Riga

A visit with an agitator of the young European generation of artists: in his exhibition “Cults” the Latvian artist Karlis Vitols decries political charades, nationalism and outdated animosities in his homeland.

D The Latvian flag is burning. Not only one, seven of them are blazing away on seven screens, dying down, reviving anew from their own ashes in a continuous loop and going up in flames again. In the background, a deserted timber cottage from the 18th century is wasting away, somewhere in a Latvian village. The flags are meant to symbolize the “seven fat years” promised by former Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis to the country in 2005, shortly before the outbreak of the crisis. This video installation is at the same time the disturbing exhibit in Karlis Vitols “Cults” exhibition featuring at the Mukusalas Art Salon until March 16.

A kind of fetish

“It has been my most realistic exhibition so far. I was a bit tired,” says Karlis Vitols at a meeting in the Art Salon. One can well imagine that he is tired, both of the political charades and corruption in Latvia and of the high degree of abstraction frequently characteristic of his art. By overdrawing national symbols, Vitols now also dismantles the fiercely waged conflict between Latvians and Russians in Latvia about their national identity as a fallacious cult. “People use national symbols as a kind of fetish. They goad each other on. One should think that 20 years have been enough to make peace,” says Vitols. The urgency in his voice shows how serious the artist is about this.

The national symbols he refers to are for instance the red and white “V” and black and yellow “Λ,” positioned opposite one another on two walls in the dark exhibition room. They are seen in large numbers, particularly on national holidays, which sometimes transform into national campaign days, on cars, in windows or on people’s clothes. Whether Latvian nationalists who want to extinguish anything Russian in the country, or Russian nationalists who do not recognize the Latvian state as such – Vitols seems to dislike both groups. “On the one hand, people are being used by politicians and other manipulators with nationalistic doctrines. On the other hand, it is easier to live with the concept of an enemy. That is, however, a wrong idea of life.” Just how wrong, the beholder can already note from the gloomy atmosphere in the dark exhibition hall. It is topped off by a nightmarish, steady dripping sound, as in a torture chamber, that systematically gets on the visitor’s nerves.

Deadlock

A few steps further on, graffiti on a jacket of the word “Russia” meets a belt from the Latvian city of Lielvarde, the so-called Lielvardes josta, which – larger than life-sized – does not fail to produce the desired effect. The fact that the word “Russia” is written in English, as is actually done on many items of clothing, also underlines the predicament of the Russians who frequently have no idea of what exactly to hold onto in their nation ever since the demise of the Soviet Union. This insecurity causes defence reflexes – to which the Latvians in turn respond defensively. Breaking this cycle of nationalism is precisely what Karlis Vitols has in mind with his remarkable exhibition.

“I don’t want to blame anyone. Art has to ask questions, not deliver solutions,” says Vitols at the end of the interview. As you leave the dark room on the upper floor of the Mukusalas Art Salon, go downstairs into the main hall and look through the wide glass pane across the Daugava, you inevitably set your eyes on the spire of a symbol of days long past, the Academy of Sciences in Stalinist gingerbread style. A symbol of old times – but these have changed.