|
|
| The Fragility of the Sense of Time. Vineta Kaulača Inese Baranovska Born in Riga, 1971. 1982-1989 Janis Rozentāls Riga Secondary School of Art. 1990-1994 Latvian Academy of Art, BA in art. 1995-1996 Humboldt State University, California (USA), Department of Photography and Painting. 1994-1997 Masterclass of Indulis Zariņš and Aleksejs Naumovs at the Latvian Academy of Art. 1999-2000 Visual Communications Department of the HdK in Berlin, Germany. 2002 MA at the Latvian Academy of Art. 2003 Began a doctorate at the Department of Visual Communications, Winchester School of Art, Southampton University, United Kingdom. Work exhibited since 1990. Has held 16 solo exhibitions in Latvia, the USA, Germany, Finland, the United Kingdom, Ireland and France. Has participated in major international artists' workshops and symposia, for example at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (2003), the 10th Braziers International Artists Workshop in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom (2004), the Portsmouth Art Workshop, United Kingdom, (2004), a workshop of the Triangles Arts Trust Association in New York, USA (2004) and a Raid Projects international artists' residency in Los Angeles, USA (2005). In October 2005, held a solo exhibition "Distance" at the Gallery of the Artists' Union of Latvia. | |
|
I pose questions, and Vineta Kaulača tells me about herself. The words arrange themselves together in a harmonious row, clear and precise as a string of glass beads. It seems we've both entered a space for discussion and are seeking the right door to that slice of time specially dedicated to our mutual understanding.
Inese Baranovska: In my view, you're a very harmonious person, something that also comes across in your art... Vineta Kaulača: To some extent, yes. But nobody can cut themselves off from the world outside, which has both positive and negative emotions. But, if you come up against a brick wall, then don't go through it... I always strive to bring the emotional pendulum back into balance. In my view, it's important for everyone to maintain this, or, putting it another way, to know how not to leave one's own orbiting speed. I.B.: How did you come to understand that you had to paint, to become an artist? V.K.: In my childhood, when I was four or five, I liked sneaking into my father's study, which had a large bookshelf. I always went for the art books, and already at that time I understood intuitively that this in particular was what interested me: the right visual connection occurred. I'm grateful to my parents for not trying to turn me away from my choice and allowing me to attend the Rozentāls School and then to study at the academy. My childhood experiences took place in the Soviet period, when all our understanding of artistic values came from books, and often from black and white reproductions. It's a good thing that young people nowadays do have the chance to travel and become acquainted much earlier on with the original works. These authentic artistic values became accessible to me only later, when they were already familiar acquaintances, but no longer immediate partners in conversation. After all, youthful impulses are the strongest ones. I had the opportunity to study for a year (1995-1996) at the Humboldt State University in California (USA), in the Department of Photography and Painting. This had a significant impact on one period of my artistic development: I received that which I'd lacked so sorely at our Academy of Art. In Europe or the USA, the dominant system of thinking in art education is completely different from what we have at the Latvian Academy of Art. At the Humboldt University, I learned what you might call a different system of breathing. This opened the way for me to comprehend abstract art and appreciate photography. Initially, I subjected myself to very merciless self-judgment; I had a fairly long period of doubt. But then, at some point, things sorted themselves out of their own accord. In order to reach an objective self-assessment, one has to try to place oneself in the context of the whole world of art. When I went to Ireland (2002/2003, artists work programme at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin), I came to understand that I sometimes may have been criticising myself too harshly. At that time, something changed markedly in me, certain bridges with the past were burned. It was very important for me to be among professionals. There was real, serious discussion of art, without which artists have a very hard time, but for which there is virtually no opportunity in Latvia. The Western system of art education trains young artists to formulate that which is going on in their heads, to express their creative process verbally. In Dublin, one workshop involved artists with an international name, together with young artists who were still unknown, and there was also communication with a clever, demanding audience. It was a very fertile environment for the development of thinking and art. I've always wanted to converse on a subject important to me, which helps the process to develop. In Riga, I very rarely have this chance, but in Dublin, London or New York this is an important part of the creative process. I.B.: What's the difference between being an artist in Riga and in New York? V.K.: There's no denying that in a metropolis of art such as New York, the intensity of work and thinking increases, which it has to, if you're to stay on a par with the rest. If you stop, you'll simply get left out. All the artists are working on at least ten or so projects simultaneously. But you have to be careful of quantity: you need some internal filters of your own. It's important to be able to select the right works and justify every successive step in your creative work. Otherwise, you can quickly tear yourself apart. Then there's the feeling of being in a novel setting. There are places that accept you, and places that don't. I feel good in New York and Dublin, while London is somewhat reserved, and Berlin, for some reason, did not accept me. Perhaps I was simply too young. Generally, I find it easier to adapt to foreign locations than to return to Riga. I.B.: You're at home among strangers, but a stranger among your own? V.K.: Yes, sometimes I do get that feeling... I.B.: Painting and photography - I'd describe you as a professional in both media. V.K.: Each of these media is capable of giving something different - regarding the sense of time in particular. For some time, my painting and photography were two parallel lines of development, which never actually touched. The story of my photography began during my studies in the USA. The place presented me, a young, inexperienced student from a post-Soviet country, with such a great quantity of visual impressions that I could deal with all of it only by studying the possibilities of photography as a medium. Photography fascinated me at this time, and so after the masterclass of Indulis Zariņš and Aleksejs Naumovs, I chose to spend another year studying photography at the Visual Communications Department of the HdK in Berlin. I'm interested in reaching to the heart of things: what is photography and painting after all, what they have in common and what sets them apart. In my view, the difference lies in the way they record time. Photography represents a slice of time detached from the flow of life and recorded. Painting, by contrast, is not a quote from time, but instead is a sense of time recorded through the means offered by painting. Working intensively in both media, at some point the emotional stress became too much. Now, these two parallel directions have come together in my consciousness, forming a new intermediate space - a positive kind of sense of balance. At present, painting dominates in my creative activity, but I could only have arrived at the kind of painting I do today via this intermediate space. My master's paper is on the subject of the relationship between painting and photography. I also enrolled in a doctorate on this subject at Winchester School of Art of Southampton University. However, now I've discontinued my studies, because I can't support them financially. But I'm still working on this theme, and I'm convinced that when the time comes for it to happen, then the funding will appear - the expense of such study programmes is quite impressive. I.B.: But what is your relationship to painting just at the moment? V.K.: A painting develops slowly; it can't be rushed, it can't be made faster than is actually possible. Over the course of time, it accumulates all the moments when you've touched it. Painting in the studio gives a different sense of time, a different rhythm. A painting dictates its own system of recording time. Painting is a medium that draws you in, so that you seemingly end up in a different world, where unexpected things can always happen. Other media, such as literature, film... Each time you look at works by those artists you relate to, new facets are revealed, but the core of painting is so strong and changeless, right from the first encounter. And then, paintings age more slowly than people. Consider how many new generations continue to admire the paintings of Vermeer. I.B.: Who are your favourites in film, literature and video art? V.K.: The story of my love of film began back in the Rozentāls School, and still continues. My favourites are Michelangelo Antonioni, Peter Greenaway, the Kaurismäki brothers, and Ingmar Bergman in particular. I always remember his words that reality is the fragile basis on which we build our dream castles. In film, I'm fascinated by the long duration of the action, which is entirely different from what it is in painting. Books can always be re-read, discovering something new every time, something that fires your imagination, for example in the works of Joseph Brodsky. Video, like film, is yet another different system of recording time. Here, the main thing is not a quote from time, but instead a sense of time. I've been very much influenced by the videos of Bill Viola. For me, in the end, visual information is more important than text. But, essentially, whatever medium we work in, we're always reading ourselves. For everyone, it's a story about the self. I.B.: Your new paintings exhibited at the gallery have two contrasting formats - large and very small. Is this choice, too, in accord with your wish to be in balance? V.K.: The majority of visual memories of people today are accumulated in standard 10x15 cm photographs. This idea inspired me to create paintings in this format. One experiment of this kind grew into a whole series of works. It should be said that the right size is an important precondition for each painting, helping to concentrate its message precisely. In order to say something that's important to you, it's not always necessary to create large works, either in painting or in photography. I.B.: In our discussion, you're always coming back to the question of time... V.K.: 20th and 21st century art is based on the experience of the screen and the photograph. These are the most powerfully developed signs of our time. The 21st century's relationship with time is more than complicated: it's much more intensive, since the forms of recording time have diversified and multiplied. However paradoxical this may be, this acceleration of time has opened up a space for various media that require an extended period of time, such as painting. This has begun to be appreciated. Each medium carries within itself something different in terms of the sense of time. They're not competing with one another. Time has permitted every form of art to develop in its own rhythm and find its own place. I.B.: Do you have a sense of mission about what you do? V.K.: Why do I paint? Certainly, it's visual information encoded in me and striving to break out. In other words - visual impulses resonating with me in particular. I my view, people choose to create art when they simply cannot do otherwise, when there's a sense of urgency in this regard. I began my creative activities at a very unstable time for our country: there were drastic political changes, the collapse of the old world and the emergence of a new system. Professional criteria in the realms of art and culture were not on the list of values in demand. This new age is tended not towards processes of profound enquiry, but rather towards quick and effective results. In this context, the creation of traditional works of art, especially paintings, may seem almost pointless, but they do come about all the same. You know, I was captivated by an interview with Robert Thurman in the September issue of Rīgas Laiks, where there was discussion of the Law of Conservation of Energy: that energy does not disappear, being transformed instead. This is a kind of justification for creative work. The question is, what'll come next: anyone who wishes to remain completely honest to themselves has to admit that they don't really know what's to come. I.B.: What's the most important thing for your creative process? The creative process itself is spontaneous for me. In a sense, it's like a game, whose continuation or outcome I cannot foresee. But the idea comes first, before I become engrossed in the work. I'm interested in the possibility of visualising that which seemingly cannot be depicted at all, such as time. Time cannot be seen, it can only really be sensed. Film and photography have this sense of time, but in painting it's not so definite. To personify the sense of time in painting as well - this seems very important to me at present. I'm interested in the relationship with the flow of time, this movement that cannot be felt in isolation from the place, thinking at the same time about the differences and similarities in different cultural experiences and regarding travel as one of the ways to broaden this experience. Under certain conditions, movement in space becomes movement in time. Each particular geographical location has a different sense of time. I wish to create an ephemeral, transient projection of a moment. For example, the shifting glitter of city lights, when daylight is succeeded by evening. I like this moment when light is at the boundary and is about to change into darkness. I could feel this change of time very acutely during a "Raid Projects" international artists' residency in Los Angeles. There, the most popular unit of distance is not the mile, but rather the time it takes to get from one point to another. Time in the city of Los Angeles is synchronised and subordinated to the rush of cars on its multi-lane highways, and a step is not a unit of measurement in a city where the streets are fifty or more kilometres long, although personal time here seems to flow more freely, possibly even more slowly than in New York. On the other hand, I doubt whether one could sense the rhythm of Riga, or Dublin, for example, without reference to a pace. I.B.: Have you had, at least for a moment, a sense that a painting is complete, that you're content with it - a general feeling of satisfaction? V.K.: It's hard to formulate what it means to finish a painting. When you've been working for a long time, it seems at some point that the painting is looking at you, rather than you looking at it (In our conversation, Vineta uses the personal pronoun, since it seems that her relationships with paintings are not at the level of objects, but in a rather different category). This is by no means the end: the painting seems to be pursuing you, not permitting you to look away, although in formal terms the work is finished. And then comes the moment when resistance disappears, when the painting lets you go free... Not always is the formula for creating a work so straightforward: in other cases it's more of a struggle, where the painting seems to be challenging you all the time. What is a painting anyway? In physical terms, it's an area of canvas covered in paint on a rectangular wooden frame. A painting obtains its immense energy through the long hours that an artist spends in front of the canvas. Each painting concentrates the work invested in it, the ideas, the time... I.B.: A kind of concentrated version of time? V.K.: Yes, exactly. I've always been interested in the transient and the intransient, the past and present aspects of movement. I wish to record this fragile intermediate state. I'm fascinated at how masterfully Bruno Vasiļevskis has been able to identify this movement of light in his works. A kind of fine vibration of light and nothing more. I.B.: Is appreciation of your work and recognition important to you? V.K.: Yes, but not overly so. Anyone has a hard time if they don't get any recognition or encouragement. It can quickly make you emotionally cold. Rapid success seems suspicious to me. In this regard, I'm old fashioned. My view is that one can only reach success through work, hard work... At the end, which is actually no end at all, I'd like to quote a quatrain by an unknown Russian author, taken from the volume of poetry Prāts ("Mind") by Vineta Kaulača's like-minded contemporary, Agita Draguna (Daugava, 2004), which shares Vineta's basic idea: all that's been washed away the waters will give back, since all that once was, was imperishable | |
| go back | |
