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| The Official Version by Krišs Salmanis Armands Zelčs, Artist A conversation with the artist Krišs Salmanis | |
| Krišs Salmanis made his debut on the art scene quite a long time ago. But not that long ago. Just long enough to collect an array of awards and find things to write in his CV. His exhibitions include the one man show Exit in Düsseldorf, and two others, in conjunction with Daiga Krūze, right here in Latvia: 100% Disappointment and Silver, Gold, Plasticine. He also has had plenty of experience in group exhibitions across the whole of Europe. Krisš is from the Department of Visual Communications class of 2003, a group which also includes artists such as Katrīna Neiburga, Ieva Jerohina Epnere, Ingrīda Pičukāne and Maija Līduma, and he shares the conceptual vision characteristic of graduates from this department. When you hear of a new exhibition or artwork by Krišs, be prepared for some surprises. I remember that working at a certain place, and after several days of toiling in silence I had forgotten that Krišs was actually sharing the same room with me. I won’t repeat exactly what he said to me back then, but I remember it was laconic and later I had to think about his words. On April 24, Krišs Salmanis’ latest exhibition The Lost Ones (Pazudušie) will open at the Riga Art Space. That’s something to think about. | |
 Krišs Salmanis. NO1. Waxed chest. 2008. Photo from the artist's private archive | |
| A.Z.: Together with Daiga Krūze you once released an artwork in the form of a handbook with blank pages titled How to become an Artist. Based on your experience, how does one become an artist? K.S.: You're just born to do it! Although the 100 blank pages in the handbook might have encouraged the thought that you could do it by casting aside laziness. A.Z.: You've spoken a lot about your apparent laziness, yet at the same time you're capable of spending three months in the bathroom drawing animations (I'm speaking about the creation of the animation Shower). I understand that the maximum production rate is three to four frames per day. K.S.: It wasn't that crazy most of the time. Mostly I did 30 frames per day. But thanks for the compliment. You said at the beginning that I talked a lot. I don't quite recall when that could have been. And I think I've only mentioned laziness to you once. A.Z.: Not quite. I've heard you say it a number of times. Although your special definition of laziness goes something like: "I thought up some complicated animation because I was too lazy to bother doing something simpler". K.S.: OK, I always think that I'm doing too little. A.Z.: Are you tortured by guilt about work left undone? K.S.: Yes. Maybe, as you mentioned, thinking is lazy. You have to force yourself to physically do something. You can scratch about with an animation forever, but you have to actually get down to doing something. So what is laziness really? A.Z.: In simple terms, the drive to do nothing. K.S.: But doing nothing is one hell of a matter. It's very necessary. That's why I've accomplished bigger things during the artist residencies I've attended, especially those that last about three months. The first month is spent doing absolutely nothing. Of course you fell guilty about doing nothing, but later on you appreciate that this is important. Doing nothing, laziness, helps you to arrive at a state of mind that facilitates movement. Of course it's also necessary to recover from the work you do to earn a living. A.Z.: At least during that time you are less likely to do something wrong. A familiar activity. If I don't take a break from work at least once a week, I don't feel like a full member of society. K.S.: Once in the Academy hallway I noticed an acquaintance looking out the window. Not smoking at the window, or talking on the phone or staring at something, just simply looking out. I came back 15 minutes later and she was still standing there. That struck me as something special. I haven't achieved that level of calm. I like to observe, but it's more and active type of viewing with all of the resulting consequences. A.Z: Are "all of the resulting consequences" a finished artwork or just a rough cut that you have to rework later on? K.S.: It's a sketch. Often it's just a technical solution that may sit in the locker room for years before I find the right role for it. I knew a long time ago that I wanted to create a levitating, rotating vegetable as a parody of 3D animation, but it was only much later that I found the point of significance for such a work. In that case, it was a matter of finding the right sound to transform the statement "Why I'm not a vegetarian" from an animator's joke into a real outburst. | |
 Krišs Salmanis. The Shower. Animantion loop. 2007. Photo from the artist's private archive | |
| A.Z.: In several works you've used yourself as the raw material for art. You've cut into your leg, pulled out your hair, tattooed yourself and created a font from deformations in your navel. You've made reference to Body Art and Vienna Actionist Art, but maybe it has something to do with something you've managed to hide all these years? K.S.: I'd rather not say anything. Better stick to the official version. The leg cutting came first. It happened after I had read a book. Cleverly written, but thankfully with pictures. I was attracted by an image of Gina Pane cutting herself in the belly during a performance, with the blood dripping onto her white pants. And I thought, wow! It somehow stuck in my memory and I wanted to try it myself. Of course it would have been pointless, so for a long time I didn't try it. Then I read more about Body Art and realised that it had all been done. From simply scratching yourself through to hacking a part of your body into pieces so tiny they can't be put together again. The only thing left for me was to say that it had all been said. That's how it all came together. The opening shot of the film is actually its content and also its final shot, and the credits name the most popular artists of this genre. Once, when I showed this artwork, I was asked if it wasn't a pig, or at least some other person rather than me. That's probably the answer to your question. You wouldn't do it to another person. In reality, the sensations aren't that terrible, but if you were cutting someone else you might want to throw up. A.Z.: I suspect that others might not have the same inhibitions. Was Gombrich's "participation" in this video deliberate or a genuine coincidence? K.S.: It was a consciously retained coincidence. While I was filming in one room, my sister completely innocently called out from the other room to ask whether I had Gombrich's art history book. I don't have it, but the everyday tone of the conversation contrasts nicely with what's happening on the screen. I also made a video featuring myself for an exhibition organised by Solvita Krese. Not because I might think I'm fantastically good looking or that I'm exactly the right type for filming, it's more like... it probably comes down to that laziness again. Somehow I'm no good at directing other people. It's easier to give orders to myself. A.Z.: Giving orders to yourself is a feature of other works you've made. For example, where you filmed yourself with the old central station clock at 11.11 every day, shifting 11 degrees every day to film a new shot. K.S.: That was hardly forcing myself to do something, it was on my usual route. Just a bit out of the way. A.Z.: Don't you get sick of the sum total of repeated and system-atic actions? K.S.: I'm not sure. For example, you studied applied art, and my im-pression of applied art students was that... they do everything in the final week. They stay up all night, drink goodness knows what to stay awake, in other words, they wreck their health. I've never done that. I've always done things fairly much on time. I'd get up at a reasonable hour and get everything done on time. But at the Academy I started to be late. It's impossible not to be late there because everyone else is late. Now I'm normal, I may be five, ten minutes late. I haven't turned it into an art form either, I go along with the crowd. So, somewhat more orderly events in art are not a bad thing. And you can make yourself do it. I get up every day before dawn to take one photo. Due to the pressures of work I could probably make excuses and miss a morning or two. But if I know that I want to make a particular animation and this is important to me, then I can do it. A.Z.: How has the name of the artwork 02cm 02.02.02 - which you literally carry around with you - changed? K.S.: It hasn't changed significantly yet, but... it's tattooed on my stomach where it has the greatest likelihood of changing. Now it might be "02.3cm". A.Z.: Do you also record events in writing? Do you keep a diary? K.S.: I've written previously, but I don't do it at present. Writing would be convenient, if only because it would prevent really personal things being shown in a gallery or an exhibition. Fortunately, up to now those of my works created on a diary principle have not been exposes of my personal life. For example, I'm not that obsessed with the station clock that I should go home every day and write in my diary that I had seen 11:11. | |
 Krišs Salmanis. Swelter. 35mm film transferred to DVD, looped (from the exhibition 'Lost'). 2009. Photo from the artist's private archive | |
| A.Z.: What will you be showing in the upcoming exhibition? K.S.: Well you see, in its place maybe I should have kept a diary...But it's definitely not intended to be a round of self-healing in public, it's more like something that's grown from something personal into a more general form. I hope I've succeeded. Yes, but there won't be many jokes. A.Z.: Without irony, another element that often appears in your work is the loop. K.S.: Yes! But who knows whether this is because I'm actually interested in the loop itself or it's just laziness again. You make a short, short animation... An animated film of Lāčplēsis (Bearslayer) running two and a half seconds, turn it into a loop and you have an endless work! You don't have to write "two seconds" anymore, which looks kind of silly. But seriously, the loop attracts me because it is a convenient model of the world, which can be applied at a number of levels, from everyday trivia to life as such. I'm not here, then I'm here for a bit, then I'm gone again for eternity. A closed formula that constantly repeats and is the same for everyone, irrespective of the details we use to fill in our allotted time. On the other hand, the details are the decisive factor in whether or not my loop has been worth it. Maybe this is why I'm interested in off-beat animation techniques - graffiti, plasticine imprints on a scanner, spatial painting. A.Z.: Your website includes the section Graphomania, where graphic design works are shown alongside graphic art. Is the classification due to the fact that in both cases you are dealing with fonts, or because you want to stress their coexistence in your work? K.S.: Are you accusing me of... A.Z.: No. K.S.: Oh! OK then. That's how it was for me with Lāčplēsis. Most of my life I've lived on Lāčplēša iela (Lāčplēša Street) in Riga. I fully understand the feelings that consumed the Latvians when they realised that their neighbours had their own epics and we didn't, so we quickly had to conjure up one of our own. I also like the messianic touch at the end of Pumpurs' work. So I filmed two steps wearing hockey padding, redrew them frame by frame to give the hero the appropriate ears and sturdiness, and prepared 36 numbered stencils. The result is Lāčplēsis returning along his own street. Looking at the final animation, my thesis supervisor courteously said that it might be a bit flimsy for a master's degree. For her part, the re-viewer commented politely on the written part of the work, but accused the work itself of being influenced by advertising... I thought to my-self, for heaven's sake! Where is the influence of advertising? The fact that my works are in some way connected with graphic design has nothing to do with the fact that I work in advertising. On the contrary, I earn a living in the field because I'm suited to it. That's how my thinking works. A.Z.: You think in terms of vectors? K.S.: Yes! A.Z.: Have you tried to pigeonhole yourself into one particular artistic discipline? K.S.: Yes, but it doesn't work. A.Z.: What do you fluctuate between? K.S.: Between everything except painting. Maybe if I had a big studio I might splash some paint around for fun. I was a top student at school, and I was good at every subject except chemistry. I don't understand it at all. And things have continued that way. At the Academy I was planning to study stage design, because my father was an opera stage designer and it sort of interested me. I was preparing to enrol, but at the last minute, it must have been by accident, I heard about visual communications, where you're supposed to learn a bit of everything. And I thought, that's for me, because after the four or six years I'll have tried everything and will know what I have to do. But it didn't happen! I don't know if this is due to laziness or just a lack of discipline. A.Z.: Do you play a musical instrument? K.S.: No. But it's not like I'm deeply sad about it and blame my parents for not forcing me to play the piano. It would be good, but I know people who regret it more. I have too many interests as it is, I'm unable to collect everything properly and the result is chaos. I have a plan for my old age already. For some reason I imagine that things will be calmer then and I'll learn to play the tuba or the sousaphone. But you don't play an instrument either, right? A.Z.: You're reproaching me.... K.S.: No. A.Z.: I like to watch how others do it. Carrying this over to visual art: which artists do you enjoy "listening" to? K.S.: Leaving aside present company and several other interesting Latvian artists, my list of favourites right now goes something like this: in first place is Martin Creed, because often his works have even less to look at than mine. And he has some quite disarming writing. You can find it on his homepage. Then there's some authors whose works are both witty and deep: Michel Blazy, Roman Signer, Alicja Kwade. The geometric art inspired by minimalism and architecture, so popular amongst German-speaking artists, is great for cooling your head. Martin Pfeifle, Esther Stocker, for example. Mathematics is fascinating in itself. When I was at secondary school in England, at first it brought me to tears. But I gradually learned the strange terminology and got up to standard, and all was well. Now I've forgotten the formulas, but at one moment I suddenly understood that mathematics is closely connected to beauty. Small wonder that it's often mentioned in the same breath as music. A.Z.: Do you listen to music a lot? K.S.: Not a lot, no. Right now I can't resist telling you about a small personal reminder. Last year, on the way home from a joint exhibition in Germany, we decided to pop in to Berlin. We wanted to see the city as such and also go to a performance at the Staatsoper unter den Linden. During the first act, Salmanis and our third companion decided they couldn't endure such bad singing, and in order not to spoil our impression of the production we were forced to leave the opera. The remainder of the evening wasn't much fun, as we had to constantly listen to the grumbling about what we had heard. The moral of the story - try to avoid going to the opera with Salmanis! A.Z.: You once worked in the opera. K.S.: That was a super great experience. When I was working there it seemed like I could happily spend the rest of my life there. The work schedule was great, but the money wasn't enough to last you through to retirement. You only had to work in the evenings and got to see performances for free! You observe people, but you yourself are invisible because you're part of the furniture. Well, actually, a young colleague once admitted that her friends took her along to look at me. A.Z.: At you?! What exactly were you doing? K.S.: I was working in the cloakroom! I was a curly-haired talking head, I said: Good evening! You're welcome! Thank you! I got tips, rented out binoculars to patrons. A perfect job! A.Z.: How do you expect viewers of your work to react? To laugh, to be depressed? In other words, what feedback do you hope to get? K.S.: When creating works, I don't plan for a particular reaction from viewers. Of course, afterwards anything can happen. I've had to pull works out of the rubbish, I've had to run to get water. I felt almost honoured by that, because the person who fainted was an experienced artist from Vienna, who had experimented with the body herself in her day. I feel even better if the viewer starts to think, but of course this isn't something you can see externally. /Translator into English: Filips Birzulis, Vita Limanoviča/ | |
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