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| THE PRISON’S “SILVER LINING”. Studija interviews Jānis Borgs In April and May at the Arsenāls Exhibition Hall, we will witness a hitherto unseen event - the 20th anniversary commemoration of an exhibition. A generation of artists only just born at the time of the 1984 exhibition "Nature. Environment. Man" will try anew to give content to this concept. The 1984 exhibition is the stuff of legend. It is regarded as a turning point for the acceptance of new art phenomena in Latvian culture, and in fact it is the starting point for discussion of contemporary art in Latvia in the second half of the 20th century. The exhibition is most closely connected with the name of Ojārs Ābols, a painter and theoretician who was a unique personality for this time and place on account of his comprehensive knowledge and intellectual study of art, and in terms of his depth of analysis and appreciation of contemporary phenomena. However, the exhibition "Nature. Environment. Man" held in April 1984 in the extensive space of St Peter's Church, within the frame of the Days of Art, opened in memory of Ojārs Ābols, since the artist himself was no longer among us. Studija has chosen for its major interview the artist and theoretician Jānis Borgs, whose name is closely connected with this exhibition and the implementation of the project, turning into a reality the concept developed by Ojārs Ābols. | |
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Jānis Borgs: The origin of the exhibition was inspired entirely by Ojārs Ābols himself, and the run-up to it includes the two or even three years when he was advocating this idea, this concept he had cherished. Ojārs Ābols was my teacher, we were neighbours and close associates. He invited me to participate in various writings and shared his thoughts. But I wasn't the only one whom he talked to about it. He promoted it in the Painting Section of the Artists' Union and elsewhere. I joined in as a supporter.
Studija: Why was Ābols so interested in ecology that he developed this into the theme of a major exhibition involving various media? This was a time when the works he painted were all in this same key: the series "Processes on Earth", "Anti-Biedermeyer". These were the thoughts he lived with in those days: ecology in the global sense and human spiritual ecology. He kept abreast of contemporary world events and considered that such ideas - even in the reality of that time - might provide a point of departure for Modernism. Since, in order to present it, there had to be a motivation. Then the ideological institutions could raise no objections. It was a very attractive proposal - artists thinking socially, concerned about what was happening in the world. This is something to be applauded and stimulated. It was a kind of Trojan horse. But I don't think it was a sham Trojan horse. Certainly, Ābols himself felt deeply about it. Ecology not only at the level of "green" ideas, but also thinking about mental pollution in society. What did you talk about? Formal aspects or ideas? At that time, they were, after all, set apart. All of it together. In the evenings, we sat in his Mežaparks studio, usually on a couch by a wooden table he had designed, and got down to work. I've managed to keep various notes. How were the works selected, and how was the idea of the exhibition realised? It happened gradually. First, the idea was disseminated and encouraged among painters and elsewhere. My job was also to persuade the young artists. I don't remember whether I wrote it myself, or whether he wrote it, but there was a kind of description of the concept, a kind of leaflet, which was distributed to the various sections, announcing that such an idea was developing. At the end, there was a meeting, and an exhibition organising committee was established, and the event was included in the plans. And then Ojārs was no more, but the organising committee kept at work and it all happened. It developed as in the example that Ojārs liked to cite: the building of Chartres Cathedral, where unknown people each contributed their own stone in order to build the great edifice. There was a feeling of solemnity. Is it possible to speak of a curator of this exhibition? I don't remember the financial aspects of the exhibition. The Artists' Union backed it, but I don't remember if there were any other sources. However, it's hard to speak of a single curator. It was a team effort, where the associates (the organising committee) worked together, discussing and reaching a common view, deciding how it should be done. A scheme had been created, and then each one of us worked in our own sector. It seems there may have been more submissions and that certain things were excluded. There were some who wished to participate but didn't fit into the concept of Modernism. There weren't many, but they were put aside. It wouldn't be right to say that this was the first conceptual exhibition. Exhibitions such as "Art and sport", "Art and the militia" in the Soviet era might also be called conceptual. But this was a unique idea in terms of its philosophical depth. And the concept was manifested for the first time by means of pure, unmasked artistic expression. Ojārs Ābols was commemorated with a showing of his works in the introduction to the exhibition. The 1984 exhibition "Nature. Environment. Man" has gone down in history as a turning-point, a baseline for new thinking in art here in Latvia, keeping abreast of world processes, although it was a time still under the mark of the Soviet regime. I agree that it was the beginning of a paradigmatic shift, the peak where artists openly came out on a mass scale with modern forms of art, without masking them under concepts such as "design", etc. (Of course, there was design too, and applied art, but it was an openly modern exhibition on a mass scale.) A hundred artists, and from all generations - a major force. But I cannot agree with the idea that this is a baseline for the development of modern art in Latvia after the Second World War. I would in fact prefer to regard as the starting point the year 1956, when there really was a turning point, a farewell to Stalinist culture. But the "Iron Curtain" at that time was still only in the process of consolidation! The relationship with world art processes actually existed only in the form of "correctly" oriented criticism! The Iron Curtain had started to rust and had a lot of holes. Thinking had already begun. It was no longer oppressed. Under Khrushchev, there was a degree of liberation, though of course, the great inertia continued to roll on for about a decade. Initially, the activity was carried on by sporadic, isolated figures. Take Kurts Fridrihsons, for example. When he came back from forced exile, he was modern. And there were the Abstractionists - Ojārs Ābols, Zenta Logina and Lidija Auza. Of course, in 1962 there was a tide of reaction against modern art. As a result, a separation was made in art: studio art was regarded as ideological, and here one had to conform to canons, while all the rest of art - applied art, design and architecture - was freed from ideology and came to be regarded as something outside of ideology. It was all nonsense, of course, but in these art forms, one was free to do anything. The situation was laughable: a composition that might be woven by Heimrāts or Vīgnere counted as a mortal sin if painted in oils as studio art. It was absurd: everything was reduced to the technique you used to create a work. And so, a large proportion of Modernists made the change to applied art and thus found their fulfilment, especially when applied arts departments were established at the Academy of Art, where one could work freely, in contrast to those departments where one had to work within the frame of Socialist Realism. This led to inner tension. The students and young artists saw that the others, the applied artists, were applying modern approaches, while they themselves were forbidden it. But the mechanism had been put in place, and there was a slow evolution and convergence. At the time of my studies at the Academy of Art (1965-1970), uncensored, free exhibitions of student works were already being held, and here all the modern movements were represented. It's true there was discussion and criticism, but the exhibitions as such were even radical. I remember a paper installation after which the academy administration reprimanded the student artist concerned for "destroying valuable material". There were Abstractionists, Expressionists Surrealists, and I myself exhibited my assemblages. It was all happening! This was within the academy, but gradually it began to emerge at public exhibitions too. We had no such thing as an underground, as existed in Russia, where there was radical underground art and official art. With us, the borderline was quite blurred, since the official institutions strove to avoid such polarisation. The ones who counted as nonconformists were also accepted into the Artists' Union, the only difference being that perhaps they didn't sit on the presidia and were not given access to the major exhibition halls and the Museum of Art, they were censored from the major exhibitions, such as the "Autumn" salon, but they exhibited their works in the fringe - at cultural centres, etc. The most popular venue, a sort of bastion of the avant-garde art in those days, was the "God's Ear" exhibition hall in the Planetarium. It served as a pressure valve. Practically all exhibitions were accepted there, so long as they didn't contain direct political subversion. And in terms of form, anything went, including installations and performances. There were also exhibitions in the basement of the Museum of Foreign Art. Then Bilzens appeared, and Lediņš, and there were exhibitions at the Architects' Union, and a telebridge with America. In the late 70s, Valdis Āboliņš came to Riga together with Edvīns Paas. (Valdis could be seen next to Beuys in a photo at the big Fluxus exhibition in Riga last year.) However, the first major point of reference for the Modernists was the "Celebration" exhibition in the Stock Exchange Building in 1972. But "Celebration" was labelled as a design exhibition... It consisted entirely of the radical avant-garde, presented in a major exhibition filling the whole of the Stock Exchange Building. The title was in honour of some anniversary of the October Revolution or some CPSU congress, and the overture featured the hammer-and-sickle symbols, but the rest was all the way it should be. In order to be able to say that we had not retreated from Socialist Realism, but that these were designers with their experiments, the exhibition was "camouflaged" as design. Of course, it was so transparent that there were indignant viewers and readers, and scornful entries in the visitors' books, saying: this isn't design, it's counterrevolutionary! "Celebration" was the first major point of reference, since there had been nothing of the kind before. And so it began: every exhibition included something radical. There were design exhibitions where Formalist art flourished in the greatest variety of forms, and at the major "Autumn" exhibitions the occasional works did appear. Take Ilmārs Blumbergs, for example. By the 70s, his Surrealist style was fully developed and was being openly presented. Society was gradually accustomed to it. The term "Socialist Realism" disappeared from public consciousness already in the 70s. I don't remember anyone mentioning it after 1975, except for official speeches by party bosses. But no more than that. The whole art scene was overtaken with different ideas. What talk could there be of Socialist Realism, when in the Artists' Union they were all modern artists, all wanting to use modern approaches. Was there really such unanimity in the major art institutions? The bastion of the old, Soviet-style thinking was the Academy of Art. There was a kind of "confrontation" between the Artists' Union and the Academy of Art. At that time, they were two opposite poles: the Artists' Union, representing the "bright" model and concept of the future, while the Academy of Art was in part a defender of Soviet tradition. Seemingly so. For all that, the Central Committee chided the rector Indulis Zariņš: what sort of a defender of tradition was he, if the whole Artists' Union was full of academy graduates. In essence, it came back to the same "ideological" error made in the Khrushchev era, when the division into studio art and decorative applied art was accepted. The genie had been released from the bottle, and control had been lost. Thus, all these processes condensed, and in 1984 the condensate had become so strong that the explosion, seemingly unexpected, went off. Public interest was immense. But the 1984 exhibition "Nature. Environment. Man" was closed ahead of time... It was closed in its final week, not because of any kind of internal ideological considerations, but because a delegation had arrived from East Germany, which was more pious than the Pope himself, and expressed its indignation: what was happening over here? It's a manifestation of bourgeois ideology. We're going to complain in Moscow. That was the threat, and of course, it frightened everyone to death, and the reaction followed. A TV broadcast was also intended. But at a meeting in the TV centre with the Central Committee Secretary for Ideology Aivars Goris, we were forced to concede that if it wasn't going to be a critical broadcast, then it would be forbidden. Of course, no criticisers emerged. There was only one critical newspaper article by a prominent art researcher. And then there was a discussion of the exhibition in St Peter's Church, with teaching staff from the State Academy of Art, researchers, etc. - about 30 people altogether. I took on the role of an advocate and prepared a speech point by point in order to defend and explain the exhibition. Thus, nothing really came of the criticism. It was limited to comments that it might better have been done this way or that. In parallel, the Days of Art were going on as well, a kind of uncensored event that also permitted "letting off steam". That was the context, so the public was ready to perceive this kind of art. What were the critics' arguments? I remember a laughable argument from certain communists: how could one present a "Lord's Supper" of painters in a church, even at the altar. If it were somewhere else, then that would be different... All of a sudden, the church had become for them a sacred place! The holiness of the church was put forward as a trump card in favour of the official ideology! What followed after the closing of the exhibition? It seems there were no particular sanctions? Well, it was closed down, and that was a gloomy feeling. It seemed there would be another reaction as in 1963. But then, Boriss Pugo played an unexpectedly positive role. Although that was about half a year later. In a public speech, he said that the avant-garde artists in particular were the ones "on whom we can count, since they are free from conformist considerations". For the orthodox figures who heard it, this was a great shock. But Pugo was already aware that Gorby's time was coming, the time of perestroika. He knew this earlier than others. About a year earlier. He was very well aware of the mood in Moscow, and suddenly he came up with this counterpoint. And from this moment on, the creative floodgate was well and truly open. The depression passed. There were exhibitions, the lifting of censorship, Gorby, etc. And it culminated with the "Latvian Avant-garde" exhibition in Berlin in 1988. There was great euphoria, a unique kind of Western-style art that had developed under the Soviets and was unexpected for the West. In fact, in the time of Gorby, the whole of the Latvian avant-garde already had the full backing of official institutions and the party. What developments in the future course of art stemmed directly from the exhibition "Nature. Environment. Man"? The exhibition participants were all fully-fledged artists with mature concepts, with their own Modernist platforms. Breže's car with the turf, the neon chairs, Gailāns' fence - convincing works in forms of expression that would not have been considered a worthy contribution in any other major exhibition. I too participated. Now, looking through the lists, I'm even surprised. (We were a small company: Ārgalis, Celms, Baltinavietis, Šmeļkovs and I, with our photocollage works.) The exhibition was significant as a catalyst that produced a single current. Previously, there had been separate streams, but now there was a torrent, a river, a flow. Such public demonstrations as the "Lord's Supper", in my view largely shaped how these young artists would develop in the future. All this, starting with 1956, puts paid to the myth that, well, the Soviet era was a time when nothing happened, that all freedom dates only from 1990. That's a load of claptrap. The whole of our Modernism is a product of the Soviet era. It grew up in that time. But can we say that in those days it had the same ideational and aesthetic basis that was behind Modernist movements in the West? Partly. Perhaps not at the same level, at the same scale. Let's start with Abstractionism in the 60s, which came about through the direct influence of both Western European and American art. Then there was a great upsurge of Pop Art, around 1968, when everyone was enthused with it: Vorkals, for example, and these Pop Art expressions were variously reflected in applied art as well. At the same time, Pop Art lacked the ideational foundation it had in the West, it developed here more in a decorative, superficial way. The exhibition by Vorkals, Priedītis and Borgs in "God's Ear" was pure Pop Art. I became acquainted with pure conceptualism in 1974 on a trip to Poland, when I visited the Foksal Gallery, which was a kind of Vatican of conceptualism in Eastern Europe. I met Borowski. The gallery was empty, I was alone there, and he wondered at me - a visitor spending several hours here. He stuffed my bag full of catalogues and was overjoyed. And then I too became engaged in such conceptualist stuff. At that time, I was the Headmaster of the Rozentāls School of Art, and I submitted a conceptualist work at an exhibition - with some kind of stripes. The curators, traditionalists who wanted to annoy me, hung it upside down. (The signature showed which way up it should be.) I made nothing of it, I didn't express any anger, and no scandal ever came of it. That was in 1978. I wouldn't say that we had all the different movements and that they were as richly represented, but at a kind of rudimentary or embryonic form, Western Modernism was represented. Which do you regard as the most potent aspects of this avant-garde development? It seems to me that in Latvia the greatest accomplishments were in the field of the installation. The Estonians are strong in performance art, while the Lithuanians have expressed themselves in sculpture, but over here, I've gotten most satisfaction from various installations, first and foremost those of Tillbergs. Along with Ģelzis and Breže. I have a long-cherished dream of creating in Latvia my own "Louisiana". If I had a foundation of my own that I could use freely, then there'd be an elegant collection of modern European art by our Latvian artists, but now I simply don't have the means... How is avant-garde thinking developing in Latvia nowadays, compared with the way it was back then? Now there's the feeling that it's a kind of emancipated herd with unlimited pasture. They roam and develop freely. Back in those days, the guys were in a sort of narrow channel, in a partly closed space, with partial limits, and there was always a longing - a longing for something. This prison feeling may even have brought about the flavour of life. The striving. At a private party, Kurts Fridrihsons told me that he never regretted his time in Siberia, that it did him good. While his contemporaries were sitting and drinking in cafés, he was able to work in peace in Siberia, developing his idea, making sketches, developing his system of images, on which his later fame was based. Well, he wasn't put to work at any particularly heavy labour, and he could go into a corner of the barracks and work. Certainly, to my surprise, his assessment of it was very optimistic and sunny. But I think Kurts Fridrihsons was simply like that... He had a philosophical approach to life, that's true. But it's also an illustration that even prison has it's "silver lining". If you're being chased by someone, then it mobilises you: that's evident in nature too. And there's also a loss of meaning, a loss of direction, a loss of the flavour of life when you're free. In the jungle of the free market, a proportion of artists become commercialised. Earlier, our artists avoided social themes, delving into lyricism, philosophical study and beautiful forms. Now, the social criticism is upheld. New media are coming in, new technologies and forms. It's all happening. Perhaps our artists lack the kind of fury seen from time to time in the Russian avant-garde. The Latvians always manage to do it in a nice way. There's no point in contrasting these different eras. We may gripe from time to time that there's a lack of thought, ideas, concepts. But there are similar problems wherever you go and talk to people. I think the water-level has long-since equalised and our art is part of Europe. | |
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