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| A Little Materiality and a Good Deal More Light, or Art as a Gesture. Jānis Avotiņš Laima Slava Jānis Avotiņš is a young artist whose work I've been following for some time, noting in particular his seriousness in setting out his aims in painting, waiting with interest for his individual style to stabilise, and wishing to see how far and how deep he would go. Since it is clear that this painter combines a material sense of painting with a quest for the supreme truths in art. This, of course, is no guarantee, and only time will tell what values emerge along the way. Most importantly, we have here someone who gives us expectations. Jānis Avotiņš' name was heard last winter, at the time of his solo exhibition. At that time, the question arose as to gallery curators who might be able to open the way for the artist outside of Latvia. And this summer, works by Jānis Avotiņš have set out on a marathon showing at galleries in Munich, Cologne and London, and at the Prague Biennial. His works have already been bought by such people as Hamburger Bahnhof collector Heiner Bastian, "White Cube" owner Jay Jopling, Hauser & Wirth, the Cranford Collection in London, and now also by the private Rubell family museum in Miami, Florida, which already has works by Marlene Dumas, and the works of Jānis Avotiņš will be shown there once again in the frame of the ArtBasel Miami Beach event. |
| Being Mārtiņš Grauds Alise Tīfentāle To engage with yourself and have a good time, whatever you're doing - this could be one of the definitions of happiness appropriate to Mārtiņš Grauds. All the best stories concern one and the same thing: the search for happiness and harmony, no matter how banal these words might sound. Mārtiņš Grauds gives the impression of having gotten quite far in this quest - he speaks in full sentences, doesn't forget were he began, doesn't mix conversation topics and expresses himself in lucid and pleasant Latvian, throwing in some trendy slang from time to time. He is wont to retell his private adventures in the second person, evidently so that I and other listeners might understand better. And it seems to work. Grauds is involved in photography, directs commercials and music videos, DJs for radio NABA, is bringing up a son, meets with his friends and does a great many other things that give him pleasure, and is very willing to talk about it all. Mārtiņš Grauds has photographed in Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, India, Nepal, China and a great many other places, is currently preparing to go to Georgia and wants to visit Cuba before Fidel Castro dies and capitalism sets in along with a flourishing tourist industry. The album Lükoties will present his photographs from South Asia. Grauds may be regarded as a respectable artist since 2002, when his photo series Nature Morte was shown in the frame of "Social Exhibitionism". Shown on TV have been music videos directed by Grauds, for the group Brainstorm, The Satellites, The Movies, etc. Grauds' unhurried stories about his travels, his photographs and his music videos always contain something discrete: breathtaking effects, shocking moments or paradoxes should not be sought here. Every city in every age needs its own Marco Polo, who travels to distant countries and then, in the words of the author himself, retells his experiences "patiently and gratefully". Without shooting, chases or other serious, consciously provoked threats to one's life. A kind of relaxed Indiana Jones on vacation. One mustn't expect to see in his photographs that which isn't there: Grauds is an observer, and a very calm one at that, an observer with a sense of composition of the kind that's known among photographers as classic. Grauds is not one of those ready to leap under a train, incite a fight or willingly climb into a nest of poisonous, aggressive insects for the sake of getting an incredible picture. On the other hand, his photographic vision is sensitive: he notices nuances that many of us would not regard as worth discussing, retelling and recording. Thus, a case where Grauds chanced to drive the wrong way in a one-way street in central Riga has been turned into a significant feature of his personal mythology. His stories deal with the people met on his travels, with visas he could not get and with private revelations. With the great changes and discoveries that emerge from trifles and anecdotal events. Not for nothing is there a reference in the title to Spike Jonze's film "Being John Malkovich": this is a small trip into the consciousness of the travelling Mārtiņš Grauds and an account of what I saw there, presenting for your attention a whole album of verbal snapshots. |
