|
| |
|
|
Promises and
Possibilities: Visual arts in Estonia and Latvia
research trip to Estonia and Latvia by Thalea Stefanidou
July 2008
> Intro
The research trip to Estonia and Latvia lasted for a few days – first in
Tallinn and afterwards in Riga, as planned: three full days in Tallinn
and almost two days in Riga.
The scheduled visits in Tallinn (Centre of Contemporary Arts, Kumu Art
Museum, Academy of Art, Non Grata Art Container, private galleries) gave
us a more or less detailed idea regarding the contemporary visual arts
scene of the city.
The visit to Riga on the other hand, perhaps due to the programme
(Latvian National Museum of Art, Arsenals, Centre of Contemporary Art,
Academy of Art), or perhaps –and mainly– due to the lack of time, left
rather incomplete impressions regarding the profile of contemporary art
in Latvia.
I was compelled to see this experience as a whole, making comparisons
between the two countries and
reaching
common evaluations; my main concern was to investigate how the two
countries deal with organized visual memory within state museums or
within experimental activities with educational and promotional/
exhibitional goals and expectations.
> Tallinn, Estonia
In Estonia the situation has certainly taken its course and steadily
evolves so that there is a ‘natural’ response to the needs for
recognition in the international visual arts community.
The Centre of Contemporary Art has established a dynamic system of
archiving and documenting the Estonian contemporary visual arts scene
and its exhibition programme includes emblematic exhibitions of foreign
creators mostly, so that current international issues are highlighted.
During our visit, the Centre was hosting an exhibition that presented
the whole procedure of Orlan, through documents of the various stages of
the administration of changes that appear in her work. |
On the other side, Kumu, a contemporary
art museum, an architecturally interesting recipient, has already
documented the ‘modern’ circumstances and has began to include in its
great memory important moments from the situation of the last decade’s
visual arts in the country. The trust that the museum shows to young
curators for the organization of programmes and activities, as far as
the exhibitional and educational programming is concerned, is one of the
Museum’s very positive traits.
On the educational side, the Fine Arts Academy seems to follow the
international educational trend that also involves applied arts elements
in the study of fine arts, emphasizing on art and new technologies, as
well as on the areas of design and communication. Its critical and
non-academic position on the approach of the historical visual arts
archive –with all its stereotypes–, as well as of the different aspects
of contemporary visual arts practice, shows an educational programming
that promotes art and technique as the liberating powers for a society
that constantly improves its profile in the European and global map.
The educational mechanism of Non Grata Art Container, a kind of free art
school that focuses on performance activities, well known outside of
Estonia, should also be mentioned. |
 |
> Riga, Latvia
Riga on the other hand is a city with unique architecture and with
prominent the delicate dignity of art nouveau, that has invested its
dynamic presence as contemporary art centre in the future.
It is obvious that cultural policy in Latvia promotes the importance of
state-of-the-art infrastructure for the archiving of texts –Library– and
for dance, music and the visual arts –Music Hall, Contemporary Art
Museum– for the country’s capital, as its heart and brain.
I must admit that the three models that present the city’s plans for
change can be seen as both a great expectation and a political bet for
Riga, Latvia, and its true affiliation to the West. It seems however
that this expectation goes hand in hand with a lot of uncertainties, as
it is a rather academic expectation, topped up with the need to preserve
the past.
The big exhibition taking place in the city at the time of our visit, in
the Centre of Contemporary Art, was dealing with a historical reference
to the visual arts adventure during the period of socialist realism and
the Russian occupation. The significance of such exhibition is
accentuated, when one considers that the renaissance of contemporary art
in Latvia was developed simultaneously with the desire for independence
from the Soviets. References of this kind are undoubtedly of positive
nature; sometimes however, stressing the reconstruction and the
reduction of the past goes against the promotion of the present and the
opportunities of competitiveness with contemporary visual art versions
and their dynamics around the world.
It is also indicative that the priority for realization is about to be
given to the Library, secondly to the Music Hall, and as a third choice
to the Museum of Contemporary Art. This kind of order in the
organization of collective cultural memory shows an obvious conservatism
of political will, at least as far as the culture of image is concerned.
I believe that the creation of a Contemporary Art Museum in Latvia is an
investment of major importance. I am sure that it will be act as a
catalyst for the determination of the country’s creativeness and that it
will help decisively towards the international recognition. Of course,
it is not by chance that the design of this museum was given to a world
known architect, Rem Koolhaas. |
|
 |
Model of the Contemporary Art Museum in
Riga, designed by Andrejsala-Rem Koolhaas-OMA Stedebouw BV
> Comparative findings
The main target of the research trip was to gather information on the
contemporary visual arts scene of these two countries of the Baltic, so
that the emergence and promotion of local original forms of artistic
expression in the field of visual arts are made possible.
Both Estonia and Latvia show the common interest of areas of
Europe that were characterized by the great social and political changes
of the previous century. Their very recent inclusion in the EU in the
beginning of the 21st century makes more plausible the dialogue with the
visual art creation of these countries, so that outlets with
international recognition are given to their undoubtedly rich dynamic.
Besides, as peripheral countries at the northern extreme of the European
family, they positively question the perception on contemporary art,
through an almost “anti-globalized” artistic creation, through their
effort to place their mark on the international cultural map, preserving
elements from their multifaceted national tradition at the same time.
Most of the works presented to us, I would say, are characterized by a
contradictory controversy of issues. In most cases, parallel narrative
themes are detected in multiple layers. A need for internationalism
instead of localism, a mix of elements from tradition and modernity,
urbanism and world culture, reality and fantasy, the private and the
public, are juxtaposed in a game of ideas and references. In the
diversity of approaches we see the oppositions between pop culture,
critique of lifestyle, advertisement and the aesthetics of consumerism,
even in the perceptions of new age. In most of the works artistic
practice seems to doubt strictly predetermined hierarchies.
Introducing the conversation on the development of contemporary art of
the Baltic countries in a time when artistic experience becomes more and
more complicated and sophisticated, as the world of art actively
converses with more countries and cultures, one could make some general
remarks concerning mostly the works’ thematic: artists deal with matters
of memory, historical heritage and cultural tradition, as well as with
the abolition of discrimination between the socialist and the capitalist
ideologies. The fact that transitional fractured identities are
mentioned on a collective level seems to also affect issues of personal
identity. In the examination of identity it is common to find an
anthropological approach that examines the consequences of globalization
within an international frame, without however marginizing personal
particularities owed to cultural or even clearly experiential origin.
Most of the works we saw included references to tradition; one would
often discover traces of local stylistic ‘iconography’ –independent from
the materials or the medium used– which were almost always looking to
the present, in a problematic of the ‘here’ and the ‘now’.
It was also easy to detect a strongly critical attitude against social
developments, whereas elements of introspection were not scarce.
Something that must be stressed is the existential search that focuses
on the body. The body as an image, as a text to be viewed, belonging to
a directed script, the body that transforms and observes itself.
Concerning the mediums that artists prefer, these have to do mostly with
new technologies. We saw mostly videos of short or long duration.
Artists from Estonia use mainly new technology in multiple ways, often
blurring the boundaries between photography, video, performance and
installation. Their works reflect the strong visual character of media
culture, or combine the theatrical pose and the production techniques of
multimedia for the creation of imaginary areas.
Others use technology merely as a means for the transportation of ideas,
adopting an immediate approach in the narration of the everyday.
Documentaristic or hyper-realistic tactics of the media were present,
whereas the handmade and the use of labour were absolutely absent.
In some works a vague and indefinable narration existed, although it was
capable of provoking creative associations even with ironical humor.
The metaphors and the symbolisms were plenty, so that an experiential,
intuitional reading of the work was provoked.
Elements of theatricality or dramatic direction are also present,
accessing the technological precision of digital images and photographic
techniques, without creating an imposing atmosphere.
In many works realistic and transcendental elements intermingle towards
extreme narratives, often combining the macabre and the humoristic, the
detached narration and the melodramatic elements of soap opera, the
farce and the tragic.
This avalanche of videos consciously competed the avalanche of
iconography offered by the mass media and reminded us that art is
obliged to re-examine its ability to convince and to promote social
changes by prescribing with its aesthetic quality whatever one would
call “ethic”.
> Final remarks
To sum up and to continue with some general conclusions on the visual
arts profile of these two Baltic countries (Estonia and Latvia), I would
say that visual art production and its problematics introduce questions
on various languages and experiences, while artistic practices approach
a view of the world spanning from a clearly realistic view to the
transcendental/philosophical.
Social comments tend to be detached, as the attempt for ritualizing
everyday life is successful.
The artists are undoubtedly conscious of the special character of their
local culture and recognize it. However, any kind of folklore art is far
at least from the works we saw.
The dispute of cultural stereotypes, as well as a clear inclination
towards globalization, but against homogeneity, is an issue for the
re-examination of the centre’s dominance on the periphery.
In any case, the reexamination and questioning of cultural differences,
closes the gap towards the evaluation of common elements that after all
concern us all.
A critical approach to public space and its political changes
simultaneously with a turn to the issue of private life, personal space
and introspection without pretences, may be the focal point that I would
keep as a general impression.
I will end this short note with a rhetorical question that was prompted
to me by this brief experience in the two countries.
How can artistic practice be defined today beyond geographical
boundaries, how is it possible for an artist to maintain the elements of
his/her personal identity without being caught into the trap of the
folklore or exotic exaggeration? In other words, how is it possible to
materialize the sense of authenticity, that even though it recalls
memories, it is not degenerated into nostalgia or the need for
rejection?
Thalea Stefanidou
July - August 2008 |
.jpg)
Works by Latvian artists Liga Marcinkevica (member of the artist’s
group F5) and Armands Zelcs |
 |
|
| |
|
|
