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| The right time, right place and the right way Sniedze Sofija Kāle, Art Historian Sarmīte Māliņa, Kristaps Kalns. Be Patient 09.02.–18.03.2012. Latvian National Museum of Art, exhibition hall Arsenāls | |
| In Riga from 9 February to 18 March there was a rare opportunity to view the extensive installation project Pacieties (‘Be Patient’) by Sarmīte Māliņa and Kristaps Kalns at the large-scale exhibition hall Arsenāls. The effect was magnificent, largely due to the specific qualities of the space and the fact that the artists had had a free hand in revealing its uniqueness. Sometimes when one ponders the reasons why a particular historic building was erected, the architecture of times past can seem unimaginably lavish. In our day, who would think of building a beautiful room with high vaulted ceilings for the storage of commodities like unrefined sugar? If you live in a standardised, 20 century apartment “box” where the upstairs neighbours unwittingly trample over your carefully nurtured and preened aura or energy field, it seems that the Arsenāls space embodies a spiritual dimension. | |
 Sarmīte Māliņa, Kristaps Kalns. Be Patient. View from the exhibition. 2012 Photo: Kristaps Kalns | |
| The secret of the correct (spacious and uplifting) balance between the individual and the environment was known to the builders of the Medieval cathedrals and churches, who used engineering tricks to raise the ceiling ever higher, so that, inspired by the surroundings, the human soul would lift ever closer to the Creator. Most people today rate science more highly than God, so church visits are not part of the weekly routine. But despite this “pride”, we retain a residual need to attend to our spiritual side. Since the 19 century, this task has been taken over by art, although there have been some breaks in this role over the years. Māliņa’s and Kalns’ exhibition ‘Be Patient’ was a wonderful, contemporary alternative to church-going. For the city dweller who simply cannot escape from the oversaturation of information which intrudes with sound waves of alien taste or advertising slogans and gaudy images, the exhibition’s laconic, clean space was pleasantly refreshing. The silence and twilight accented by the carefully selected objects/symbols encouraged spiritual reflection. It was an opportunity to step out of the bustle of the rat race and find clarity. The claims of fulfilling churchly functions are not just figments of my imagination. Three of the exhibition’s five installations made very direct references to the Christian tradition. Viewers were greeted by a Christ-like sleeping figure, made remote through distance and glass, as if concealed in a child’s secret hideaway where a beautiful floral composition is placed, laid over with a shard of glass and finally covered with earth so no one else can find it; the result being that the owner can feel special through having such a beautiful thing which only her closest friend can see. Further on in the same hall, viewers could access the brightest of places, a small room containing a book on a pedestal. In the Christian tradition this key place would be given to the Bible, but today’s viewer might be content to think that it is the book of his or her own life. In either case, one requires an enlightened attitude to perform the tasks set by God or oneself in a positive manner. The third installation demanded the sacrifice of the entire second hall, with church pews offered for meditation and large circles like solar eclipses hypnotizing the eyes. The symbols chosen for the exhibition can be counted on one hand: Christ, a rocking horse, a blackberry, a book, a circle and flowers. These are so fundamental that they unavoidably generate private associations for each viewer, because there are so very few “important” things. These considerations also led to the inevitability that the exhibition displayed similarities with other artworks. For example, the “solar eclipses” in the central installation were formally reminiscent of Olafur Eliasson’s “sun” installation at the Tate Modern in 2003/2004, or Lars von Trier’s disturbing, brilliant film ‘Melancholia’. The informative video in the Arsenāls foyer made known that in addition to the authors of the concept, a team of carpenters and a furniture designer also collaborated on ‘Be Patient’. This turned the art historian’s mind to another reference, Ai Weiwei’s installation at the Tate Modern late last year of authentically-sized sunflower seeds, thanks to which local Chinese porcelain-making traditions were revived and intensified. In the case of Māliņa’s and Kalns’ exhibition, the volume of work was not as great. But for the biggest of the installations, the church pew, a team from the Riga Applied Arts High School was brought in to work with timber, our local natural resource. (Māliņa’s collaboration with other authors and the resultant abdication of the role of being the one-and-only artistic “genius” is all the more attractive for being so unpretentious.) Although the central objects had been made by craftsmen, they all were endowed with Māliņa’s signature nuances: perfectly-finished form (the rocking horse, the blackberry and the apple blossom, which embodied the feeling as if the details had been caressed), the selection of sensuous materials (the marble book, the black lacquered wood paintings) and thoughtful brevity, in which even the accidental acquires meaning. For example, from certain angles the rocking horse was beautifully reflected in the glass Christ. From the beginning of her career, Māliņa has formally expressed herself through objects and installations. However, even with the employment of contemporary media, she continues the romantic tradition of articulating the emotional world. Here, connoisseurs of contemporary art could use the “contemporary” tag as an alibi to guiltlessly indulge their desire for emotional expression and metaphysics. The exhibition ‘Be Patient’ left a lot of space for the viewer’s own interpretation and involvement. The result was an existential journey through time and space with tangible radiant love, forgiveness, a childlike purity of perception and fragile naivety. There was also death and passing away, as the “coffin” of decaying flowers recalled the artist’s earlier metaphors. The exhibition was infused with a kind of bleakness of human life, being bound to a concrete essence which prevents us from unambiguously reaching the object of faith or triumphing over time and guessing where the chosen path will lead. All that we have left is to be patient and to trust that the existing order is self-correcting, that alongside the “desire for peace and a perfect life” there is an unavoidable awareness of loss, and these constantly replace each other. /Translator into English: Filips Birzulis/ | |
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