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| RIGA FRINGES Stella Pelše The collection of photo and video images of Latvia's capital city in the exhibition organised by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art on this occasion is reminiscent of a kind of chamber style event with relatively predictable results. Compared to the annual exhibitions of the second half of the 1990s, here we see far less pretensions to widening the boundaries of artistic expression; the public too seems less easy to offend with more unusual solutions, which from one aspect can only be a good thing. Nevertheless, after visiting the exhibition there was a certain sense of lack of surprise and experience of new discovery in the air; or perhaps these are only reminiscences of some past romantic modernist age? The oft-mentioned repetition of the Riga theme makes us remember last year's exhibition "Metropolis. Riga" in the atmosphere of Riga's 800 year anniversary. This, however, had a different objective - to synthesise past and present images of the city within thematic sections with the help of mainly documentary and more or less objective testimony, and only partly including artists' works "on the subject". Unlike "Metropolis. Riga", the aim of this project is definitely less pretentious and more subjective; its main function was not investigative, but what then? | |
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RIGA PEOPLE - BY THEIR OWN AND OTHERS' EYES.
One possible version that city dwellers form the basic substance of a city raises the question - do they determine the dimensions of the city or vice versa. This is similar to the hopeless search for the causal relationship between chicken and egg. Although the background also has much to say, Andrejs Grants' photo series "Light in the City" was focused on the person revealing people's reaction to being faced with the sun's reflection. Some draw back, other calmly close their eyes or look slightly away. The author's accentuated shortness of the moment, only about a second, is noticeable as is the organisation of the situation. On this occasion the photographer not only selects the motif but also creates an artificial situation. The photo series "Roma/Gypsies in Latvia" by Kaspars Goba, on the other hand, takes form of static portraits of individuals or groups with characteristic elements of their environment. At the centre of attention is a section of society with a quite negative reputation (fortune tellers, drug dealers). Their impoverished lives could raise the question of the apportionment of blame between the Roma themselves and prejudiced society. Quite often, the Roma faces seem to contradict our negative preconceptions - a sizeable group of children generally smiling and hopeful but the adults are considerably more resigned. At the time of writing, Inta Ruka's large format series "People I've Met" was not on show in its envisaged places - on public transport stops. That means we can only discuss the general nature of the chosen images. As with country people, the most inspiring feature of Riga people is their individuality, the mutual difference - each of them evokes different associations, expresses a different perception of life - from worried sadness to vital conviction. Both the energetic young man by the shiny car (Jānis) and the vagrant looking old man (Bruno) are Riga people; it is up to the viewer whether the latter's resigned appearance is perceived as being critically directed at the former. The greatest doubt however, comes from such an apparently good idea as distributing these images around the city, but the feeling persists that the viewer would be better served by seeing them together, because I doubt if many people will specially visit all these stops. As a result, one could get an exaggerated impression of the author's socio-critical position if one saw the sad image of a vagrant or quite the opposite, one might think she was polishing reality on seeing one of the optimistically smiling people. Gints Gabrāns' video installation "The Reality Sect" continues his by now familiar theme of turning a vagrant into a media star. Seeing the everyday existence of a down and out and his gradual transformation into a well-heeled "businessman", I have to say that the dispassionate documentary stylistic works really well. The religious ecstasy-like activities in the event called the "Money Pyramid Game" are apparently to be regarded as the tie between "before" and "after", between a city resident's possibly highest and lowest points of existence. Cities, where the levelling yet at the same time protective support of a country community disappears, are, of course, zones of civilisation's contrasts and inequality. The artificial, conditional nature of social status in no way, however, detracts from its empirical reality. On the other hand, the realisation that the division between rich and poor is not an expression of the will of God, the world order or natural law holds the possibility of an optimistic interpretation. There is only the question whether to begin with revolution or with oneself. The American photographer Brigitte Carnochan's cycle "Girls of Riga" is the clearest example of the direct dependence of the thematic framework on the author's own commentary. If we don't know the personal memory of a little girl's searches for "I" that the author left in Germany in 1947, it would be difficult to find some specific Riga features in the images of the young girls. In the context of this exhibition, the girls - from babies to young misses - perhaps serve as an instrument for the visualisation of the most personal conceptions. Ebba Matz from Sweden has photographed men in the Riga streets and drawn circles around those that she would like to meet. In a way this could be a challenging feminist action that demonstrates the instinct of an active huntress. The viewer however, gains little from the mosaic of circled Riga men; of course, one can look for their similarities and differences. THE RIGA SPACE THEN AND NOW The attention of the other authors is more concentrated on the environment as a whole where the presence of people is not obligatory. And when they are present they are seen more as a part of the environment. The photos by Gvido Kajons and Egons Spuris reveal a Riga that already belongs to Soviet times. In Kajons' works the viewer is faced with obtrusive slogans and examples of obvious agitation but the real people with their backs to the lens are quite obviously revealing the rift between the official and their own real, private being. Spuris' anonymous tower blocks are quite frightening from a living environment aspect; however, the configuration of these walls and the game of light and shadow often result in quite beautiful, almost abstract geometrical compositions. There are only a few signs of habitation - a couple of children in the corner of one work; in another, open-throated chicks appear from a nest in a window; washing hung out to dry or the body of a car from Soviet times. The most varied in terms of depicted motifs was the photo series by Marcus Haydock "Untitled". It featured close-ups of anonymous crumbling walls, shafts of light in tree trunks or foliage, long-forgotten sculptures and Soviet symbols as well as photographs of people met. Although the author writes that he wishes to "challenge people to consider their own assumptions both about the world and how it's perceived"1, this sounds like a heightened conception of art's social education functions. It is difficult to imagine how precisely the colourful, almost aestheticised corners of Bolderāja can provoke some specifiable views and perception of the world. Unless, of course, the fragments of reality that have captured the interest of the artist are to be regarded as a counter argument to the lazy tourists who wouldn't even think of putting a foot outside the routes of famous objects and monuments featured in the guidebooks. "Kiosk! Riga" by German artist Ingeborg Lockemann provided considerably longer pleasure in examining and recognising the kiosks in Riga, moreover without any particular pretensions to an overly serious message. I have to conclude that truly outstanding stylistic variety and level of taste rules in the field of architectonic fringes. Ilva Kļaviņa's film "Ballhead" in the style of a playful detective adventure in Riga is an original addition to the exhibition. At the centre is a strange, elusive creation with a glass ball instead of a head that steals cartons of milk. As in the mutants hunted in the "X-Files", Ballhead too is not caught and, significantly, appears in the last frames of the film as a kind of local alien. This could, perhaps, symbolise that side of the world and human nature that cannot be fully understood. One can say that in terms of content, the film was oriented towards the fringes - ordinary objects and people, the everyday and the personal. "As a whole, the project has been envisaged as the registration of the impulses of the city's marginal spaces because any representation of a city can only be a reduced version of its essence."2 I doubt if the thesis that an artist can only reveal his own reduced, subjective experience and not some objective truth about the world that serves as his source of inspiration demands special proof. The problem may arise at the moment when the existence of a shiny mainstream city is naturally accepted that runs counter the story dictated by individual experience. It may turn out that the cult of marginality is also a certain part of fashion that expresses the limited view of binary opposition. It remains for the viewer himself to consider how inexhaustible the charm of ordinary outskirts can really be and at what point individual experience can also become dependent on preconceptions about the a priori value of the ordinary. 1 Haydock, Marcus // The City. Stories about Riga [Exhibition catalogue].- Riga: Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, 2002.- P. 26. | |
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