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| ON WOMEN. Katrīna Neiburga Vilnis Vējš | |
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The art of Katrīna Neiburga is clear and simple, but an intelligible account of it is virtually impossible to give. This is because the analysis that it deserves, deciphering the meaning of the works, is hampered not only by the sophistication of the artistic language and the secrets of the artist's personality, as it should be, but, to an equal degree, also by the haziness of the local context and the shakiness of the possible points of reference for such an analysis. I'll try to explain: you don't have to be endowed with supernatural vision to notice the three axes around which Neiburga's message revolves: feminism, social critique and communication. We're accustomed to see phrases about the consumer society, gender study and the promotion of mutual understanding bandied about in virtually every article on developments in world art. We no longer take them seriously. We feel that in hearing about yet another feminist, socially critical project, we're getting only small-talk saturated with professional jargon. We haven't noticed that these whole clusters of issues truly are an inexhaustible source of inspiration for artists and theoreticians everywhere except Latvia.
However, I'll try not to start generalising before I say something particular, even personal. In order to acquaint you with Katrīna, I'll relate how I came to know her. To me, of course, this story seems significant. At the end of the last century, working in an advertising agency, I became involved in the search for a model for a major campaign. My colleague, a designer and also a well-known DJ, suggested inviting "Kačiņa" to the casting. "Kačiņa" came along, had her photos taken and left straight away to study art in Sweden. For another six months in Latvia, all the advertising hoardings carried a picture of this amazingly pretty girl savouring a cup of coffee. Housewives bought the coffee, sales went up and the bosses of the international company were pleased. You see, Katrīna Neiburga is personally acquainted with a reality where everything is determined by manipulation involving mass media, social role games and exploitation of the feminine image for commercial aims - the favourite target of feminist attacks. I want to say that Katrīna Neiburga represents a generation living in a world whose grimaces Latvian art is only gradually coming to know, as if feeling its way, dazzled by the terror and the excitement of it. In 1999, after four years at the Teacher Training Department of the Latvian Academy of Art, Katrīna Neiburga left for Stockholm, where she studied video art under the tuition of Professor Eberthard. It wasn't quite a unique case: media artist Jānis Garančs had already been studying there, but Katrīna did attract the notice of those staying at home. We may note that it was the same with Pēteris Ķimelis, who took up studies there at the same time and did approximately the same things as Katrīna, becoming her long-time comrade-in-arms. Katrīna describes her year in Stockholm as a time when she as a student was asked for the first time to think independently, being given all the necessary instruments for realising ideas. Katrīna mastered the professional skills of video art, and her creative activity led to the first conceptual project, "Real Face" (2000), later exhibited in Riga too at the "Noass" contemporary art gallery, and to VJing together with Pēteris Ķimelis. I have little comprehension of VJing - I know only that it's a kind of visual improvisation born in club culture and later spreading on the internet as well, involving the live mixing of streams of electronic images, thus providing a visual commentary to music. It's important to note that the VJ is typical modern-day cult figure, a cultural hybrid, belonging equally to entertainment and to art, both a product of the industry and an opposition figure, provoking the consumer sphere and marking out tendencies in art. Katrīna and Pēteris as practitioners of this activity were in demand in Germany and were quite innovative even in Stockholm, which permitted them to participate in a variety of conferences, including Sweden's exhibition at EXPO in Hanover. After returning to Latvia, Katrīna Neiburga continued her studies at the Visual Communication Department of the Academy of Art, obtaining a master's degree in 2002. Her participation in Latvian art life, though not intensive, has been very noticeable. In 2000, Katrīna infected her colleagues Pēteris Ķimelis and Kaspars Vanags with the idea of the tea mushroom, which grew into a conceptual, processual project. The tea mushroom itself was brought to Stockholm as contraband (literally - in a bag on the artist's chest), and the project was developed in Riga and at the IBID Gallery in London, which had developed an interest in Baltic art, and in the end it received an award for innovative art. Katrīna was a participant in one of the all-time most impressive contemporary art events in Latvia: "Party Animals - Animal Farm", curated by Kaspars Vanags (2001), where she contributed the work Viss.tas, in defence of chickens. In 2002, Katrīna was the initiator of the "Sixth Element" project, where, together with Monika Pormale, she involved many Latvian and foreign artists and received the annual award for the best multimedia project. Katrīna participated in the exhibition "Nothing Personal" in Bremen (2002), in "Adaptation" in Tallinn and in "re:public" in Riga, as well as the "2 SHOW" exhibition in Vilnius (2004). Shown at these and other exhibitions were Katrīna's video films "What's in the Girls' Handbags?" (2002) and "Magic Things" (2003). Still in production is the video "Traffic". In parallel with this work, Katrīna has been involved in projects of an entirely different kind: augmenting with video projections the sets by Andris Freibergs for the operas "The Flying Dutchman" (Dallhalla, 2002, and Riga, 2003) and "Tosca" (2004). So where's the social critique, where's the feminism and communication? To explain why the message in Katrīna Neiburga's work is exceptional, I need to go back and look at the ideological position in Latvian art at the time when the young lady, who later proved so necessary to the representation of Latvian contemporary art, was still studying abroad. It's a long-held view that the Latvians have "the women's issue" sorted out, from the well-known literary celebrations of motherhood right up to the President. In Latvian culture and art, women are very well represented - we need think only of the beautiful and intelligent women writers and painters. But it's in women's magazines that their femininity is most commonly remembered (deriving intelligence from beauty and vice versa; although I've never come across male Latvian artists being lauded for their stomach muscles), while in serious discussion on art, gender is ignored entirely as an improper theme. Female artists too are suspicious of the wish to see in their works any specific message inspired by the special experience of womanhood, accepting only interpretations with a panhuman, existential perspective, or in some cases the glorification of a mythical woman - an image of motherhood. It's symptomatic that the search for new avenues in art is generally connected with men's activities, since women (with the support of men) perceive their equality in the denial of difference, rather than as a basis for creative expansion. Analysis of Latvian art in the frame of gender discourse is not the aim of this article, and neither is it within the author's capabilities, since in the general silence, the words "feminism" and "gender" unavoidably cause a negative reaction, as harbingers of an attack by an alien, hostile ideology (whether the threat is associated with the women assembly-line workers of the former Soviet Union, or with heartless career women somewhere in the West). In publications on art in Latvia, every reference to gender issues traditionally reverts to discussion of the meanings of a very contentious term - "sex" (in the biological sense, and relating to sexual relations) - leading to something like a parody of Strindberg's "war of the sexes", a kind of bickering and petty insults, with claims that women are like this and that, and men are even worse (see the discussion in the press on the publications in Feministica Lettica, 2000-2001). Of course, this only comes back to the mainstream of value orientation in Latvian culture over the past twenty years, where the only acceptable minority are the Latvians themselves (which requires a context - the threat from the big nations), and where social force is seen in the denial of individual or group aims in the name of serving the general interest (that of the people?), and so forth. In order to interrupt this discussion and at the same time justify it, let's turn to the films by Katrīna Neiburga. In these, women live in a reality bearing little resemblance to the elevated spiritual spheres inhabited by strong Latvian mothers, or the remote corners of the forest where Latvian women writers think up such fairytale characters. "What's in the Girls' Handbags?" and "Magic Things" are best viewed in the reverse order to that in which they were made. Since, as is often the case in art, the later film places emphasis on the causal relationships behind the action documented in the first one. "Magic Things" is a simply-structured film in the genre of unconcealed parody, though the pathos tends more towards anti-utopia. Namely, Katrīna Neiburga has come up with something resembling a drawn-out TV commercial, where the consumer (a woman of course, married, on a middle or high middle income, according to the general definition in marketing strategies) is offered a variety of things - items absolutely essential for homeliness in the family nest, for an ideal relationship with her partner, for comfort for herself and for him. Neiburga asserts in the film that this is possible even in the middle of the forest, i.e., that the items offered themselves hold the possibility of absolute happiness. So the film shows how He and She go on a trip into the country, bringing with them all the wonderful things offered every evening in TV Shop commercials. Figure-improving lingerie, joint-protectors, a ceramic dog that signals the approach of strangers, a collapsible fence, a hearing aid, a portable meteorological station, a toilet-paper holder with a built-in radio, and so on, even a plastic frog that stores light by day and shines by night. Neiburga poses the simple question: what if...? Cluttered together in the great concentration shown in the film, these wonderful things leave a horrifying impression, accentuated by the super-optimistic advertising texts read by the narrator (the voice of Juris Kalniņš in Latvian and Kārlis Streips in English, both often heard on TV). Of course, when watching the film, there's usually laughter in the auditorium: what would life turn into if we believed in all these offers... But don't we? "What's in the girls' hand bags?" is a kind of sequel. Neiburga asks women met in the toilets of clubs to show the contents of their handbags - not everything, only the most important items. Since the handbag usually contains things that really might be needed at any moment. The women are responsive, and among the ordinary things - items of personal hygiene and cosmetics - they produce real gems. And the most important moments in the film are those where the women not only permit a glimpse of their intimate territory, but are happy to show the trifles they regard as important and comment on them. The types are very diverse: one girl emphasises her brands of cosmetics, that they're all from Paris; another is proud of her guy, who "dances well and is OK"; revealed as special extras are even a book by an intellectual author and a sample of handwriting by Helēna Heinrihsone. And, quite unexpectedly, this seemingly unpretentious "study" reveals a deeper, more existential aspect of the self-image of the contemporary woman: products by various companies are placed next to photos of the men they love and talismans‑- figurines or knick-knacks - that, half-jokingly are described as having a magical power of granting happiness. The comments are an eccentric mix of superstition and advertising slogans, which have already filtered into everyday parlance. One lady shows her perfumes and explains that they're to attract men, and it turns out that she's got along with her a whole library of occult literature explaining everything about life and giving practical advice on influencing your destiny. A clearer manifestation of marketing manipulation by global industry is hard to imagine: the self-identification of the interviewed women (likewise probably that of all the rest in Latvia) is significantly dependent on the role they're allocated in the mass media, in media reality, which dutifully serves the aims of manufacturers. Even everyday feminism - the psychologist's advice given in the pages of glossy magazines to "love yourself" - results in a proudly displayed set of car keys. And, seemingly, we don't have any other kind of feminism. The "Tea Mushroom" project was considerably more developed, and has already been described in Studija by Ieva Auziņa (February/March 2001). In the context of Neiburga's later work, we may focus on her interest in the vitality of a phenomenon peripheral to social consciousness, which has been pushed aside by current developments. The tea mushroom, a living organism specially nurtured and spread, and thus apparently helping people to live their lives, when presented in the format of a work of art, obtains countless symbolic roles, filling the role of the survivor and the outsider, the oppositionary and the trespasser, affirming solidarity and faith. In this case, we should once again give a reminder of the project's dualistic relationship with issues of communications: by putting the mushroom in a specially established shop, publishing a paper devoted to it, developing an advertising campaign worthy of a consumer staple product, in truth another ironic utopia is being realised. A marginal phenomenon, representing the interests of a small, closed group of people, lonely in their "faith in the mushroom" obtains publicity and status "unbecoming" to it. However, this ironic comment, relativising the true value of other products, which are served by powerful ideological machinery, at a time when a society hungering for opulence saw in advertising a progressive force, was perhaps perceived not as a critical parody, but as an optimistic promise to minorities, a justification of "brainwashing". It's precisely the inadequacy of mechanisms for communication in the Latvian art community that complicates an adequate assessment of Katrīna Neiburga's work, since emphatically social, investigative and provocative works cannot be regarded as closed aesthetic systems. They envisage a social resonance, which the wonderfully conceived project "Sixth Element" conspicuously lacked. Perfectly realised was the inner circle of communication: Latvian women artists were given charge of a whole hotel, literally allowing them to inhabit this "guest territory" howsoever they wished. But, for reasons independent of the artists, the short duration of the project and the geographical isolation prevented it from being integrated into the sphere of attention of society at large. Similarly, in 2003 the "re:public" artistic activities organised in the urban environment by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art remained at the localised level of an event within "art life". Here, Katrīna Neiburga realised another feministic and socially investigative provocation: loaning an old taxi, she took on the role of the taxi driver and, making use of the socially hard-to-accept image of a young, attractive woman taxi driver, struck up conversations with passengers, which were recorded on video. The processual part of the project has been realised, and it's possible that a film will follow, intended for a wide audience. Formally, Katrīna Neiburga is not alone in Latvian art. Inga Šteimane once led a project entitled "LN Women League Project", which, at least at a programmatic level, claimed to be addressing feminist issues. Helēna Demakova has detected something similar in the art of Kristiāna Dimitere. Katrīna Neiburga stands out in terms of her consistency, focussing attention on the beings that, in the words of Tennessee Williams, for their whole lives "depend on the kindness of others". However, this kind of art demands a willingness on society's part to look at its own reflection, or at the very least, take an interest in itself. | |
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