or other prefixes forming neologisms, Postmodernism as a conceptual and philosophical space is not dead, and so also in the exhibition it continued to function. Several works of art in the exhibition territorially referred to the postSoviet space. For instance, Jeremy Deller, who represented the British pavilion at the Venice Biennale this year, took part in the Ingredients exhibition with a social documentary work Our Hobby is Depeche Mode. This is a film made in 2006, employing underground aesthetics, about the fandom of Depeche Mode in the entire world, and especially in Russia. Deller draws a comparison between the popularity of this band in Eastern Europe in the 1980s and The Beatles in the Great Britain in the 1960s, both reaching the same level of impact. Besides, the artist admits that to him the homemade, community and grassroots culture has always seemed more interesting than the corporate version of a band.2 It is interesting that the Riga Art Space also took note of the feedback, inviting Latvian fans of Depeche Mode to watch the film and afterwards sending video greetings to Deller, making the artist quite happy. | |
 Ari Saarto. The Pain. Video installation. 2011 Publicity photos Courtesy of the Riga Art Space | |
| In academically more serious manner the postSoviet space was viewed by the Italian group of architects Ogino:Knauss in their work Дом нового быта (‘House for the New Way of Life’), which is an analytical documentary film made in 2013 about the architecture of Moscow, or to be more accurate – about the crisis of modernist ideology. Reality in the film is represented both with the help of interviews and by a reconstruction of the past, using factological materials such as photographs and other sources of evidence. The collapse of the utopian ideas of the Constructivists is illustrated with clips from various Russian feature films, for example, Dziga Vertov’s avantgarde classic ‘Man With a Movie Camera’ (1929). In the exhib ition the work of Ogino:Knauss conceptually resonated with the minimalistic acrylic paintings of the Czech artist Michal Škoda, which had been produced in situ at the premises of the exhibition, taking into account the existing dimensions and proportions. In Škoda’s works, too, studies of modernist principles are evident, re- ducing landscape to pure geometrical form and line in the manner of Mondrian. Architecture in the exhibition was not only a theoretical discipline but also a materially tangible strategy, as implemented by Ger- man artist Christian Helwing, who was also the stage designer and participant of Ingredients. Usually Helwing works with architectonic and sculptural forms which as if chime with the traditions of Mini- malism, yet at the same time depict architecture as a component of human life. His sculptural formations organise and structure space, making the viewers move in a certain way, thus assigning a func- tion to the sculptural objects. In doing so, he liberates them from the dogma of Minimalism: “art for art’s sake”. On view at the exhibition was the expressly made installation Heaven & Hell, as well as two works made in 2004, in a medium untraditional for Helwing – two photographs entitled Jeff and John. Photography as a mode of expression was also employed by German artist Christiane Fichtner in her work – compilation Bio graphy 01–23, which has been in the process of being made since 2004. Viewers at the exhibition also had an opportunity to get acquainted with this collectively made book, and to observe the changes of identity performed by Fichtner in a manner reminiscent of Cindy Sherman. This work most definitely can be characterised as postmodern, because constructed and unstable identity is one of the most often discussed subjects in Postmodernism. The Finnish artist Ari Saarto, too, participated as a photographer at the exhibi- tion, however, his contribution was not in the discipline of photog- raphy, but rather in the form of structurally cinematographic video installations entitled Pain (2009–2012). Saarto had taken 10second video portraits, filming women who were suffering from postnatal depression, and then had arranged these portraits one over another, in several layers. For instance, one of the portraits consists of 49 such layers, and thus, although a moving image is the basis of the work, it very much resonates with the glazing technique in painting. | |
 Tinka Pittoors. Pixelrot. Installation. 2013 Publicity photos Courtesy of the Riga Art Space | |
| Video artists working in the aesthetic tradition, for example Pipilotti Rist, often admit that creating video art is like “painting with light”. This principle had been followed by the famous Pol- ish artist Wilhelm Sasnal in his works Touch Me (2002) and Ziggy (2003). Although Sasnal has achieved a global recognition as a painter, he has always been interested in moving image media. This is demonstrated by his video works and several recently produced and directed film projects. The exhibited video works initially were shot on Super 8 mm film and then digitalised, that is why the works have become painterly not only due to the chosen composition and thematic solution, but also due to the creaking, nearly tangible film aesthetics. A work in the form of video was also presented by Ice- landic artist Ragnar Kjartansson, where the painterly quality was expressed not so much in the aesthetic execution but rather in the simplification of form, making viewers regard this video work as a static picture. In terms of the contents, the video Colonisation made in 2003 could also seem modest, nuancewise, because the 13 minutes long work depicts a Danish coloniser physically humiliating an Icelandic peasant. Yet, being didactic was the intention of the artist, stating that colonisation is as brutal and literal as shown in this simplified scheme. Transformations of painting could be observed also in three in- stallations of the exhibition. One of them has already been offered for the attention of Latvian viewers on several occasions, this is the installation by Laura Prikule and Eva Vēvere Poetic Robotism: Time Planner 4.0 (circular). On this occasion, too, the installation envisaged active involvement of viewers, letting them freely construct various forms and configurations using coloured wooden cubes. Thus the artists offered nuances of colour, but at the same time did not attempt to place them into strict frameworks. In a similar fashion the Belgian artist Tinka Pittoors played with colour, “imprisoning” paint in closed containers and arranging them in the instal- lation Pixelrot, made on location at the exhibition. Pittoors’s works usually surprise with their colourfulness, and this instance was no exception. The objects used in the installation were in intensely bright colours, which were made even more vivid with the powerful light of a spotlight, thus attesting to the artificiality of the situation. At the same time, the artist also used a “living” green plant, in this case a palm tree, in order to create a contrast between nature and culture. Whereas Inga Ģibiete’s installation Set, composed of found and collected objects, was an example of efforts at systematisation, arranging the found objects according to their shape, colour, origin, similarities, volume and other parameters. This work, too, can be regarded as a comment on the culture crated by humans, or rather, the leftovers of this culture, creating a minimalistic installation in terms of the form. Much more political in his comments on the leftovers of hu- mancreated culture was another Belgian artist, Maarten Vanden Eynde. In his 2010 work 1000 Miles Away From Home the artist exhibited five snow globes, with tiny bits of plastic floating in distilled water. These particles had been fished out of garbage drifts in five great oceanic streams. Vanden Eynde came to know about this “floating landfill”, the size of a continent, swirling in the ocean in 2008, and already in 2009 he went on an expedition together with marine researchers to explore this incredible phenomenon. 396 kilograms of plastic debris were collected and delivered to Vanden Eynde’s studio, where he melted them to form a peculiar sculpture of plastic coral reef.3 The work exhibited in Ingredients was from the same series of ecological political problems, only ironically dis- guised as a classic tourist souvenir. Another work of Vanden Eynde was Europe 2006–2014, where the artist had examined the basic ideological policies of the European Union. The work consists of five EU flags, but what attracts the viewers’ attention is that the circle of stars symbolising the capitals of the member states has become completely disorderly. The num- ber of stars increases and at the same time their size decreases, until the last flag has only the blue fabric left – no more stars, no more capitals, no more borders can be seen. “What is left is an open sky, the flag of our blue marble, planet Earth”.4 Thematically this work resonated with Kjartansson’s video on colonisation, because in both cases the issue of border expansion has been examined. The viewers could make their own decision whether such geographical expansion takes place in the name of utopia or dystopia. An analytically critical approach was also demonstrated by the Belgian artist duo Katleen Vermeir and Ronny Heiremans in their 2012 video installation The Residence (A Wager for the Afterlife). At the centre of the work is the artist as an entrepreneur in a global society that considers economy as the single measure of things. In the video installation there are references to Goethe’s ‘Faust’, especially to the second part where Goethe presents Faust as a project developer. The Residence was made in cooperation with Chinese artist and architect Ma Wen, who plays the leading role in the film. As the plot unfolds, the viewer finds out that Ma Wen has been given the task by a wealthy investor of designing him “a house for the afterlife”. This work, too, criticizes the constant movement of capital- ism towards acquiring new territories, ironically commenting on the phenomenon of gentrification – transforming underdeveloped urban territories into exclusive areas. After this postmodern labyrinth of ironic comments, references and critical analysis, an almost reverential peace exuded from the two paintings recently done by Kaspars Zariņš: Interpretation 1 (2013) and Interpretation 2 (2013) in which Postmodernism is ma nifested as the emptiness of storyline. The blue ghostly dogs who are going somewhere under the nightdark sky and lonely moon are like signs that have been arranged in a nonplot sequence, and the proportionally huge nightlamp shedding light on them is another antinarrative element. A story without the progression of consequences and causes, and the lack of consistency in time and space, is a rather classic principle of Postmodernism, and perhaps this suffering about impossibility justifiably included Zariņš’ paintings in the general conception of the exhibition. The principle of reduction was also evident in the conceptual work by Krišs Salmanis, who is representing Latvia at the Venice Biennale this year. His virtuosic work One Day (2010) consisted of yellow postit notes with various instructions, for example, “using ketchup, stick a tiny piece of spaghetti to your cheek, leave it till the evening” or “call every number printed in the morning paper; whisper”. These instructions, written in beautiful handwriting, suggesting to viewers how to spend one day in their lives could be read on 17 postit notes which were stuck here and there on the walls of the exhibition space. Before the exhibition, Salmanis had said that he would not bring to the exhibition anything heavier than 8 kg, and this playfulness was also manifested in the different mode of showing the work. With it, the artist encouraged viewers to get out of their routine and to look at life from another, more unusual perspective. The exhibition Ingredients, both in terms of the volume and the chosen subject, made one feel the breath of a metropolis. Cura- tor Inga Šteimane’s efforts to develop such an impressive project, inviting so many international artists, can only be congratulated. Besides, many works were unique, because they were made for the exhibition in situ, taking into account the specifics of the space. In this regard, Riga Art Space is a very successful location, because it allows to exhibit contemporary art in an open and uncluttered space, at the same time toying with the idea of the underground – after all, the viewer must descend down to the underworld in order to get into the exhibition space! A positive is that all participants of the exhibition were treated equally and the works of Latvian artists were exhibited alongside globally acclaimed superstars such as Wilhelm Sasnal or Jeremy Deller. As regards the conception, Postmodernism seemed an appropriate thematic common denominator which permitted showing works of seemingly unrelated styles, tendencies and aesthetic pluralism, at the same time pointing to the main difference between Modernism and Postmodernism. Modernism scorned mass culture and “low” art, emphasising the purity of form and idea, whereas Postmodernism allows the coexistence of several styles and enthusiastically celebrates contradictions, superficiality, the merging of “high” and “low” art, and refuses to be respectful towards any established aesthetic conventions, no matter what they are. Hopefully Riga Art Space will delight us with exhibitions as thoughtful as this also in the future. Translator into English: Laine Kristberga 1 The exhibition was on show from 24 September 2011 till 15 January 2012. 2 Young, Rob. Strings of Life. In: Joy in People: Jeremy Deller. [London]: Hayward Publishing, 2012, p. 139. 3 Plastic Reef (2008–2012) is a travelling sculpture whose size is constantly increasing every time it is exhibited. During the periods when the sculpture is not travelling, it can be seen at the Verbeke Foundation in Kemzek, Belgium. The monumentality of work also underlines the increasing ecological problem. 4 www.maartenvandeneynde.com/?rd_project=352&lang=en (accessed on 20.06.2013) | |
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