W H I T E H O L E
7 - 16 July - 9 PM
A WEEK PROGRAM FOR AN HOLISTIC UNDERSTANDING OF A NIHILISTIC UNIVERSE
curated by Margarida Mendes
wed.7: JOÃO MARIA GUSMÃO & PEDRO PAIVA selection of 16mm shorts 2004-2009 (72min)
thurs.8: CHARLES & RAY EAMES Power of Ten 1977 (10min Loop)
fri.9: JOS DE GRUYTER & HARALD THYS Video Lecture for a Parallel Universe 2009 (30min)
wed.14: BUCKMINSTER FULLER The Fuller World – The Sum of Its Parts 1963 (29min)
thurs.15: DAVID CRONENBERG Stereo 1969 (63min)
fri.16: JORDAN BELSON Allures, Samadhi, Light, Fountain of Dreams & Epilogue 1961-2005 (45min)
Mesmeric Monument
Work in progress notes
Liane Lang
May 2010, Riga
For Mesmeric Monument I approach sculptures, monuments and spaces, which have a reference to each other and share ideological origins. Some objects like the Statue of Liberty and the Soviet Victory Monument are ideologically in conflict with one another, but share some formal roots. I approach the objects with a basic choreography, transcribing or imagining a visual description of the body in space and in movement, using both props and dancers. My starting point for the initial sketches is Labanotation. I use this term only as a reference, as I do not undertake a meticulous diagrammatic transcription, but a visual description of the potential radius of the body, the direction of movement and the interpretation of this movement, which has been arrested in bronze or concrete. Rudolf Laban (1879-1958, Austro-Hungary, a dancer, a choreographer and a dance/movement theoretician) seems a fitting starting point for this project in several ways. His choirs, choreographing the mass movements of people, have an actual as well as conceptual relationship to Nazi mass choreography, which usually took place around a monument or monumental space. This was re-interpreted for the Communist marches and parades. The seemingly great contrast between the avantgarde choreographer and the totalitarian space of performance is here blurred and fluid. The ambiguous relationship between artist and power is mirrored in the situation of the artists who made these big political monuments and sculptures.
The notation of movement appears in the project in several forms. The soldiers in front of the Statue of Liberty from 1935, involved in a frantic dance, the crowds at the Soviet Victory Memorial from the Soviet era, a flurry of bodies crowding around the monument in a ritualistic celebration. These dancers are found objects, their choreography in direct relation to the ideology of the object. In contrast a more gentle demarcation of space occurs when the small single figure travels along the edges of the Victory monument and when the figures, at Salaspils Concentration Camp Memorial travel the field as shadows or silhouettes. Here I think of the notation of impossible movement, which is implied and subconsciously perceived in the giant concrete or bronze figure, frozen eternally in a shape, it’s extension and direction pointless and impotent, but still legible. Giving by proxy or through small interventions a turning circle to the monolith, his movements are to re-animate him into a new visibility and context.
The installation of Mesmeric Monument in the gallery is the antithesis of the monument, dissolving the solid, immobile and inaccessible. Traversable and fragile the installation exists in light and movement. The final sequence is twice removed, the monuments projected onto the white bodies of dancers in a darkened space, they become visible only through their movement, their bodies determining what is revealed and what is obscured.
What Drives Baltic
gallery Supernova&Anneli Porri
Egle Budvytyte
Kristina Norman
Edgars Gluhovs
Krists Pudzens
Laura Toots
Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo
""Every man and every women is a star", that is, an aggregate of such experiences, constantly changing with each fresh event, which affects him or her either consciously or subconsciously.
Each one of us thus has an universe of his own, but it is the same universe for each one as soon as it includes all possible experience. This implies the extension of consciousness to include all other consciousness.
In our present stage, the object that you see is never the same as the one I see; we infer that it is the same because your experience tallies with mine on so many points that the actual differences of our observation are negligible. For instance, if a friend is walking between us, you see only his left side, I his right; but we agree that it is the same man, although we may differ not only as to what we may see of his body, but as to what we know of his qualities. This conviction of identity grows stronger as we see him more often and get to know him better".
Early career artists with a background of the Baltic States constitute with their art works a body that similars to our imaginary surroundings. Not so much a struggle between local issues and a need to correspond to the standards of outer world. By dropping all the economic success stories, traumatic past, neo-national colour schemes, a notion of a dream and drive appears. A story is told through shared experiences and competing versions of happiness mediated in kinetic objects, photography, documentary, sound material and a feature film. Although the diversity of this is immense, art makes an impression that is both awe-inspiring and abstruse, conveying the message that in life there is more, so much more, than meets the eye.
And this is a fact neither of us can know anything of him (a friend) at all beyond the total impression made on our respective minds.
Source: Aleister Crowley, The Book Of The Law, 1904.
Troels Sandegård
Exhale
26.03. - 25.04.2010
Troels Sandegård's art work unites various spaces and by “borrowing” air, visualises the potential life existing within it. In this sense, a legitimate question arises: does this practise differ from procedures undertaken in a laboratory; does it differ from the transfer of a jam jar with mould on it to the trash can? If the question is formulated in this way, then the answer would be that there is almost no formal difference between them. In life, the random appearance of bacteria on different media can be observed both in the gallery, the laboratory, and even in one’s own home. One could even say that life can appear anywhere, where the conditions are right. But it would be hypocritical if our attitude changed only due to the context – becoming the subject of aesthetic admiration in the gallery, one of examination in the laboratory, but an inconvenience at home. Otherwise, the art gallery would become like a theatre, merely drawing the attention of observers to different aspects, questions and problems about the world, which have been ignored up till now due to the daily rush of life, by Ainārs Kamoliņš.
Sandra Norrbin
Och livet stod bredvid
And life stood at the side
12.02. - 12.03.2010
A long time before Fjodor Dostojevski wrote the magnificent phrase "The beauty will save the world" word "salvation" has been related to art and artists - from one and one repetition of salvation in medieval paintings to romanticists desire for breaking out of rationalized world created by the enlightenment. Similarly with other contexts - even when nobody speaks about the beauty.
Salvation from discursive guard that characterizes the spectator more than the artwork has became a constant unit in contemporary art. It is embodied in Sandra Norrbin's breathing rescue-boat in gallery 'Supernova'. It is literally a metaphor for art role in nowadays society or situation of today's human where survival menaces to replace living.
The rescue-boat that almost full-fills the space of gallery can be also interpreted as philosophical allusion of discourse of management of catastrophes and crises that rages in mass media (mostly dedicated to practical issues) and in cinematography (it is not a coincidence that film 2012 is one of the top films of last year). Does salvation that has gain independence keep space for those who must be saved?
In project Och livet stod bredvid/And life stood at the side Sandra Norrbin processes the idea of development in limited space which is accompanied with sensation of claustrophobia which is caused by custody and exclusion of life. Sandra Norrbin says: "You have no choice but to accept the situation and the life you yearn for exists only in dreams and parallel lives." Who will save us from yielding state or failed life? Maybe it will be the beauty.
The theme of Sandra Norrbin's artwork as well relates with "Survival Kit" - the international contemporary art project very well known by inhabitants of Riga where artists were invited to reflect about different strategies of surviving in today's world. Survival, help and salvation are terms that mark precisely the point of intersection of discussion of art and political economy of late years,
commented by philosopher Toms Kjencis.
John Phillip Mäkinen
Stocks Talk
08.01. - 04.02.2010
Businesslike tone is not something to disturb the humanity, recently has said writer and boutique hotel owner Andra Neiburga for the press. Almost like commenting on this an artist John Phillip Mäkinen has created a solo project under the title "Stocks Talk" located in the gallery in front of the same hotel.
This is a imaginary lethal office space consisting of various objects relating to theme about the present situation of human situation. Represented by killer office plant made out of metal, papershedder machine excrementing black liquid fudge, a plastic animal heads and others.
John Phillip Makinen is an artist, musician, curator, film director and teacher living and working in Helsinki graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki and studied art and filming in Paris, France and Pittsburgh, U.S.
Estonian curator and art critic Anneli Porri in the exhibition catalogue writes: The Stock's Talk is - despite of its playful and punk attitude - a sharp comment on today's economical and financial situation. It is also commenting on the notion of work and labour, with the virtualization of work we cannot be sure any more what we have done. The output of our skills is detached from us, but boomeranging back at some point for sure. If normally we may not notice the physical crisis of economy while being between the protective walls of a big corporation, then now even the interior is echoing the crash - the machinery is bleeding, office pet plant has mutated into a sharp edged razor palm, and the yuppie has left the building in the middle of a sniff. By the way, Umberto Eco says in his recent interview that the crisis is caused by virtualization and cocaine. So, yeah, all our flourishing years existed only in a yuppie high.
Karol Radziszewski
Fag Fighters in Riga
03.12.-30.12.2009
Fag attack Riga
In the age of mass communication, where the majority of society as countless specimens reproduce the same message, cultural forms and insights about the order of life, situations on borderline between „normal" and abnormal, radical different identity are artists advantages. Sexually and social marginality gives different perspective, which is precondition to critical view and often a step towards creative originality. The price of being different frequently is society majority's incomprehension that can easily grow into the hate.
In the catholic Poland and rather prejudiced Latvia homosexuality is identity that place the artist in a position of radical protest, forcing to question the causes and expressions of generally approved rules.
Karol Radziszewski in his artistic activities does not reconstruct homosexual identity coming forward with alternatives for norms of behaviour. On the contrary - his works are rather a mirror that faces the heterosexual identity. Radziszewski deconstruct the comprehension of masculinity and heterosexuality that has deeply rooted into European culture and society's consciousness, particularly stressing that masculinity has been largely created as negative identity - contrary to female, gay and other sexualities. Modifying the usual context of masculinity code author invite to face its dark sides - the vulgarity and violence that escapes attention in regnant tendency to romanticize and discourse of normative passing over. Homophobia and sexual violence are two sides of one coin.
Each strata of society, even small groups are taken by different insights concerning perfection of a male, his sexual expressions and eventually what is a man. The society of all ages has its dominant masculinity model - ideal type that represents the universal concept of the majority. Playing with fixed forms of masculinity, Karol Radziszewski unmasks repressive mechanism, which serve as a base for construction of major comprehension in opposite to some marginal forms of masculinity.
With provocative message Radziszewski art projects bespeak irrational fear, the dark side of heterosexual culture. While film „Brokeback Mountain" and other popular culture's massages propose romanticized homosexuality as dramatized variation of heterosexual relationship, contemporary gay artists are aware of provocative potecial of their identity and use it for criticizing society's dominant comprehension about identity of individual and relations with other individuals, by philosopher and art critic Toms Ķencis.
"Fag Fighters in Riga" is continuation of the project "Fag Fighters" by now realised and exhibited in Warsaw, Tallinn and Amsterdam.
Exhibition by Neue Galerie in Supernova
Why We Worry
31.10 - 27.11.2009
Artists: Ivo Gretener, Alain Jenzer, Juliana Irene Smith, Sebastien Verdon
The reason to worry is based in specifics of the particular location and following the course of immanent criticism, exhibition by Neue Galerie is designed to follow melancholics and depressions of the modern society. Worry finds its own symptoms in the society and this is a huge proficiency to live placing yourself into the context of such an outstanding situation.
Who can we blame for the crises numerous spheres and systems of our life are facing now? Could it be the reason of narratives being replaced by another narratives. Or perhaps the lost illusions, lost worlds and lost morale are implemented through the potential and real failures. The force of those different signs charge for the serious and regular worries, like, where are we heading to.
Considered a challenge is the insidious elimination of public self-reflection in a performance-oriented society, in which a rejection of this achievement is often seen. What happens when the obligation to perform ceases to exist? Will this lead to chaos, disruption and erosion of meaning? These are questions asked in the self-contained exhibition which approaches the topic and thus incorporates the observer.
Providing with an insight into creative potential of the Swiss contemporary art and anxiety, worry and doubts accompanying it, end is marked with Worry of the paradox whether Why We Worry contributes with a real or more fake stress.
Edgars Gluhovs
Good Cop/Bad Cop
01.10. - 26.10.2009
An artist must regulate his life.
Here is a time-table of my daily acts. I rise at 7.18; am inspired from 10.23 to 11.47. I lunch at 12.11 and leave the table at 12.14. A healthy ride on horse-back round my domain follows from 1.19 pm to 2.53 pm. Another bout of inspiration from 3.12 to 4.7 pm. From 5 to 6.47 pm various occupations (fencing, reflection, immobility, visits, contemplation, dexterity, natation, etc.)
Dinner is served at 7.16 and finished at 7.20 pm. From 8.9 to 9.59 pm symphonic readings (out loud). I go to bed regularly at 10.37 pm. Once a week (on Tuesdays) I awake with a start at 3.14 am.
My only nourishment consists of food that is white: eggs, sugar, shredded bones, the fat of dead animals, veal, salt, coco-nuts, chicken cooked in white water, mouldy fruit, rice, turnips, sausages in camphor, pastry, cheese (white varieties), cotton salad, and certain kinds of fish (without their skin). I boil my wine and drink it cold mixed with the juice of the Fuschia. I have a good appetite but never talk when eating for fear of strangling myself.
I breathe carefully (a little at a time) and dance very rarely. When walking I hold my ribs and look steadily behind me.
My expression is very serious; when I laugh it is unintentional, and I always apologise very politely.
I sleep with only one eye closed, very profoundly. My bed is round with a hole in it for my head to go through. Every hour a servant takes my temperature and gives me another.
from Erik Satie, "A Day in the Life of a Musician"
Edgars Gluhovs is latvian born artist graduated from Photography Department of The Arts University College at Burnemouth (U.K), for now lives and works in Zurich. He participated in the show 'Is the medium the message?' (2008, organized by LCC), in the project 'Showroom 10' (2008, Basel, organized by curatorial group Showroom) etc.
You want, but you can't. FAIR ENOUGH
'Supernova'' show at 'Daiktu Viesbutis', Vilnius
july, 2009
An exhibition looks at the poetics of transformation of the real thing we use or are in close tactile and visual contact in our everyday life to objects that is of art. It's our interpretation on the theme of survival cycles of production and some pure non-functional aspect. This is the same idea that follows countless practices through the rest massive amount art-project-shops all around the present and historical art scene.
Works modeling the exhibition allows for a partial understanding of the content, initiate the act of observing which hopefully could lead to an active task that engages the viewers will to participate, yes, to buy the piece.
Exhibition seeks to foreground emerging artists from Europe who operate and don't operate with commercial gallery representation. The engagement of and with people forms a central element of their practice, and art is at the core. Their work deals both within and beyond the traditional ideas of an art world and art market considers itself related to.
FAIR ENOUGH attempts to re-address the question regarding the conditions and possibilities for producing and selling art in Baltics and abroad in this new situation created by the recent economical decrease. With this we would like to think we contribute some notes on the current economic crisis and maybe even announce further communication, disclosing the new challenges engaged by the art place (SUPERNOVA, Riga) as well as the changes in the modality of the exhibition activity and of the artists' promotion and sales.
FAIR ENOUGH event is designed to propose self-repositioning and the involvement of public in the midst of the particular contemporary art fair. FAIR ENOUGH captures the social and political context of our time through the art pieces kindly provided by: Kristoffer Akselbo (DK), Paulien Barbas (NL), Ebba Bohlin (SE), Gosia Bojkowska (PL), Ola Buczkowska (PL), Lenka Klodova (CZ), Edgars Kļaviņš (LV), John Phillip Mäkinen (FI), Frederik Noren (SE), Mirte Slaats (NL), Marguss Tamm (EE), Unstable Thoughts (UKR), Honza Zamojski (PL).
The exibition is accompanied with the research by Marita Batņa (LV) considering contemporary art market in the world and the Baltics.
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