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| A WONDER WITHOUT A MARKETING AIM Vilnis Vējš | |
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Some years ago, it seemed that the AB Dam, where the Noass Gallery is moored, really might become an island of dreams for those who love contemporary art. The gallery evidently lacked the imagination to develop an exciting exhibition policy and the strength to aggressively capture an audience, and the dam still attracts more newly-weds than art-lovers. A similar fate has befallen the Pedvāle project, but that venue is at least visited by people travelling around Latvia, while the peninsula opposite the Riga skyline still seems like a God-forgotten land that has long-since stopped dreaming of anything. The "Dream Island" project can in this context be viewed as entirely positive, since it does at least strive to attract the public's attention. However, I'm baffled at the way it's being done.
I've struggled for a long time to find an appropriate comparison to express the unusual mix of appreciation and indifference that I felt at seeing the exhibition. In fact, it's something like listening to one of those countless disks entitled "...selection", which bring together totally unconnected popular pieces of music. There's no denying the music is good, but what is it that distinguishes one selection from another, and why I should choose this disk rather than some other from the pile of similar ones - that's impossible to say. In contemporary art, the situation is, of course, different to what it is in music. We don't have any choice here; we have to take what we're given and be thankful for the same. But there are two heretical chains of thought I'd like to follow up in this regard. First. All the works in the exhibition can in fact easily be copied, since they involve video, sound and photography. But for some reason, video art is still not available on cassette or disk, so we can't buy the works for home viewing, although there might be no fewer buyers than for new music. Presumably, it's not simply a matter of convention that video art is still being displayed in exhibitions, that identical installations are not being built in place of garden sculptures and that photographs... well, yes, these do have a more traditional form of publication - luxurious and expensive books. It seems that contemporary art does need a strict, somehow forcibly limited contextual frame, which, by the way, art has always found useful. Eras, styles and movements, the wreath of genius around the head of a particular artist: all these are only theoretical concepts, augmenting or perhaps even giving rise to the added value of the particular "masterpiece". Works of contemporary art in particular have been affected by such an erosion of sovereignty that attempts to perceive them "as they are", individually, without a coded system that can be deciphered, can most likely lead only to disappointment. The exhibition format is a tried-and-tested way of rendering each individual work more easily perceivable in the context of the others around it. "The Dream Island" is reminiscent of the kind of concoction where each component requires a lecture from a dietician in order to make the dish palatable as a whole. This is because the works have such varied genes - not only in this aesthetic sense, but more from a culturological perspective, inherited from traditions of different systems of ideas that are centuries-old, which, I fear, are poorly understood even by wise art researchers, not to mention the ordinary viewer. We cannot translate Jenny Holzer's "Truisms" using the same dictionary as Monika Pormale's poetic cry, no matter how great the formal similarity of the works. Simultaneous translation of such varied languages of art is not within the power of a single exhibition, and the concept of "The Dream Island" is too vague to focus the viewer's perception in any one direction that would offer a more-or-less perceptible interpretation of the diverse works. Second. I'm cautious about a trend observable in the local art market (which is only a restricted market of the beauty of mutual relationships, rather than a market of goods, or least of all a market of ideas). In my view, it is erroneous to believe that Riga lacks "the breath of the world", meaning a deficit of imported stars, masterpieces and achievements. In actual fact, it's possible to see in Latvia in the space of a month more brand-name concerts, exhibitions and presentations than an average Londoner is likely to digest in a whole year. The above-described view is cultivated by a handful of art consumers who enjoy collecting impressions during trips paid for by the Culture Capital Foundation, but who don't always have the time to take a closer look and understand what they've seen. It's a shame that the "ordinary" consumer is thus given the impression that only works already commended a hundred times over can be worth seeing. If there is anything that makes Riga provincial, then it's the inability to develop a dialogue on a par with the imported values. It takes two to tango - a piece of wisdom that also applies to the relationship between the artist and the viewer. There's no tango if one of the partners is only able to watch, enjoy and be left breathless. So the marketing aim behind "The Dream Island" seems quite hazy to me. Is it to acquaint a wider audience with names that mean nothing to it and with works that each sing in their own language and their own tune, and moreover without any translation (interpretation)? Or to serve up to gourmets in Riga works that they've already seen elsewhere in the world? Or to restore the good name of Noass in the local war of ambitions? It seems to me that a strategically superior approach would involve more openness towards the wish of the non-professional viewer to approach the wonder of creation. | |
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