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| Trespassers: an anatomical theatre, the “Madagascar Phenomenon” and the chronicle of the crusades Alise Tīfentāle The initiators and curators of the exhibition, Solvita Krese and Māra Traumane, have undertaken a sober scientific assignment: with surgical ruthlessness and a sterile scalpel, they have extracted a period of living time, placed it in formalin and displayed it for general inspection, together with exhaustive annotations. They have detached very carefully and left outside the anatomical theatre (the tomb, the collection, the herbarium) all that might hinder a concentrated view of the exhibits, leaving only some of the most typical symbols of the age. No sentiment, no social banter, no subjective memories of the "white bread and milk from a glass bottle" kind, no celebration of the oddities of totalitarianism, nor any masochistic delight in oppression. Only the pure thing. A sterile, faultlessly minimalist and laconic piece of work, which probably forced more than one viewer to take a new look at Latvian art of the eighties. Thus, the present task is to discuss the exhibition with the enthusiasm of a naturalist and the thirst for knowledge of an amateur historian of religion, to approach the works as if they were examples of delightful exotic plants and read the comments like a gripping chronicle of the First Crusade. Distancing oneself from life, from private memories and personal experience. Ignoring the fact that the artists represented here are either our contemporaries, who might be encountered accidentally at an exhibition opening or in an elegant bar, or else are figures already canonised as saints of Latvian contemporary art. | |
| Sifting the grain from the chaff
The curators chose to select the exhibits not according to the relatively more straightforward approach of representativity ("What happened in art in the eighties?"), but rather by striving to determine which works and which artists actually were trespassers, "crossing the frontier" and marching into a new era. It came to my mind that the exhibition might equally have been entitled "The Chosen Ones". It seems that in this period a certain number of people had to become messiahs or even martyrs: they had to become teachers and eye-openers for a section of society (a whole generation); they had to be avant-garde, and every one of their actions had to have abiding consequences, so that every little thing they touched has become valuable. They simply had to be. The Chosen Ones have accomplished their task (whether consciously, jokingly or in a state of intoxication) - even though it seems that the time distance is still too small for an absolutely cold and objective assessment of their role and significance as the Chosen Ones. Thus, we have a completed chapter in the chronicle of the heroic deeds and exploits of the Chosen Ones. Drawing parallels with the history of religion, we see that among the Chosen Ones, some wielded the sword, while others engaged in prayer and meditation. The works of the "Warlike" Chosen ones - Andris Breže, Kristaps Ģelzis, Ojārs Pētersons, Aija Zariņa and others - are enviably clear and convincing, conveying totally uninhibited aggression. Pure energy - such are Breže's prints and cover illustrations for Avots magazine. As with the first crusaders, whose mission was to free the Holy Land from the occupation of the Infidel and rejoin it to the map of the Christian world, so too, the esoteric chosenness of the eighties trespassers imbues them with special force. Their mission was to express themselves, to surprise, to shock and to bring a thunderstorm of change. Their source of inspiration was intellect and irony. The supergraphics, and the covers and illustrations for Avots introduced the visual code that we now, in 2005, associate with the eighties: the characteristic expression, aggression, anti-aesthetic form and sometimes quite fiendish sense of humour. This visual code was later followed by the underground magazines on rock music, Birmanis' "Assemblies of Untamed Fashion" and all sorts of other phenomena in popular and élite culture. The "Breže style" is pure, innocent aggression. Violence without pornography - the latter was added later. Important at this time was the idea that art could bring freedom. That the design of a magazine cover or an exhibition could act to influence, set in motion or liberate. Other Chosen Ones may be classed as hermits or enlightened ones, characterised by discrete activities, rooted in individual meditation. The performances and videos by NSRD may be seen from the contemporary perspective as having extended the rights of the artist. Thus, an artist could remain a quiet, introverted oddball, and the viewers were not obliged to understand everything the artist did. Clearly, NSRD may also be regarded as the fathers of what we now know as "multimedia art". The video documents of the performances by NSRD, private and not fully intelligible to the outsider, but regarded as artistically accomplished, have become a symbol of protest and of the birth of a new paradigm. Perhaps this was the unique value of this group: that they created their own mythology, retained their status as oddballs and were in fact engaged in a large-scale ironic project, with the aim of proving that "nothing exists, nothing is real and nothing has any meaning, but if we actually look at it, then there is meaning - but only in the places we don't look for it". A kind of philosophical terror, testing the audience's intellect, their threshold of tolerance, their sense of humour and humanism. Evidently, only NSRD and their closest friends actually pass this test, since the revelations and judgements presented in these visually absurd and quite amateurish acts of philosophical terror were intended only for their own group. "The Madagascar Phenomenon" Also characterising this exhibition is the phenomenon of isolation, creating associations with the natural history of Madagascar or Australia, for example. Occurring in these geographically 100%-isolated environments are marvellous creatures that have been able to exist and develop precisely because of isolation. The same applies to art and culture in the political isolation of the USSR, a setting with limited freedom of movement and exchange of information. "Trespassers" is a vivid example of the "Madagascar Phenomenon". Nobody is yet talking about the global or pan-human value of the exhibits, because primary importance is attached to their local significance: they are as exotic for the rest of the world as kangaroos (and other animals with names less easily recalled) are for visitors to a European zoo. This "Madagascar Phenomenon" suggests that we should remember events in culture and politics that made the eighties important for Western Europe and the world. So, what is immediately associated with the eighties? The Cold War, Nam Jun Paik, Madonna and Michael Jackson, the Rubik Cube, AIDS and the hole in the ozone layer. Just 10 years, but so many momentous facts, still influencing our cultural and information setting today. Just a few examples: 1981: the fateful marriage - Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer; the first IBM PCs go into mass production; MTV starts broadcasting - the first music TV channel, whose influence on the visual culture of later years is hard to overestimate. 1982: the founding of NSRD. 1983: the HIV virus is identified; production of compact discs begins; the politically active art organisation Neue Slovenische Kunst is established in Slovenia, parodying totalitarianism in all its expressions, the most vivid phenomenon being the industrial music of Laibach, a band which over time earned respect and admiration for its theatrically absurd videos and for its progressive attitude towards music. 1984: The "Nature. Environment. Man" exhibition in Riga; Reagan jokes at home that the time has finally come to nuke the USSR. 1985: Gorbachev comes to power; Christo un Jeanne-Claude "wrap" the new Pont Neuf in Paris; charity comes into fashion, everyone's listening to "We Are the World"- the megahit whose authors donate the proceeds to famine victims in Africa (also shown in Latvia in Ermanbriks' Varavīksne TV show). 1986: The silence of the Chernobyl disaster; the complete openness and TV coverage of the "Challenger" disaster; Domenico Dolce un Stefano Gabbana present the first collection by the new and provocative fashion house Dolce & Gabbana; Miervaldis Polis presents his "Egocentre" manifesto; Ojārs Pētersons turns orange for the first time: the video installation "The Orange Plank" is created during the Days of Film. 1987: Italian porno-star Cicciolina is elected to parliament; a real German lands his plane in Moscow's Red Square; the completion of Wim Wender's supernaturally beautiful and sensitive film Der Himmel über Berlin; Avots magazine appears in Riga; Miervaldis Polis strolls through central Riga as the Bronze Man during the Days of Art; the world population reaches 5 billion (Nowadays, it seems they're not even counting any more.) 1988: Protest against the construction of an underground railway in Riga. 1988-1989: the exhibition "Riga - the Latvian avant-garde" in West Germany. 1989: a glass pyramid is built next to the Louvre, in honour of the bicentenary of the Great French Revolution; fall of the Berlin Wall; a solo exhibition by Aija Zariņa at the Arsenāls Exhibition Hall. Apostles without followers "Trespassers" is the evangel of contemporary art in our second republic - essentially a "new testament", if we regard modernism as having followed a different course of development in this isolated setting from the Western European (and thus correct) tradition. Time has sifted out the most vivid preachers of this "new testament", and we are all in some way their followers, at least in the sense that they established the local tradition of contemporary art, before the exchange of information and communication with the free world of Western Europe became as self-evident as it was in the time of the first republic, or "old testament". But these apostles had no direct followers - possibly because their activities essentially represented a finished manifesto. Only NSRD has perhaps had a greater influence on later generations of artists in the field of video art, video installations and performance art, since they showed the way, showed that art does not have to be entertaining and comprehensible, that it need only document, and that you may do anything you please. The 2004 anniversary exhibition for "Nature. Environment. Man" demonstrated that the application of finely-honed technology alone cannot produce an emotional reaction in the viewer. Breže takes part in exhibitions from time to time, but mostly, as I've heard, is engaged in managing real estate. New works are much more frequently exhibited by Kristaps Ģelzis, whose everyday job is in an advertising agency. Kalnačs is now a respectable teacher, with a passion for angling, surprising us now and then with a carefully considered conceptual work. Laganovskis, serving as Chief Artist of the City of Riga, has been working conscientiously and actively on a broad scale. Perhaps he is the only member of this group of apostles (or one of the few) whose works nowadays seem as good, or even better, than his works from "back then". Ivars Mailītis and Inese Mailīte are professional event designers - you might say they work in the entertainment industry. Ojārs Pētersons has invested his creative energy in teaching the next generations and is the very image of the model teacher. Juris Putrāms is occupied with "PUTRA". Of artists at the level of Tillbergs it is often said that they either "reproduce the success of their youth" or else "work consistently in their chosen field" - depending on your attitude. In my view, he is one of the last surviving real geniuses, the last of the messianically obsessed artists of the "old model", before the birth of the "post-genius era", declared by Inga Šteimane. Tillbergs sometimes takes part in exhibitions and has so far not shown us anything that might put him to shame, so I prefer to speak of "consistency". Aija Zariņa has the right to do whatever she wishes, since she is Zariņa. With her democratic force, she has introduced into the very provincial history of Latvian painting something truly pan-human and real. Perhaps everything the Chosen Ones created was so self-sufficient and saturated that no tradition could ever emerge to be inherited by the next generations. Pētersons might be the only exception in this regard, and his pupils seem to have surpassed the master himself in terms of achievement and creative success, which is, after all, the only measure of a good teacher. The works of the other Chosen Ones are fated to remain part of the chronicle - the first crusade that prepared the world for great events. "The 1980s" truly represents a completed period of history, safely tucked away in the archive and the encyclopaedia, which we at liberty to consult whenever we need to look something up. | |
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