SARMĪTE MĀLIŅA, KRISTAPS KALNS. NOW
Inga Šteimane
Emotional and meditative, universal and at the same time personal, perfect in form and broad in content - this amplitude is highlighted by critics in the works of Sarmīte Māliņa and Kristaps Kalns. Working together since 2003, artists Sarmīte Māliņa and Kristaps Kalns continue to develop their own method of articulating feelings, which is the basis of the content.
The exhibition "Now" presents thirteen new works, which have largely been created by thinking about the challenges of the era and setting them in broader, say, eternal contexts. Representing such familiar human feelings as love, joy, fear or sadness, artists do not shy away from sentiment, but do not give in to the temptation to stop viewing the world critically. The works are characterized by multidimensionality. The interaction of the exhibition with the architecture of the Art Station Dubulti is also important.
The title "Now" refers to the exhibition as whole and to each work separately.
It can be perceived as a frequently pronounced word and at the same time it indicates emotional tension. "You can see this tension in the ladybug leaning on its back and desperately trying to get on its feet, as well as in a series of paintings in which the black cross expands frame by frame. Anxiety plays an important role here. This is not a matter of temporary daily anxiety, but of a feeling that accompanies a person throughout his life and often prevails in crucial situations. Anxiety is a constant, which is depicted in the central object of the exhibition - a vibrating metal disc, which materializes insurmountable tension in the room,” says Tomass Pārups.
The exhibition "Now" has several interpretational levels and versions. This happens when artists have a good command of different cultural codes. With what to start?
Many will probably be able to look at these images with a thrilled heartbeat and cling to them with the power of sentiment - the trembling of the large circle, the word "now" ("tūlīt"), the unfortunate ladybug and the gentle pink or heartbreaking contrast of black and white. Coming to the power of sentiment, the viewer finds in the image some interlocutor who generously feeds his/her emotions. This version can lead the viewer to tears.
For those who have cultural baggage in their possession, it will be interesting to encrypt the references one can find in the exhibition "Now". For example, the 20th century avant-garde styles such as constructivism, suprematism and futurism. A world expressed in circles, rectangles, continuous motion, and generalizations of space, characterizes both the historical avant-garde and the works of Sarmīte Māliņa and Kristaps Kalns in this show. Even the ladybug in the video can serve as an exploratory object for viewing a rhythmic abstraction through a magnifying glass and its body as an excitation for colors and shapes. In this version, the viewer enters the world of modernistic abstractions, and the ceiling panel of Dubulti station with its Suprematistic shapes actively participates in this show.
Or - epic drama. This version is almost cinematic. After the monumental and gloomy intro with a trembling circle (“So, this is me now 1”) first warning is coming (deltoid "Now") and then development is following (paintings and the object "Stairs" on the second floor). The culmination of this story is a one minute suspense with a happy end ("So, this is me now 2" - video with a ladybug). Reading “Now" with this story, one can get to theological questions, or experience what the writer Andra Neiburga saw in the works of Sarmīte Māliņa and Kristaps Kalns - that they create "something like a shrine of thought where to contemplate of life and death”. The artist duo created their first joint work "Altar" (2006) as a conceptual video in the Church of Mary Magdalene in Riga - on Easter morning Jesus Christ rose from the white drapery in front of all eyes and "went out of the frame”. In the exhibition "Now", the viewer observes how the ladybug gets on its feet after long efforts and quickly crawls out of the frame.
A viewer who is not afraid to interpret art will surely find other stories and similarities both in the history of art and in the authors' own previous works.
The different versions that can be told about the exhibition “Now” by Sarmīte Māliņa and Kristaps Kalns are connecting eras and points of view. Applying a theoretical view, it must be acknowledged that the exhibition is excellent at handling the tools of postmodernism and provides what is highly valued by human today - the options to choose. But the authors are not trapped in postmodernism, their intuitive images also inhabit the era of technological paradigm without effort. Sarmīte Māliņa and Kristaps Kalns conceptualize the natural orientation of the mind to always look for and explain something. They use the mind as a typical human technology. In order to obtain the forms of their artworks, they ask the mind to find well-known forms or typical life situations to generate the "look" of their art. This distancing and "individual histories" seems to be a feature of our twenties, and the exhibition "Now" resonates with it.
The curators of the exhibition are Tomass Pārups, the author of the monograph on Sarmīte Māliņa and Inga Šteimane the head of the Art Station Dubulti.
Sarmīte Māliņa and Kristaps Kalns are well known for their installations, such as, “Altar” in the Church of Mary Magdalene in Riga (2006), “Love Never Ends” at the exhibition “Beauty” at the art festival “Cēsis 2008”, “What is There to Hide Sitting Lone in a Rose Garden’’ in Kim? Center for Contemporary Art in Riga (2009) and “Pacieties” (Be patient) at the exhibition hall “Arsenals” in the Latvian National Museum of Art (2012). Sarmīte Māliņa (1960) graduated from the Design Department of the Latvian Academy of Arts (1986) and participated in many exhibitions that have been shaping the history of Latvian contemporary art since the end of the 1980s (performance "People in Cages" with S. Davidovs and O. Tillbergs, 1987; group exhibitions "Generation" at the Pori Museum of Contemporary Art, 1992, "Zoom Factor", Riga, 1994, "Nothing Personal" at the Bremen City Gallery, 2002, mentioning only few). Kristaps Kalns (1981) is a photographer, since 2001 he has been working for the newspaper "Diena". Prior to that, he studied at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Latvia (1999-2000). Created a solo show of musicians' portraits in Riga, 2003, illustrated books with photographic images - Jānis Steiks "Selection", 2003, "Hermanis. Naumanis. Latvian Stories ”, 2006, Imants Ziedonis“ Latvia for Me ”, 2008, and others; about eighty covers of the newspaper "Kultūras Diena”.
Art Station Dubulti is the only professional exhibition hall in Europe, located in a functioning railway station. The project implements the cross-functionality of the public space. Art station Dubulti creates solo exhibitions and conceptual projects of the best Latvian artists, accentuating the exhibition as a dialogue between a work of art and the spectator. The program is implemented with the support of Jurmala City Council. The founder and head of the Art Station Dubulti is art critic Inga Šteimane.
The exhibition “Now” by Sarmīte Māliņa and Kristaps Kalns is open from June 18 to September 2 every day from 9.00 to 18.30. Admission is free (contacts: https://www.facebook.com/ artstationdubulti or dubulti.art.station@gmail.com).
Public program:
19.06. at 16.00 - artists' and curators' talk in the exhibition;
04.07. at 14.00 - artists' and curators' talk in the exhibition;
01.08. at 14.00 - artists' and curators' talk in the exhibition;
02.09. at 15.00 - artists' and curators' talk in the exhibition.
The exhibition has been created with the support of Jurmala City Council, State Culture Capital Foundation, VV Foundation, Latvijas kultūras projekti, Samsung Latvia.