|
|
| MY SACRED AND INTIMATE INTERESTS OR A SELF-THERAPEUTIC DOUBLE PORTRAIT. Kristīne Kursiša & Miks Mitrēvics Alise Tīfentāle My idealism is lost. Or else it has changed direction without my noticing. I have many more questions than answers about art. And I have a wish to address these questions not only to myself, but to others as well: I'm interested in the range of answers on offer. And is there a solution at all? So, take two young, attractive and talented artists: Kristīne Kursiša (born 1979) and Miks Mitrēvics (born 1980). I'm later going to ask them the same questions I nowadays can't answer - and don't even have possible answers to. | |
|
They're not scandalous or revolutionary, and their art - mainly video art and video installations, along with certain examples of web art - is discrete. And demonstrates sufficient self-confidence, since it doesn't strive to attract attention through "cheap" effects, an aggressive stance or a knife to cut you-know-what. Just like living, independent beings, they exhibit themselves with dignity, rather than be exhibited. The joint exhibition by Kristīne and Miks a year ago at the RIXC space at the Artists' Union of Latvia building was just like that - very serious. With serious enough artistic references (that nobody dares laugh at), with a sufficiently respectful attitude towards the viewer. Certainly, the works gave the feeling that the authors have thought a great deal about what they create and show.
And now, a year later, this feeling relates to another question that I've recently been pondering on. It's the question of the contact / contradiction / collaboration of intellect and emotion (or construction and free flow of consciousness) in the creative process. It seems important to me to understand to what extent the incompatibility of intellect and emotion applies to the process of creating and enjoying contemporary art. It's also because I've seen too many formal works constructed by applying the mind, which in the first instant look deceptively good, and then lead to great disappointment, since there's nothing more than perfect craftsmanship and knowledge of the context. Maybe it's too much to expect anything else from art. Possibly, this is the moment leading to my crisis of idealism. And precisely at this moment it came to my mind that the discrete character of the work by Kristīne and Miks and the presence of the private message and significance does set them apart. Maybe this was the main reason why they received the annual award for the most successful multimedia project in 2003. In truth, I have the feeling that awards, juries, scholarships and festivals are not decisively important. But today I no longer know what's valuable and important. Where's the ruler to measure wishes, ambitions and ideas? I know only that this ruler could be a formula. As inflexible and universal as the Law of Gravity, for example. One that cannot be provoked or appeased, maybe only played around with by applying those same rules, having first tried to grasp what the rules are. The understanding of the"rules", or the search for the truth, might be a worthy activity. Starting with what's closest to me, I ask: why do people write poetry and prose, photograph, film and paint, and why do they wish someone to see and understand it all? Is art a question or an answer? Is engagement in art a sufficient justification for existence? And anyway - are such questions not a kind of pointless daydreaming? For a change, I decided on a plan: next weekend I'd stay at home, watch TV and wait for my loved one to return from his business trip. It'll be a cool afternoon; I'll try to get warm under a blanket and think about smoking. About how I don't need it. Just like I don't need hermeneutics, for example. Alise Tīfentāle: In your view, is art today show business or service? Or what is it then? Why is it important to you in particular to engage in it? Kristīne Kursiša: Both one and the other. There's no "or" in it. These apparently opposite poles - show business and service - are not contradictory. More than that: they're inseparable, since they form part of each other. I'll quote a little story. Worried parents take a child to a medium, with the complaint that the child is refusing to eat any vegetables or fruit. The child's diet consists mostly of meat, large quantities of meat. The parents have been bringing up the child virtuously, but the child's behaviour is intolerable. The medium answers: leave the child alone. In its previous life, it lived in India as a vegetarian monk. Morality and religion became more important to it than God himself - love. So, for its next life, God sent it to the West. Any dependence on principles or ideals could be lethal to it. Let it eat meat: this is bringing it down to earth. If the child acts immorally, stealing money and so forth, don't upbraid it, since this is purifying its soul. And yours too... So I wouldn't like to place the emphasis on one or other position. In my view, there's no such division. There's a great lack of understanding about the essence of the matter, and this is the basis of the unremitting struggles between good and evil, with McDonalds, Rimi, CocaCola, Repše, meat-eaters, tie-wearers, cow-murderers and plain ordinary murderers... Coming back to the question of what is art, in the first place, it's the carrier of some important information useful to humanity. Thus, it's no surprise that similar tendencies appear in different places independently, with similar themes of discussion, a similar visual language, etc. In my understanding, art must carry information of a destabilising kind, undermining people's accustomed understanding of things, their logic and value system. It by no means has to behave loudly or provocatively. Take the works of Andrei Tarkovsky, for example. Why is it important to engage in it - for me in particular? I don't know... It happens of itself, right from childhood... If we're talking about the "big scene", then, of course, it's ambition. Miks Mitrēvics: My engagement in art is connected with a degree of freedom and a wish to abstract myself from the destructive mercantilism of life. Art itself does not change very much over time, but its application and adaptation to life change. Art is adapted to contemporary life by means of projects, which strive to integrate art into "modern" life. Accordingly, there's an attempt to present art as a form of entertainment, as a business, fulfilling the function that interests society, which is worked into the art project. The procedure is as follows: the artist or art manager, in order to bring off a project, to implement it technically, augments the artist's idea with the framework of the project: aims, significance, investment, topicality, etc. But it's often the case that, in the end, art itself does not appear within this project framework, does not find a place for itself there or languishes feebly. The same as birds don't feel at home in some beautiful cages, though the cages really are beautiful. This is a cause of bureaucratic misunderstandings, where grandiose projects and big words are no more than that. Described as art are a variety of phenomena showing artistic spirit or presented in an artistic way. In my view, the creator or the artist is not particularly significant. Artists are not chosen ones or geniuses. They're simply people sufficiently open towards what is happening around them and capable of interpreting and channelling information from above - or perhaps from below or from the side. Likewise, an artist can develop a career through his work, his ambitions and his will, also making use of good pedigree (a good school, getting into the art scene) and by involving a manager. A.T.: It transpires that the artist's personality, like that of an actor, must be as indefinite and undeveloped as possible, in order to retain the ability to serve as a carrier of this stream of information from the world around them? M.M.: The emphasis on information from the world might be erroneous and is open to misinterpretation, just like the terms ‘transcendental', ‘esoteric' and other fad concepts most commonly used in empty prattle, since this world information might take the form of planetary motion, the Finger of God, or equally, a street-fight or a run-over cat. The artist's personality and the work of art are two different things and may be diametrically opposed. This shows only that a work of art is not simply a mirror reflection of the artist himself, but instead a conscious and thought-out expression, adequate to the situation and the age. The artist's indefiniteness should be expressed in openness towards the surrounding world without prejudice and ready-made concepts in his head. Since a simple "no" to what is happening, or the following of ready-made concepts is also a kind of blindness. A.T.: Does an artist have to think at all? That is, apart from cases where the artist is writing a project together with the manager you mentioned. If it isn't thinking, then how would you describe the process during which your next work comes about? I'm very interested in this because often at major, responsible exhibitions I'm surprised: it needed so little thought to do this. Not in the sense that there's no work been devoted to it, but more in the sense that the work investment has not had any important justification. Some kind of impulse gained along the way, and now, to fulfil an obligation, it's turned into an exhibition piece. Your work and Kristīne's work does not have that feeling. I don't know if you yourself as an artist sense such a difference, or whether you do any categorising at all of what you see at exhibitions. M.M.: A variety of ideas and concepts often come about, but to produce a sufficiently comprehensive and finished work, you need some externally derived necessity for it. The process is of the kind where hundreds of sketches are drawn, but these aren't finished works. They're interesting elements, mind games, everyday occurrences that have caught the eye, wonders. Perhaps that's why I very rarely get myself together for a finished work, since I don't see the point of it, or the call for it. So instead, I create a variety of artistic knick-knacks just for professional reasons. In that case, better sleep at home with one's wife and watch TV. Carrying a work to completion requires not a little effort and the bringing together of all these creative elements into a common system, so that the finished work would, in the first place, be justified in the eyes of the artist. In the course of creating a finished work, the end vision is usually maintained, but there is the possibility of a variety of unforeseeable factors beyond the artist's control, so when working at it you have to keep the main idea in front of you, rather than get carried away with details. As regards the cultural life around us, you rarely meet a work that makes a person feel 10 cm shorter (in other words, powerful works, since the phrase "good works" is not a good description of this group of works). Latvia has only the theatre cult of Alvis Hermanis and a few Don Quixotes in the visual arts, but for the most part, art is cut off from real life and is viewed in a narrow context of artistic expression, dominated by particular disciplines of the visual arts, distinguished on the basis of technique: painting, graphic art, sculpture, performance art, video, etc. This is, of course, connected with general trends in society‑- apathy and shortsightedness, concealed behind feverish activity. A.T.: And what's your view: does the contemporary artist have to be well educated, and not only in art? And, in general, is art after all a question purely of talent? In other words, does all-round knowledge - in the Renaissance sense - have any significance? K.K.: A pure talent will sit in the country, paint the real thing and carve spoons, simply having the itch to do it... But here we are, all striving for the "big scene", writing concepts and justifications for our works. We feel a need to show ourselves and make it all the way to New York, so that everyone will know that I AM... And it's precisely such aims that a good education is useful for. On the topic of knowledge as such, I should say that there are times when knowledge can be damaging. Particularly knowledge for the sake of knowledge. If a person puts, as an aim in itself, expertise instead of self-cognisance, then with time, logical side-effects will appear. People start to be assessed only from the point of view of abilities and expertise. Most commonly, this emerges in the classic form: they're all stupid, I alone am clever. On the other hand, knowledge for the purpose of self-cognisance is the key that eventually reveals that knowledge, expertise and lofty ideals actually play a quite secondary role in true human spiritual evolution. We strive to obtain information by reading other people's revelations, thus robbing ourselves of the possibility and courage of arriving at revelations ourselves. A.T.: Is it at all possible to transmit one's idea adequately to the viewer through a work of art? Is the function of communication important for art? M.M.: To transmit my idea adequately is not my aim, since in the work process I'm interested in the constitution and structure of the work, the informational core I put into it or that is expressed in it through me. Thereafter, it's simply interesting to watch the development of the viewer's attitude and interpretation, based on each individual's experience and feelings. So, my involvement in video is connected with a number of tools (the image, sound, the "darkroom") that permit me act on the viewer and, most important, to isolate them from the over-saturated environment. Sometimes it's more important, more effective to use the effect of a pause, rather than pouring new information over people's heads. K.K.: It is possible, but not for everyone. That's where the characteristic feature of the artist - with a capital letter - lies. And if it does happen, then that's your hour of glory. In order for it to be possible, there are many preconditions. First: you must have the tools, a lot of tools; second, you need to be bright and ambitious, and there must be a green light. If this magic combination has come together, then it'll all take off... If, by "function of communication" you mean the kind of attention-grabbing that often, thanks to the advertising industry, is confused with an address, then the answer is no. Quite the opposite. In contrast to advertising, where everything is handed to you on a silver platter, the main function of a work of art is to allow you to reach the message yourself. In order for this to happen, a person must himself engage in at least some kind of mental activity. A.T.: And if I ask you the annoying question of whether society, apart from artists themselves and their friends, is ready or willing to engage in any "mental activity" at all outside the limits of their paid duties at work? Consider the specific setting in Latvia: people with time, money or even the motivation to invest in any way in contemporary art - as does take place in London, Berlin or New York - don't even think about it. In their free time, they choose to be somewhere out in the country paddling on the river, or else they go bowling in a well-furnished hall. Or let's say, they read the magazine Rīgas Laiks with interest, since it writes about death and so on, but they're unlikely to go to an exhibition of contemporary art, where the artist is touching on these same issues in their own way. K.K.: I view very sceptically the idealised wish of intellectuals to make the whole tie-wearing mass of society into art-lovers. When we finally latch onto the idea that the existing model of society, in precisely such proportions and qualities as there are, is nothing other than the optimal form and an absolute necessity, then we'll lose any wish to criticise and moralise in this connection. And with regard to potential patrons of art who are instead paddling on the river - well, let them sit and enjoy their welfare. When the standard of living in Latvia rises and when earning money will no longer be people's main and essential priority, then we'll see a possible and gradual change of priorities. I really don't know about reading: it's been a long time since I read anything. I'm not inspired by modern or unmodern literature, by other people's everyday subjective drivel... Sometimes it's even dangerous for perception... A.T.: Is art, for you, more a question or an answer? This is meant to provoke you to discuss the creative process, which is, of course, intimate and sacred. M.M.: In answering such questions, we have to engage primarily in explaining and interpreting concepts, and it's usually hard to fit anything intimate or sacred in there, since the intimate or sacred might sooner express itself in silence or in an awkward situation, for example, rather than in a theoretical answer. K.K.: I'd prefer to leave this question as a dessert for art theoreticians. They like fantasising on such themes. If an artist is dealing with some issue, then he or she will envisage the answer to it right at the heart of it. The attitude sometimes lies even in the way one poses the question - with all those fine nuances. Ideally, an artist doesn't ask anything or answer anything: he has a vision, and the rest does not depend on him. Ideally, an artist should not be engaged in socio-political themes. Ideally, a work of art lives an independent life of its own - since a real work of art comes only when a person switches off their "boiling kettle"... A.T.: Finally, a small linguistic exercise. In the context of your artistic education and in general - what, after all, is "visual communication"? Can this string of words at least serve as a definition and a finally-discovered role for contemporary art, is it just a good generalisation or is it something else? M.M.: It's quite an abstract concept, used to refer to a variety of phenomena in contemporary art. I'm not sure that anyone gains a clearer idea from using it. K.K.: It's a good generalisation... | |
| go back | |
