Art in European Space
Although formally independent since 1918, Latvia did not enjoy what people in the West call freedom until about twelve years ago. Latvia’s cultural transformation towards the western model, especially in Riga, has been amazing considering the few years it has taken. On the other hand, the process has been marked by considerable clumsiness and opportunism.
Latvia is utterly impoverished and its people look tired. None of this, however, is evident in the capital, Riga, at least not among young people. Like spring lambs in the meadow, their lifestyle is a carefree frolic with eyes turned westwards. Fashionable clothes seem to be the main means of shaking off the old burden in exchange for a new zest. Tens of thousands of Latvians murdered in the Siberian labour camps seem unable to dent the solidarity among the younger generation (although no Latvian would dream of marrying a Russian or vice versa). The city, whose population is split equally between Latvians and Russians, at last seems eager to forget the misery of the past even if it has not yet really come to terms with it. “There will be trouble ahead,” Michaël Zeeman has noted, but for now young people are optimistic and ambitious. They focus on earning the money they need to buy the lifestyle they aspire to. This opportunistic climate is tangible everywhere in Riga, as it is in the organization of Sculpture Quadrennial 2004, entitled ‘European Space’. Riga lacks a well-developed institutional in-frastructure for art, let alone a commercial market for progressive art. This art manifestation is an effort to reduce the city’s cultural isolation. Its real goal is to bring the artistic community of Riga up to date on international artistic developments. The curators have used the question of art and politics in a practical way: since Latvia is joining the EU, isn’t it time for Latvian art to link up with art in the EU?
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Why take part?
In its current form, the 2004 Sculpture Quadrennial ‘Europe-an Space’ is a young but ambitious art exhibition that still has to prove itself internationally. As to the Dutch contribution, the Quadrennial is not likely to attract the usual ‘fair representation of the Netherlands in an international art context’ we have come to expect at Documenta in Kassel or at the Venice Biennale. We might therefore conclude that participation in Riga is inadvisable.
However, the idea of the Netherlands representing itself abroad by winning recognition in the international art scene has degenerated into a cliche. The main motive for taking part in major international exibitions is no longer the substance of the exhibited work, but participation in its own right. A change has taken place in which the priority of the unique artistic message has been downgraded in relation to the benefits of international participation. In other words, the artistic culture is gradually developing into a participation culture. Don’t we, for instance, turn a blind eye to the fact that the artistic concept of the Venice Biennale is becoming outmoded, because we’ll all want to be there again in two years? Isn’t it true that all large-scale art exhibitions owe their attraction to explicit self-overestimation, a presumption we are happy to share? Serious art criticism is becoming harder to reconcile with the static, dogmatic institutional infrastructure, whose artistic premisses nobody finds it necessary to probe. That we are willing to be part of it is not in doubt; and though we sometimes disagree about how we want to be part of it, that is a marginal issue.
In relation to Europe, this situation offers a surprising perspective. Europe, originally an economic alliance, is manifesting itself increasingly as a political and cultural entity. The question of how a large-scale art exhibition contributes to European culture becomes a pressing one, because the cultural development of Europe has become an economic necessity. Roughly simultaneously with the admission of Latvia, the EU is experiencing the rise of the political notion that an economic union cannot function without some kind of cultural unity. Greater Europe is populated by nations with hugely diverse traditions. Mutual incomprehension among individual national cultures is a barrier to economic cooperation and may even make economic differences insoluble. Developing a European culture is necessary as an economic lubricant. “While the projects were (and are) ostensibly economic in nature, there is no point in talking about these economic projects until we get it clear what their cultural background is and what their cultural implications are.” In De Groene Amsterdammer of 14 May 2002, Michaël Zeeman went so far as to argue the case for a European cultural council on the lines of a Vatican Council: “The Mother Church tried to explain that although local differences might exist in religious practice, all the differences could come together under the umbrella of a single church. A council of this kind, a platform where cultural differences can meet face to face and go in search of what they have in common, is lacking at a European level.”
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Criteria for Dutch participation in European art manifestations could be placed in a European perspective. From this point of view, the Riga Sculpture Quadrennial is bound to succeed. The city’s political and economic history is itself enough to ensure real commitment on the part of the art. You could even argue that, in this situation, art can regain its true, original significance – a significance that many critics argue can only be falsely suggested in the West. It is hard to imagine a better place for a serious Dutch cultural implant than a country which is moving from the malaise of Soviet repression to membership of the EU. Participation in the Riga Sculpture Quadrennial is therefore worthwhile: both for the enjoyment of the Latvian public, and as a way of promoting a different and perhaps new mentality among the Dutch art elite. Participation here does not mean just drifting on the waves of the international art establishment. It means taking an imperialistic cultural attitude. The question needs to be asked what one can do in foreign public space – what is relevant, and what is possible. To put it bluntly, it is not a matter of representing the Netherlands, but of meddlesomeness – the urge to launch Dutch art into European Space.
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The initial reaction of the potential Dutch subsidizer, the Foundation for Art in Public Space (SKOR), was that they were not in favour of participation in the Sculpture Quadrennial Riga 2004. On the grounds of the arguments stated above, we asked SKOR to revise its axioms and support the present project proposal as a Foundation for Art in European Space (SKER). They responded positively to this request in early January 2004.
Source: Hans van Houwelingen, Mark Kremer: clarification accompanying design for ‘Pissing in public’, 2003
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