Curator’s letter to the visitor of the exhibition

I am glad you have found the time and opportunity to come to Rainis Quarter and view the exhibition ‘A World of One’s Own. An Exhibition from the Collection of a Non-Existent Museum’.

What is on view here and what are the messages of these artworks?I will attempt to tell you in a few words.

The source of the pieces on view is a world that is closed to visitors of art shows and museums, namely, the collection of the yet-to-be-realised Latvian Museum of Contemporary Art. They, along with several hundreds of other works of art, are still suspended in waiting for a proper life, a museum of their own. While the conditions at the Museum Storage Facility in Pulka Street, Riga, meet the highest standards, art still does need a viewer, art does need a space where it can engage in a conversation with people.

The issue of building a Latvian contemporary art museum has been at the forefront of public debate since the 1980s. The need for this museum has been namechecked in the manifesto of every government for at least twenty years now. During this time, Latvian art institutions and curators have, of course, been busy mounting noteworthy contemporary art shows in Latvia and abroad. And yet the absence of a museum has produced a string of problems: several generations have grown up lacking adequate knowledge of recent Latvian art history; the body of work of numerous influential past artists has been denied timely serious research.

Said problems are not very likely to evaporate on the day after the inauguration of the future museum, and therefore, while the museum still has not come into existence, Cēsis Art Festival wishes to offer at least some of the works included in the collection of the upcoming Museum of Contemporary Art a chance to meet their viewers in the galleries of Cēsis Centre for Contemporary Art.

This year’s exhibition focuses on an artist’s individual, distinctive and frequently paradoxical view of the world and themselves within it. What unites the artworks shown here is their authors’ compelling gift for illustrating their worldview and philosophy of life. Diverse in their artistic language, these are illustrations to a unique ‘world of one’s own’: the pieces on view range from emotional essays or ironic comments to products of scientific research, historical comparison or sombre reflection.

We are all a world of our own. We are all inimitable; we each see differently, feel and react differently; even our fingerprints are unique, let alone our feelings and sensations. It is this kind of unique world that is portrayed by the creators of the shown artworks; as these artists share the thoughts and emotions embodied in their creations, we find them either relatable or, conversely, rather like representatives of another world.

Likewise, a new reality has been created by Cēsis Art Festival – a special world that belongs to the loyal visitors who strongly believe that the festival has long become an essential part of the cultural map of the Latvian summer.  Aficionados of Richard Wagner’s music, passionate theatre goers and contemporary art enthusiasts alike have found a world of their own here, a world built by the talented team behind the festival, a group of people committed to the arts above everything else.

Throughout the festival’s existence, the visual arts programme has been headed by the art critic, curator and producer Daiga Rudzāte. The core of this year’s visual arts exhibition is formed by works that, commissioned by Daiga, were originally created especially for Cēsis Art Festival or ‘premiered’ at the festival’s visual art shows.

The idea behind the exhibition is best revealed by the giant portrait on the wall at the entrance to the exhibition hall. Who is this person, you ask? Is he a celebrity? Should I recognise him? What makes him so special that he has been made the subject of such an enormous portrait? The answer may come as a surprise: the photograph features a random passer-by encountered by the great Bosnian conceptualist Braco Dimitrijević in Riga, on Dzirnavu Street on a 2012 summer day at 6:07 pm. The photo, part of a large-scale photography series launched in 1971, was made for Cēsis Art Festival specifically. Braco Dimitrijević’s ‘casual passer-by’ offers a unique concept whereby accidental encounters with ordinary people are transformed into monumental public art actions. Placing these giants portraits on building facades, in city centre squares and other public spaces is viewer deception. By bestowing upon ordinary people a significance normally associated with celebrities or political figures, he questions the social norms that determine who is deemed deserving of public admiration. The artist’s answer is – every single one of us, because each of us is a world.

Floor One (ground floor) of the exhibition hall introduces us to the ways in which the artists Krišs Salmanis, Juris Putrāms, Kaspars Podnieks and Miks Mitrēvics feel about themselves in the context of this world. Each has a story of his own. The ‘Motel’ video by Miks Mitrēvics speaks of emotionally traumatic interaction with a homogenised environment where a person feels fragile and vulnerable.

Equally vulnerable, albeit enormous size-wise, is the baby fire-bellied toad who greets us as we enter. The author of this tin piece, painted and plastered, is Juris Putrāms, one of the so-called Trespasser Generation of artists, a masterful poster maker, supergraphic artist and creator of all kinds of demons, but also the narrator of incredibly tender stories of love between a mother and child. The fire-bellied toad is also just a tiny baby, made huge by the author to protect it.

Kaspars Podnieks speaks about the things he knows best. He tells about Drusti and the people of Rommelis’ Dairy, lifting these men and women to ‘unseen heights’ in his own manner and thus elevating them just like Dimitrijević. And yet Rommelis’ people are actually celebrities: viewed by hundreds of thousands, their photos were part of the Latvian pavilion show at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013.

Podnieks’ companion at said edition of Venice Biennale, Krišs Salmanis is a master of apt irony and paradoxes. If you have an affinity for philosophical reflection, his unpretentious, even absurd video works may encourage you to ponder ageless questions: What do we leave behind when we depart? Can you cleanse your soul to purity without losing yourself? Are we sure that we are not actually hurting nature by protecting it? Meanwhile, those not in favour of concocted concepts are free to observe his skilful video tricks and find out why Salmanis is not a vegetarian.

(the letter continues on Floor Two)

***

1. Braco Dimitrijević. A Casual Passer-By I Met in Riga at 6:07 PM.2012. Photo installation. Variable size. LMM 257

2. Miks Mitrēvics. Motel.2003. 3 synchronised videos. 10:00, LMM 53/1-3

3. Kaspars Podnieks. Rommelis’ Dairy.2013. 10 black-and-white photos in digital print: ‘Aiga’; ‘Dairis’; ‘Druvis’; ‘Edgars’; ‘Ilze’; ‘Ināra’; ‘Ivan’; ‘Jānis’; ‘Jānis S.’; ‘Rommelis’. 200 x 140 x 5 cm (each). LMM 250/1-10

4. Juris Artūrs Putrāms. Baby Fire-Bellied Toad.1990. Installation, mixed technique: galvanized (zinc-coated) tin, bitumen, pigments, nitro paint.Consists of 5 pieces, each 296 x 112.5 x 4 cm; total size 296 x 562.5 x 4 cm. LMM 14/1-5

5. Krišs Salmanis. Shower.2007, video DVD, animation loop. 666 x 1920 px, 25 fps. LMM 70

6. Krišs Salmanis. Why I Am Not a Vegetarian.2007. Video, animation loop. 720 x 576 px, 25 fps. LMM 69

***

During the process of selecting artworks for the show, I was at times overcome by an eerie realisation that the authors of the pieces exhibited here must be clairvoyant: such is the accuracy of their works at predicting events taking place today. The key piece on this floor is ‘The Small Portable Triumphal Arch’ by Ojārs Pētersons. It is orange, of course, as per normal in Pētersons’ world, but this time the colour does not matter that much. The ancient Romans erected triumphal arches so that their legions could walk through them when they came home after subjugating other countries and peoples, bringing slaves and trophies. If the return journey of the legions was not particularly long, particular resourcefulness was required: a new arch had to be assembled from pieces of existing ones celebrating other, previous triumphs, to avoid embarrassment in front of the victors. A portable arch like Pētersons’ one would have been a sensible solution for ensuring inexpensive and regular triumphing.

‘Skrunda Signal’ by Rasa Šmite, Raitis Šmits, Mārtiņš Ratniks and Linda Vēbere is a story of a triumph of sorts – the victory over the Soviet military presence that had lasted for many decades. It seemed back then that the time when the Skrunda locator was robbing the local residents not just of their lands but also their health belonged to the past. And yet, as we view the land degraded and devastated by the militarists, we cannot but be painfully aware of the war going on nearby us, poisoning the earth and the air, destroying future and inspiring fear and hopelessness.

Are triumph and victory more of a geopolitical or a personal concept? Over twenty years ago, Laila Pakalniņa asked random passers-by in the Ķengarags district of Riga to listen to an aria from Mozart’s ‘Die Zauberflöte’. The result was a poetic black-and-white film that represented Latvia at the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001. Can art save the world? Or perhaps at least make it better, more humane? But would Papa Gena from Šķirotava agree to listen to Mozart’s light-filled and rapturous music today, in 2024? What and who are the residents of Ķengarags listening to now? These are all multiple-choice questions. You can come up with your own answers.

The world has changed. Things that once seemed obvious have turned upside down today, just like ‘The Stop’ by Armands Zelčs that can only be recognised thanks to the photo at the roof terrace door. And yet there is most definitely some way to find the route to truth even in this topsy-turvy world. And that will be our victory, our triumph over unpredictability and uncertainty.

Thanks to Pētersons, we can walk through a real Triumphal Arch at this exhibition and experience a sort of triumph; it may be small and orange, yet it exists. So be it: everybody needs a triumph, even a tiny one, even if it only lasts a moment, even if we know perfectly well that it is portable, shifting around in the big world – and also the small one, the world of our own.

Yours, Astrīda Rogule

***

7. Laila Pakalniņa. Papa Gena.2001. A short film. Betacam SP format, stereo surround. 11:00, LMM 67

8. Ojārs Pētersons. Small (Portable) Orange Triumphal Arch.1995. Object, wood. 292 x 296 x 336 cm. LMM 128/1-17

9. Raitis Šmits, Rasa Šmite, Mārtiņš Ratniks, Linda Vēbere. 1985. Skrunda Signal.2007–2008. Video DVD. 40:00. LMM 65

10. Armands Zelčs. The Stop.2007. Object: metal, organic glass. 200 x 200 x 400 cm. Photography. 16 x 22 cm. LMM/1-15