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| IRREFUTABLE RIGHTS NOT TO BE UNDERSTOOD Alise Tīfentāle Art in any form is not merely an innocent exercise in communication or materialization of a conceptual idea, but in its wider sense a manifestation of power: confrontation with a work of art is passive submission to its influence, either it would be a collection of dark brown paintings by the old masters in a museum or a contemporary art project with projections in the city and a commentary based on parapsychology. Yoseph Brodsky in his "Watermark" writes: "Perhaps nothing proves this better than modern art, whose poverty alone makes it prophetic. A poor man always speaks for the present, and perhaps the sole function of collections like Peggy Guggenheim's and the similar accretions of this century's stuff habitually mounted here is to show what a cheap, self-assertive, ungenerous, one-dimensional lot we have become, to instill humility in us." Humility brought from outside provokes a protest, rebellion, mutiny, either as a conscious of neglect or a protesting activity. City environment is one of the major public forms of manifestation of contemporary art, beginning with a gallery and finishing with clubs, streets and personal dwelling spaces, and it is exactly where one can feel a lack of communication between the work of art and the viewer because of the different wavelength of the transmitter/receiver, a certain influence is also exerted by density of information, the densely populated area of entertainment and several other aspects characteristic of contemporary city life. | |
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Revolution against culture
What goes on in the secrecy behind the brightly lit and safely curtained windows of a house? Perhaps some sort of counter-culture revolution: cheap, negligent clothes, passive consumption, staying in (opposite to going out, in other words going to clubs, cinemas and other public entertainment places) in a comparatively small circle of friends, private entertainments or simply aimless pastimes. "Advertisement has forced people to strive for cars and clothes that they don't need. The whole generations have been doing the hateful job only to be able to buy what in fact they don't need. Our generation has not experienced either a big war or a depression, but we have a big spiritual war to wage. We have a big revolution against culture. The big depression is in fact our life. We have a spiritual depression," concludes Chuck Palahniuk in his "Fight Club", the pathetic and pompous narrative about sufferings of a rebellious soul in an utterly urbanized and industrially aesthetic city reality. That is fiction. But let us get acquainted with some actual people in the twenties who in a sense already determine or will determine what is to happen in the city reality. "There is nothing real in my life. I watch TV and cry for unreal emotions and dramas created by prize-winning script writers, I live in a sterile, well-equipped environment where equally real emotions are created both by torn tights and elimination of consequences of a global calamity. But it has nothing to do with the soul! It makes one think that there is no such thing as a soul," the journalist Zanda tells me in an evening at one of the clubs. She writes about cultural events only by contingency, because politics seems too complicated for her, she has no interest in sports, but for some reason she was not given a job in women's magazines. Rebelliousness and poetic ambitions of her teens have long since been buried in a memory album, and after several random conversations she admits that the main reason for doing anything is earning money. To furnish the flat and then get a loan for a car. "Yes, money seems to be for real, and no one doubts its existence," admits Zanda. VJ Mikus lives travelling between Copenhagen, London, Rotterdam and Berlin, actively using the support of various grants and foundations. He is unable to concentrate in the conversation for more than 15 minutes because there come some of his acquaintances and he must manage all. Perhaps this is the very reason he manages to do so much. At some of Riga clubs having the required equipment, he occasionally performs as a VJ - mixing images selected for the music and the theme of the evening, while the jolly customers dance, order drinks, get acquainted and part. On such evenings Mikus sometimes does not leave the club from nine in the evening till six in the morning next day. His multimedia art project with live transmission of sound from various places in the world, video projection in the city and a data base in the internet, might represent Latvia next year in a large international festival, but only "might", because candidates are many. "I can spend the whole day in the club, it is the real life. And also in the internet where one can find fantastic things!" says Mikus. The young and talented graphic artist Valts does not go to clubs. He goes to openings of exhibition also very rarely and only when he knows that there will be plenty of wine. He doesn't go almost anywhere, lives on private commissions, goes to bed when he feels sleepy, gets up whenever he feels like, but not at the time when the conscientious civilization heads for work. Valts is renting a large flat in the centre of Riga, which he shares with several friends, meets visitors - some other friends and friends of his friends, and there is always something to talk about or keep silent about, one can have some beer. He listens to music, blowing dust from the vinyl records, he can walk around for months in the same jeans, being quite unaware that a woman writer, gone astray, will call him revolutionary, sometimes permits himself to be self-satisfied to the extent to make the others sick. He believes that the real life goes on in the studio, experimenting with different graphic techniques, looking for something new. Valts' work most probably after some time will be displayed at some large and decent galleries. And then Zanda will write in her culture section a small, polite review about what is alien to her, incomprehensive and even dangerous, although nicely displayed in the white sterile hall of a gallery. Afterparty After almost each party the most enduring guests want to continue partying in a more quiet and silent atmosphere and split up in pairs or go snugly to one of the guests' place to contemplate on the things that happened, to talk their hearts out (because at the club music is usually sufficiently loud for anyone to feel completely protected from the need of verbal communication with somebody else, except with the barman when ordering drinks), to have some more drink and to gossip about those that have gone home timely. Afterparty culture is art in itself, and its due practicing is even more important than abiding by the conventions of a club or a festival. It is quite possible that at a tentative afterparty after the opening of Valts' exhibition that has not been held yet, he will invite his friends to the rented flat to listen to music, to tell them what he thinks about his own art and that of others. It is possible that by a complete coincidence Zanda will also be at this house party, the author of the polite and grammatically correct lines. In Valts' flat she will see the whole class of the young and talented artists, sketches and colours and different tools on the table, on the window-sill, by the walls on the floor. She will see empty packs of yoghurt, dry bread gnawed by mice, will taste cheap wine, perhaps will meet there VJ Mikus, who never misses a party that has at least a small promise of fun, novelty and entertainment, as well as some idling and not talented students whose only aim in life so far is to go the Academy of Art to learn art. Zanda will get tired and will return home, and next morning on her way to the newspaper editorial she will have even a smaller insight what Valts actually does and why his works are displayed at exhibitions. To whom does the city belong? 1) In the light and vigorous part of the day - to the active office staff that toil away in the sweat of their brow, the significance of which they may not fully realize, wear neckties matching the shirt or executive suits and matching expensive shoes. Business trips, seminars, exchange of experience, expert lectures, tension, stress, haste, that creates an illusion of importance and responsibility, after that - spending of the money earned, shopping in a rush, lunching, doing sports, doing healthy relaxation at the cosmetologist, masseur and psychotherapist, and occasionally on Friday evenings getting desperately drunk in a sufficiently clean and well-equipped club; 2) perhaps to the silent and boring ones, those who have suppressed all life within themselves, who cannot be seen anywhere, because they dedicate themselves and their efforts to promoting the welfare of their family, to its maintenance and management - they live outside the centre of Riga, where air is fresher, a loan for the car, a loan for the house or a flat, a stable and monotonous job, wife and two kids, a couple of beers in a month with the friends who are the same or with colleagues; 3) to the intellectual snobs who in their conversations quote fashionable thinkers, have mastered the basis of philosophy and consider that they see through everything, with a sense of superiority look down at the consuming spree of the consumer society, and by themselves secretly buy things at brand shops that in public they despise; 4) to the residential areas - to Purvciems, Grîva, Imanta and Ziepniekkalns where one can dwell in a well-furnished flat, to buy everything in the local shop, and to entertain driving in the car, using drugs and seeking a satisfactory brawl. There are certainly numerous other possible answers and this was merely a scanty and superficial insight into those social groups that all together maintain the city alive. The most important observation is, that interaction of art with these bright, living and pulsating strata of human existence is quite restricted and insignificant. It exists by itself in art galleries, internet, private interiors and artists/workshops, computers, educational institutions and specialized libraries. It exists fragmentarily also in the minds of art historians and curators of art, and in the contents of the texts, interviews and TV shows that return to the same segment of art critics, artists and students. A wider range of interaction with the rest of the public comprising and determining the city life is impossible. Partly elitist character of the events of art in its material sense is not among the most important reasons - for instance, the traditional Autumn exhibitions and some other art events are widely attended, and the sufficient amount of advertisement attracts to the exhibition not only those who come to the exhibitions with an aim to write a review or to evaluate the work of a colleague/competitor. Certain features of intellectual conceit and xenophobia could perhaps be observed during the initial stage of the activities of the gallery "Noass". Now "Noass" is widely known, but some time ago its location was a mystery to anyone who wanted to follow the appeal of the advertisement and to attend an event, many potential enjoyers of art asked themselves a question: "who wants to be an unwelcome guest at a party" and went somewhere else. A similar ambitious separatism is still manifested by the Latvian Photography Museum by offering to attend their exhibitions only a few days a week, besides at a time non-suitable for people who work, as well as several galleries that are closed at six o'clock and on holidays. Yet they are all trifles compared to the main problem - the impossibility of adequate communication. To paint pretty flowers in a china vase and die Man has the right to understand nothing. Man has the right not to be understood. Most likely the largest part of artists consider that they even have the duty not to be understood. The intensity of city life, the narrow specialization of professions (expert syndrome - everyone can be a highly qualified specialist in one specific area and to know almost nothing about the other areas because they have been devoting the whole life to this one speciality), lack of adequate experience poses a menace of an abstract model of society where people will be unable to communicate even about daily trifles because these daily trifles and reality of life will be too different for each. They will not be able to agree upon what is real. Quite a down-to-earth example: how real is the interior of Opera shining in gold and rustling in red velvet compared to the culture of business suits worn daily by one large group of the city dwellers or - how real is the jeans and sneakers discourse in the style of TV series for teenagers "Beverley Hills" on the stage of this same Opera in one of the contemporary stage versions compared to the same code of jeans and sneakers in daily life and holidays? In the same way nobody can be certain, for example, how real are the notions "trust", "love", "treachery", "revenge" and "truth" in the context of an opera libretto by Mozart and the TV series "Sex and the City". The same embarrassing lack of certainty concerns art‑- how real is it, how much "for real" is its message and how much it can be trusted, listening to its narrative and whether it is worth while seeking in it parallels with one's own life, in particular if the artist's and viewer's experience is built on quite different and incompatible foundations. Culture anthropologist Clifford Geertz in his "Anthropology of Cultures" maintains that the aesthetic view annihilated naive realism and the practical interest in the way that people do not ask questions about trustworthiness of their daily life, but quite simply, ignore this experience, much more willingly lingering at their outward manifestations, - that is a peculiar preoccupation with planes, being taken over by "things by themselves". It is possible that the viewer who is not literally interested in art accepts much more freely and willingly the artist's exercise in the realm of aesthetics than wants to solve complex metaphysical, philosophical or intimate tasks that are quite frequently proposed by the conceptual art that has been created in quite a cynical medium saturated with artistic education and tired of visual impulses that in its own day has taken into account quite seriously postmodernist theories. (At the same time the aesthetics theory cannot all that easily be captured in a situation when all that is beautiful has been used ad nauseam to sell various products, and creates in the consumer suspicion, then dislike, is characterized as a banality and thrown out of one's consciousness like a used packaging, - but that would be a separate story.) In Anšlavs Eglītis' bright and lively, and partly documentary narrative about artists' daily life in Riga of 1930s "Homo Novus" the curator of the times teaches the young artist: "My heart aches for the efforts that have been wasted in painting so beautifully smeared paper bags, cracked pots, bones of sprats. Where is your head? Oh, artists, artists, you live in the world of legends indeed! Come on - and mark it once and for all - paint pretty flowers not in old boxes but in nice china vases. Put a bright plate under the bouquet, an ornately bound book, nicely gathered silk scarf. Even better - paint bright and juicy Southern fruit - bananas, pine-apples, grapes, oranges. Such things sell like hot cakes." Nothing can be "for real" - various perceptions see in one and the same object quite different truth. Where the art critic, for instance, will see "an incredibly expressive contrast of forms", "a surface wonderfully tarnished in an incredible way", "untraditional application of the new media" etc., a certain inquisitive viewer will suddenly notice the contrast between a rusty bucket and a plastic shovel, or a cloth nicely tarnished, completely empty and painted in a totally numb and monotonous grey colour. Eventually one can start to understand how in the Latvian art criticism a piety for the artist has appeared - trusting the artist as the messiah that promotes viewing him or his work as far as possible from the real and brutal daily life, to resort as much as possible to the specific terminology of art criticism or to present it as an onslaught of down-to-earth objects and events in the high sphere of life. Nothing threatens in the nearest future the artist's rights to be misunderstood but sometimes the mercilessly poignant phrase uttered by the teacher of the wisdom of life Brodsky in his "Watermark" is quite appropriate: "It would be much more manly to admit that you have messed up your life instead of holding on to the posture of a haunted genius." Certainly each conflict, lack of concord and adequacy, confrontation of unequal and incomparable parties is an inspiring moment that should be used! | |
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