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| Everything must be in Good Order Laima Slava, Art Historian A conversation with the Latvian art collector Andris Kļaviņš | |
| The "Vīna studija" guest in this issue is Andris Kļaviņš. He's probably best known as the former head of the Latvian Shipping Company. But today Mr. Klaviņš is a private businessman and the owner of a valuable collection of Latvian art. In the latter role, he is highly regarded in museum circles for frequently loaning works from his collection to museums for special exhibitions. Many of his works are real gems. | |
 Laima Slava and Andris Kļaviņš | |
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Laima Slava: Do you collect mostly paintings and drawings? Andris Kļaviņš: No, I collect Latvian art. This includes advertisements, posters and applied art, anything that I find interesting. I don't collect furniture. It's like that Brit once said about auctions - it's making sure that when you wake up in the morning and the first thing you see is that particular work of art, you feel happy. The works in my collection bring me joy. L.S.: What prompted you to begin creating such an art-rich environment around you? A.K.: There were a number of factors. Probably the biggest thanks should go to my mother. You could say that the first painting in my collection was a gift from my mother on my 30th birthday. But we both chose it together. It was by Henrijs Klēbahs. We both liked his work. He and my Mum had worked together for a while. I remember the trip to his house and the opportunity to view everything and choose from his works. I liked how Klēbahs painted the sea. He was already quite old, and the paintings were from a plein air in Ventspils. This might be related to my profession, because I've experienced the sea in all conditions and Klēbahs depicts the sea the way I've seen it. However, the first large painting which I purchased myself was by Pauļuks. L.S.: Your mother is an artist? A.K.: My Mum was educated as a geographer, but she's hardly ever worked in that profession. Instead, she spent her whole working life at the Soviet Economy Exhibition, as what we would now call the senior curator. Mum also organised the Latvian exposition in Moscow and the exhibitions that went abroad, although she never got to travel overseas with them. These shows were a chance for artists to earn some extra money - Klēbahs, Pinnis, Jānis Osis was there too, amongst others. Mum's best friend is the sculptor Ēvi Upeniece. Mum loved art and she even tried to enrol at the Academy of Art. During the Soviet period there was an unwritten rule that you had to see all the art exhibitions that were on. What entertainment options did you really have? Through connections you could buy a book or get tickets to the Dailes Theatre or the Drama Theatre. We preferred the Drama. You could also get into exhibitions without connections. They didn't happen all that often - there were the Art Days and the Autumn and Spring exhibitions. That meant a lot of walking around with my parents to the parks and museums. That's where it all began. Later, when I was a student in Leningrad (I'm a marine engineer by profession, in other words a ship's captain just like my father) some of my student friends studied at the Muhina Technical Drawing School, one of the leading design schools (located in the former Štiglics school). While I spent time with these people we had discussions about subjects of common interest. I must say that we were open-minded in that we didn't consider Riga to be the centre of the universe and everything else to be rubbish. If we heard about a super exhibition in Moscow, then we'd get on a train and go and see it. When I've tried to persuade friends in Riga to go to a good exhibition in Cēsis or Liepāja - in fact, to go anywhere to see something else - the only ones willing to do so have been my old comrades from Leningrad! I spent many years at sea, and that was one of the few ways that a Soviet citizen could see some excellent art in various world museums. This deepened my interest further. At home I grew up surrounded by paintings that had belonged to my grandparents. In the 1930s every middle class household had to have a painting, at least a Liberts, say, and that's the way it was. It's no secret that collectors meet situations where a person is selling their paintings as the last thing that they have left. A painting that has been hanging on your wall for a long time is like a family member, and it's hard to part with it. Our family was no exception - we've always had paintings. L.S.: This means that tradition and its continu-ation are very important here. What did your grandparents do? A.K.: My maternal grandfather had a winery in the Jacob's Barracks in Riga. He had a huge apple orchard in Latgale and he made apple wine. (When I was at school, I was shocked to find out that my classmate's grandfather knew my grandfather's wine.) And it's no secret that, in the 1930s, both established and up and coming artists worked on the side at the Opera. It turned out that they had often visited the winery for celebrations, because they didn't always have enough money for a fancier place. Sometimes they paid for their drinks with paintings, which may not have been worth much at the time, but to me they are worth a lot today! They mean a great deal to me, because they are connected with my family's history. I enjoy being able to tell people why I have a particular painting in my possession: the artist drank "on the slate" at my grandfather's and left the painting! In the 1940s Liberts published many books at the State Printing House, including albums with reproductions of his works, and if he included a particular painting in one of those albums, he must have had quite a high opinion of it... These kinds of stories are the oral history of our nation. On another birthday, Mum gave me a family tree with photographs. It's fantastic! I'm very grateful to her for that. L.S.: What about your own experiences? A.K.: At the end of the 1980s, I saw a painting that I liked and had to decide whether to buy the painting or a garage, and I chose the garage! But afterwards... It was in a Bruno Celmiņš exhibition at the Foreign Art Museum. He had a series of works about Samarkand and Bukhara. Minarets, little laneways. You can really feel the air in his paintings. I've seen very simple paintings done by him of a three litre jar of birch juice with the sun shining on it. And that sun... In his Central Asian paintings you could feel the sun burning, and I liked that very much. But I needed a garage. Remember the Ryazanov film from that period about a garage and how important it was! And that's something I've always remembered, and still think about. Of course, now I have some Celmiņš paintings, bet not those particular ones. He was different, outside the social circles of the time. At that time also there was the different breed of painter who works and paints, whose works are rejected, who is essentially a quiet person. Pauļuks was loud, everyone knew about him. But it's interesting to learn about other artists working in the 1950s and 60s, quietly and unobtrusively, for their own satisfaction. And they are no worse than those who are getting all the recognition and praise in present day Russia, for example. It just highlights the fact, yet again, that our art is good. L.S.: How do you obtain information about these artists? There aren't that many exhibitions or galleries featuring something new. A.K.: I won't tell you that, because information is the most valuable asset now! (Laughs) You have to read a lot, because if you're interested in something, you seek it out. These days there's a lot you can find on the internet, but it's a matter of meeting people, perusing various publications, reading, digging around. I'm also interested in the history of the works. Each one has its own story: who owned it, how it was passed on. It's a very difficult thing to research and it takes a long time, because the works may have been purchased from someone directly connected with hunting for artworks, and these people, like galleries, often have their reasons for not disclosing information. Other stories emerge from examining the work itself. For example, Ubāns' drawing is of a tavern scene or something like that. But when I turned it over, I found that it had been drawn on a newspaper from 25 October, 1917. If I remember rightly, the paper was Рижский вестник (The Riga Gazette), with the whole page devoted to the Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd. Of course, this was just a coincidence, because back then they drew on whatever was available. Romans Suta has made a drawing on the reverse side of an application for a stipend made by him to the Ministry of Welfare of the time. There are various methods for studying artworks. Today they use lasers to uncover what is beneath the surface. But more simply, if you are interested, you can take the work to a restorer and view it under an ultraviolet lamp, which will clearly reveal what was once there and if someone has painted on something extra later or not. L.S.: Usually paintings are brought to be restored when they have been earmarked to go on display in a museum. As far as I am aware, the Latvian National Art Museum holds you in high regard as a collector and often uses your works in its exhibitions? A.K.: I make sure that the works I get hold of are restored, because I want them to be in good condition. Many works are stored... it's amazing where they get found - in sheds, summer cottages, attics and so on, and all praise for the restorers that get them back into shape. Over the years I've gained experience in knowing what exactly a painting needs, a new stretching frame or something else, so that it retains its quality and you can enjoy it as it was when the artist painted it. Some paintings have been in a critical condition. It's the same with drawings and engravings and where and how they've been kept, it all leaves a mark. A collection must be in good order. If it's in good order, I can unreservedly offer it to the venerable Art Museum. L.S.: Have any miracles turned up during the restoration process? A.K.: No major miracles. In many paintings from the 1920s you can see that, most likely due to poverty, an older painting was painted over, or the work was quickly taken off the stretching frame because the artist couldn't afford another one for a new painting. It's more astonishing to discover how some paintings have been touched up, and not very professionally at that. Today I don't even need an ultraviolet lamp anymore. I haven't had any really unpleasant surprises, probably because the people I've bought paintings from have been completely honest and have dealt with any problems. L.S.: Besides determining authenticity, what about dating? A.K.: Of course the date is often difficult to ascertain, and the museum isn't all that keen on doing it either, especially if we are talking about drawings and prints. Let's look at the "Expressionists' Folder" as an example. These works are supposedly rare, but with one work by Ubāns there may be about ten copies. I don't exclude the possibility that this is one of his originals, he had a good art collection himself, but can we be sure that in the 1950s he didn't make copies from the same linocut? All of them nicely signed. But you cannot call this a forgery. It's also interesting to examine fakes, some of which have been produced by very good artists and are unsigned and these too cannot be considered forgeries. Vidbergs has been copied a lot. There are works on which opinions differ, and this becomes a matter of subjective preference. In Latvia, thanks to the work that has been invested in research, there is an expert on every major painter. If the expert says that a particular painting is not the work of his artist, then you can stand on your head and try to prove otherwise, but everyone will agree with the expert. Naturally, every artist has better and lesser works, and they all experimented. You could argue about the works of Purvītis, Vidbergs, Valters or any other artist. And if you don't know for sure that it really is by the particular artist, how are you going to prove it today? L.S.: Do you have your own criteria? A.K.: If I have doubts, I turn to the experts. For example, with regard to an artist's early works. Ubāns again - how he painted, at what period he studied in Odessa and in Penza. Hats off to Ubāns, because on the back he wrote in large letters: Ubāns, Penza. But if there weren't such an inscription? L.S.: Do you think he signed it then, or later when he became a collector himself? A.K.: Difficult to say. Ubāns may have signed these works after returning from Russia, because his hand-writing here is similar to his handwriting from the 1920s. Maybe there was a bunch of artists travelling together, and while each of them knew their own works, they signed them just in case. I have other works with seals on the back certifying that they were allowed to be exported from Russia. Many artists returned, after all. Another very interesting thing is that on the backs of many works- on both the stretching frames and canvases - there are numbers and statements written in ink, that they come from such and such a collection. Sometimes there are labels stuck on the stretching frames with addresses and even four-digit phone numbers. Apparently these were standard in Riga in the 1930s. L.S.: Which is your favourite part of the collection? A.K.: I love them all. Perhaps I am fondest of Jānis Valters and the Riga artists' group. I appreciate the books which are published about these artists, and I highly value the contribution of the art historians behind them. It's a huge job. Of course, I also have a selfish interest in these books as reference sources, because the authors have worked with private persons and in archives which are off limits to me as a simple art lover. I may be one of the few people who actually reads these books, instead of just looking at the pictures. I find them interesting, fascinating even. You read and then you can take a work from your collection and determine the time when it was created, because there are many unsigned and undated works for which the experts can only determine the decade they were painted in. I'm keenly awaiting the forthcoming book about Jānis Valters, whose work I especially love, because he was an artist who, rather than resting on his laurels in old age, created an entirely new style which inspired numerous German schools of painting. Valdemārs Tone is another great master, and his monograph is also in preparation. L.S.: Do you focus on classic works only? A.K.: No, I'm also interested in new artists. If we speak about brands in art, there are many artists who don't have a brand but are good artists, while there are others who have a brand yet are lesser artists. They've had some luck, they've got a talent for self-promotion, and they've got a brand. L.S.: But do you have any suggestions of how to change this situation? After all, the brand isn't created by the artist on their own... A.K.: No, I don't have any, but there are good examples of where it has been done in Latvia. For example, Zārdiņš. Roberts Stārosts. Latvian art deserves to be better known internationally. I have heard the opinion expressed that artists of the 1920s and 30s have "missed the boat", that our only hope is the younger artists. But the competition is tough and you have to invest a lot of money. A good example is Saatchi with YBA. I can't say that it's to my taste, but it's an example of good marketing and a result has been achieved. State institutions like museums and so on don't have those kinds of resources. You can only invest a lot of money if you hope to get a return. With private persons, it is like this: say you have some painters, for example Suta and Beļcova, a family of artists, good marketing potential. In order to make them known around the world, the person who was able to invest would have to own most of their works, to work with and to offer to the market. But the best works by these artists are already gathering dust in museums. As for young artists, you can help them, maybe give advice on how to paint so that their work is noticed in Western Europe and not just in tiny Riga, stewing in its own juices. In recent years, many young Latvian artists have left for the US or Berlin - currently the Mecca of the contemporary art scene. But has any one of them become a big name, despite having had opportunities such as exhibitions in galleries abroad etc? Then again, if you like someone's work, does it really matter whether it's famous the world over? L.S.: Have you ever had the desire to "develop" something, or have you simply been happy to acquire works of art in your possession? A.K.: I've never thought about "developing" anything. I'm a businessman, and I try to look at it from another angle. But I believe that collections must be shown. Collections contain good works of art. I highly respect Guntis Belēvičs for showing his collection at the Latvian National Art Museum. And I'm grateful to the museum for inviting me to include works from my collection in their exhibitions. I loan out my works with great pleasure. There's even been some thought about a permanent exhibition, but that's hard to do alone. A public-private partnership would work, but the idea of this is not popular in Latvia. This is done in conjunction with municipalities, where the private person contributes their assets and the municipality gives something else in return. What happens in practice, however, is that you reach an agreement with one local authority, but there is an election and the new group may have other interests and nobody needs your private partnership any more. The great American museums started as private collections, then foundations were established and boards were appointed which developed the institutions further. It's important that this be done professionally, since a museum is an expensive pleasure. I think that this type of museum would also be interesting from the point of view of the state museums, because when presenting a particular artist or creating an exhibition, the same works are usually shown. This would be an opportunity to show something else, to expose works which are otherwise kept out of sight. Maybe works of a standard not as high as those in the museum's collection, but different ones, nonetheless. L.S.: Do you think that this could happen in the not too distant future? A.K.: You have to be an optimist! There's no use whining, you have to work and fight to get anywhere. If the "years of plenty" had continued, something like that would probably have taken place. However even now the offer of a private collection could be interesting not only for Riga, but also for regional municipalities. Riga will have it all anyway, the Contemporary Art Museum, galleries etc. But outside Riga - is there anything much going on? OK, Liepāja is city of artists, maybe Cēsis... But there are many places where there could be projects with private collections, because often enough these are better than the collections held by the museums in regional centres. I'm not talking about the museums in Tukums or Jelgava, where bold personalities have left their mark. On the other hand, I visited the Rozentāls Museum in Saldus. It was depressing to see how it all looked. Here is an opportunity to use the principle of puplic-private partnership to create something together, because every self-respecting collector will own a Rozentāls... L.S.: Perhaps, at this time of crisis, it would be easier for entrepreneurs and private collectors to create something rather than for the state to do it, because as far as the state sector is concerned the left hand still doesn't know what the right hand is doing... A.K.: The private sector is always more agile. But let's not forget that this crisis is affecting private collectors too. Collecting doesn't come cheap. The art collector has to earn the money to purchase works of art, and if this is a problem, it will affect the collection. On the other hand, tough times can be good times for collectors, because people have to sell off assets. Many contemporary collections were started during the 1990s transition period, when artworks could be sold without fear to anybody and not just to the single antique store from earlier times in central Riga. And next came the "years of plenty," when interest in art grew. People made a lot of money in real estate, and those who had purchased paintings during the first wave sold them on at much higher prices. Now there's yet another wave. Unfortunately, many people are being forced to part from their artworks, and art is appearing on the market again. This is the third wave since independence. It's like the sea. /Translator into English: Filips Birzulis/ | |
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