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| MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ON THE MONITOR OR A STORY ABOUT THE ABSENCE OF ANY STORY, SINCE THE STORY IS MEANINGLES Alise Tīfentāle There seems to be no misconception in viewing Jukas as a showing of works by Ojārs Pētersons' students, so I begin my acquaintance with Jukas with the teacher, looking at Pētersons' solo exhibition "The Orange Hole" at the Arsenāls Creative Studio, held simultaneously with Jukas. The teacher's installation is a temple - a video to be viewed in peace and tranquillity, showing the artist carefully and unhurriedly creating some object, the object itself being displayed on the opposite wall. The orange light box with a self-portrait of Pētersons as an icon exudes serenity, conviction and peaceful self-satisfaction. In this simple and light work (an ouroboros, or serpent devouring its own tail), the work itself is contrasted with, or, quite the contrary, paired with, a documentation of the working process. Without artificial tension, dramatisation or intellectual weight. What you see is what you get. The only possible charge we can make against perfection is that it's too boring. But that in itself is no serious charge, since we can clearly see a difference between a mature individual who needs to prove nothing to anyone any more, and some quite active and ambitious young people wishing to draw attention to themselves at any price. Unfortunately, no further conclusions may be derived from this comparison, at least not in the context of Jukas. | |
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Far from true turmoil
The title Jukas - (‘turmoil' in English) - suggests that the aim was to agitate the viewer, to create incomprehension and awaken emotion. Possibly, the title is more apt as a description of the processes occurring in the young artists' heads. Thus, first of all, a few words about certain works whose presence in this exhibition did give rise to incomprehension and real confusion. Thus, Auce Biele, a very charming young artist, whom I've noticed as a painter with a tendency to work in the field begun by Kristiāna Dimitere, exhibited some of her works here. Their subdued language was stifled among the noisy and colourful video installations: the loud multimedia jamboree of Jukas was certainly not the most favourable background for exhibiting Auce's intimate paintings. Likewise, Ilze Strazdiņa's "Letter" is a text that should have appeared in a catalogue, if anywhere at all. The photography of Aigars Liepiņš, too, a collection of fairly small, classic black and white photos, literally disappeared in this exhibition. The artists themselves know best, but many would in their place have declined to participate in an exhibition that is, in terms of genre and content, such an aggressive and thankless partner for their works. How to distinguish "a wholesome activity" from "a waste of time" Katrīna Neiburga's "Spam Song" is a wide-ranging, very contemporary work, but one created with that indeterminate sense of carelessness often seen in contemporary art: that there's no need to put much effort into production, that it's enough, instead, to be able to tell your friends something and sketch out your idea more or less. When you're talking to friends, you don't have to go into detail, since they'll get your drift anyway. But, an ordinary art exhibition viewer will see straight away that the work is intended for nothing more than a good laugh among friends. The idea is a good one: to create a megahit for the art exhibition and film a video clip for it. But, in terms of format video has to be something more than just a rough sketch, quickly thrown together. The idea behind the video, too, is a good one: a group of people travelling around the city, all with the same face - the face of the artist. The masks used in the film have been placed on the wall not far from the screen showing the finished "Spam Song" clip and the computer (evidently intended to enable everyone to print out a sample from the spam archive to take with them). However, the main impression that you get from looking at this work, one based on such a good idea, is, unfortunately, one of carelessness and sloppiness. Likewise at odds with the overall mood of Jukas seemed Ieva Jerohina's work "Moments of Happiness". Ieva is well known as an art photographer, but in Jukas she has striven to create "something more" than photography. Her work was a slideshow: while regarding a person's portrait, you hear a recording of the interview on a headset. The portraited individual tells of their moments of happiness. The idea is universal, global and breathtakingly moving, but its realisation was a disappointment. The motionless photos seem actually to reduce the possible effect of the documentary, intimate revelation: the portraits appear superfluous, since the real, living story about important things is the main thing attracting attention here. Hopefully "Moments of Happiness" is only the presentation of an idea, since, as shown here, it is certainly not Ieva's best work: a powerful documentary message is devalued by combining it with an empty, mute form of expression through the medium of the static portrait. On the other hand, there are examples where intentionally amateurish and cheap implementation only adds to the effect of the idea, rather than spoiling it. Such, in my view, is the case of Linards Kulless. With hiswork "Bless This House", he has continued with admirable dedication the theme he began a couple of years ago, about ethnic motifs in cosmopolitan form. This clip in home video style shows us a modern youth dancing to music, with a background film showinga route he travelled by bicycle through the streets of Riga. The "key" to the work is in the fact that the route he traces on his bike resembles a protective Auseklis (Morning Star) sign over Riga. Acting in exactly the opposite way in terms of visual media is Miks Mitrēvics' "7 Scenes" - photographs of staged events exhibited in light boxes. Thought out carefully and even pedantically to the last detail, perfectly worked, arranged and lit. Scenography, or still life, if you please. The greatest value of this work may be sought precisely in the carefully-worked detail: there's nothing fortuitous, inept, careless or reckless. On the other hand, neither is there any readily comprehensible, topical anecdote, no light, witty idea. It's all beautiful, spatial and somewhat mystical, like the work of the superstar Jeff Wall. And that's all there is to it. Similar is the case of Kristīne Kursiša's "Last Judgement". A baroque video replete with imagery and over-saturated with symbolism, dealing with the proximity of death: a snake crawling over a skull, a woman seeing death in the mirror and the monitor itself placed in an ornate frame decorated with woodcarvings. It's all been carefully and beautifully filmed - unhurriedly, savouring every detail and every second. It seems, we are to understand that the woman in the film "is about to die"‑- which suddenly turns this very serious venture into a childish caprice. It makes you want to ask: So what? I, too, am mortal. Whether I'm to die soon or not, that's beside the point. It's a secret that cannot be revealed, at least not by gazing at a skull and a cup of wine. The triumph of joie de vivre over those tired of life Another line in the plot of Jukas involves absolutely unpretentious, witty and enjoyable approaches deriving from the imaginings, speech and everyday affairs of the artists and their friends. Thus, for example, we have, in Mārtiņš Dūmiņš' work "Big Bad Buc", an intriguing little story projected on a stand: a youth (wearing a hard hat) desperately strives to jump into a beautiful landscape depicted on photo wallpaper. On the other side of the stand is a parallel story: the neighbour listening to him banging against the wall. In "Feeding", by Oskars Poikāns, we see in the background a photo of the interior of the State Museum of Art with the well-known sculpture of a pig by Zaļkalns, while a moving little scene is going on in the foreground: real tits nibbling at an image of a tit, evidently made from some edible material (presumably fat). Kaspars Podnieks continues his promising approach of mythologising nature, this time by depicting a 6 x 6 m area of forest with the help of panoramic video. This simple structure is enough to make a nervous urbanite feel giddy: look where you will, around you is only forest. Forest turns about your head: a capacious, beautiful and simple idea. Kristaps Epners' "Fame Simulator" offers every viewer the chance to stand on the red carpet and watch in two monitors as paparazzi flash their cameras, fans scream, etc. In this simply-achieved simulation of fame, everyone can imagine themselves as a star. Reinis Pētersons has multiplied himself mechanically. Thus, an "Orang-utan Spectrum Joint Male Choir", consisting of several computer-cloned Reinises, sings the Latvian national anthem (which is the saving grace of this venture, since, if they weren't singing the anthem, then it wouldn't seem at all witty). Unfortunately, we also have to include here the work "Dark Bulb" by the F5 group: an installation based on cheap effects. A corridor consisting of black curtains, and at the end of it a monitor showing a video of a light switch that a man comes and switches off. At the same time, the light goes out in the corridor, too. And then I can go home content with my experience of art. Of course, it's all explained in the annotation to the work, but this, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, is not part of art. What could the non-existing story of Jukas have been about? About identity. Who are we, after all? This existential question is posed, amid the noise generated by the media, by Neiburga's masked crowd, by Reinis Pētersons' clones singing the national anthem, and by one or two other works. About the media. "The medium is the message" we were taught so long ago by media theoretician Marshall McLuhan, and very often this is true. We have the application of particular media for its own sake: why do they always have to use video projection (and the more, the better), if we're only seeing the technology, without meaning or content? For the most part, I was forced to conclude that the choice of medium was actually unimportant, and that the same idea might have been expressed much more originally using other media, such as by putting pencil to paper. If we set aside the big screens and monitors, we're left with little more than a few words. But Jukas was not about meaning. About death, fear of death, and being scared to death, and about the conflict between youth and old age. Probably, every individual confronts this issue at least once in their lifetime: the conflict between idealism and ambition on the one hand, and physical, irreversible processes of bodily deterioration on the other. Bearing in mind that the course of development of contemporary art is closely connected with pop culture, most of the ideas exhibited here are morally outdated - the cult of youth has been thoroughly mocked and analysed in pop culture already. The references to this well-worn theme in Jukas, rather than serving to shock, arouse interest, provoke thought or bring about some other reaction that was evidently expected, proved only annoying. The contemporary relevance of art involves content as well, not simply the use of modern plasma screens. When the content is dated, then I'm disappointed. Two impressively large works by Evelīna Deičmane, "Getting Lost in a Dream" and "As the Years Get Closer", play on the viewer's psychological fears in like manner to the screen versions of Stephen King's novels. No matter how many times it's been seen before, the viewer will react. Without a lengthy and persevering effort to train one's will and consciousness, it's completely impossible to control one's reaction to such stimuli. "Getting Lost in a Dream" shows a dark child's playroom. The viewer has a flashlight, and can fearfully peer around. It's all black, small and fragile. A little bed, a little table, shoes and, in the corner, an enormous teddy bear. Give anyone at all in any country and in any age a flashlight and make them search for something in the middle of the night in a strange room, or simply take a walk in a cemetery. It's quite evident that the experience will not differ, since fear of the dark is archetypical, and this work was one of countless affirmations that this really is so. A second work by Evelīna, "As the Years Get Closer", played with the classic Hitchcock film technique, where something seen from afar suddenly turns out to be completely different when viewed close at hand. In this case, it deals with a woman's appearance and age. Panic and fear is also used as the material for the work by artist Ģirts Korps and his work group (Ģirts Korps & HKSO (Alfarmania / Survival Unit)). His show is somewhat existential: the viewer has to enter a cabin, on the walls of which everything is projected that has been filmed simultaneously by several cameras attached to a person walking on a lonely night. The "swaying" of the camera as the person walks serves to create a convincing sense of nervously fleeing - one of the few experiences in Jukas that was at least believable, honest and truthful. About the knowledge and use of professional marketing weapons and their application in art, just as in TV commercials and MTV music videos (which is a format for advertising music). The art exhibition is similar to an advertising festival show, the only difference being that in an art exhibition the videos are not selling anything specific. The short, original and witty ideas, anecdotes and moral messages, as well as the endless regurgitation of childhood nightmares, dreams and fears in this context seems like a well-trained, but primitive reflex, an exercise in "generating an idea". More like "de-generating", since, if you think about it, is it really necessary to engage in art, if you need some brutal method from the marketing and advertising industry to create your outstanding work of art? This revelation leads to the loss of the last illusions that an artist has developed and matured some wonderfully sweet or unpalatably sour, but truthful idea, rather than devised a solution to the marketing task of "thinking up something clever, simple and intimate, using method 3A". Let this be left to those remaining talents who work in advertising agencies and get paid a monthly wage for their efforts. Or to those salon artists who paint still lifes and landscapes to commission, charging an additional fee for inclusion in the composition of objects chosen by the customer. Too close to its sell-by date, with overly long instructions for use There are several significant aspects whose absence is characteristic of the artists in Jukas and may be regarded as symptomatic of contemporary art as such. There is a lack of patience to see something through to the end: many works, although technically impressive (the big screens and projections already mentioned, etc.), give the impression of being sketches and ideas. They point to the possibility of some clever approach, a theme that could potentially be explored, but which is left at the level of an outline, without putting any effort into making it clear. A great deal of effort has gone into the descriptions, and then it's actually no longer necessary to see the work itself. Talk more and do less: this is the theory behind a large section of contemporary art, which in my view is not justifiable. In the end, let art theoreticians engage in explanation and imaginings. There's a lack of any view from above, of any broader perspective. Anything at all is viewed from the same vantage point: how to turn it into a media installation. Thus, the technical possibilities and the ability to apply them become the main motivation for creating a work of art, its main theme, meaning and content. And then it becomes clear why the content seems so "untrue", so elusive. There is a lack of courage to break away from the mainstream and pop culture. Whether we're talking about MTV or radio NABA, processes in pop culture are superficial, commercial and changeable. What is topical today, will be forgotten tomorrow, and will not have any abiding significance. But who'll be bold enough to be "outmoded" and "unstylish"? There's a lack of individual experience, conviction and passion. Most of the works in Jukas belie a somewhat casual approach along the lines of: "Well, this time I managed to put together this kind of gimmick; next time, if they give me a little more money and projectors, it'll be something different". At the same time, I doubt there's anything condemnable here, since lightness and casualness are the main elements in the theory of life of our generation. Abiding and substantial things have already been made by the old masters (take the pig carved in granite by Zaļkalns in the State Museum of Art, featuring in the background of Oskars Poikāns' video). What was most important in Jukas? Cleverness? Perhaps at times. Technology? God forbid that these people should ever be left without electricity, a computer and a video projector. The brief life of this kind of art seems frightening. But, if you think about it, what can you expect from art when even a new car costing a respectable sum of 30 000 lats has a guarantee of only 2 years, not to mention other disposable items made for today? You're left with a free and easy, light and transitory feeling, as when you pour water. Like a story about nothing. After all, you don't need anything timeless: nobody believes in anything anyway, we're all living for today and spending, since you can't know what tomorrow will bring. On the other hand, the great clamour is justifiable, considering the artists' youth and diligence. Let them have a nice day! But there was nothing lasting or real. | |
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