Exhibition of paintings by Alar Tuul and Andris Vītoliņš

2014 06 19 — 2014 07 06
Author Echo Gone Wrong
Published in Events in Latvia

alar tuul

Communication is only possible if there is common ground for the participants, and meaningful only, if they have something new to say to each other. In Alar Tuul and Andris Vītoliņš’ case both conditions seem to be fulfilled.

Alar Tuul was born in Tartu (1982), graduated from Tartu Art College in 2010 and has had his biggest personal exhibitions in Tartu Art Museum – as the “Choice of the Museum: 2013” and Tartu Art House, also in 2013. Thus, he might be called a Tartu painter par excellence.

Andris Vītoliņš was born in Liepāja (1975). Studied and currently works as the professor of the Painting Department at the Art Academy of Latvia. Being well-established, Vītoliņš has not metropolised. In his recent works he has turned his eyes from the urban exploring of abandoned factory structures, to the coast of Courland. The object has changed, but the vision is the same – as the author claims.

The subject matter of Alar Tuul’s works could best be described by a line from classical Estonian literature: “The hag knew, but she is dead”, which is the answer the Devil, who has decided to come and live on earth, gives to an official, who is asking about his origin. There was certainly a story in the beginning of the painting, one can see it in the details – houses, cars, people with smart-phones. But layer by layer it has started to turn into a neverending structure, with an undetermined focus. The city center in usually a symbolic, representational hub, not the place where things actually take place. The complexity around the center is constituted by little elements which grow piece by piece from and into each other like a virus. Colour, form and even surface seem to be infected.

At the same time this can also work the other way around. Instead of falling into pieces the painting can turn uniform. One of the works in the exhibition depicts a spaceship, ready for take-off, on an empty blue background without any details whatsoever. But a closer look reveals a spatial structure underneath the paint. The empty blue sky turns out to be the ungraspable universe.

Andris Vītoliņš is most known for portraying objects, vehicles and buildings being his favorite subject of choice. But the series of paintings exhibited in the current show are quite far from what one expects. Painted in 2013, in a residency in Paris, the paintings are not based on objects but on ideas and questions haunting the author. One can guess that the central problem of the series is a kind of meta-question about the values art is supposed to carry. Spirituality has turned into a cheap hostel next to the highway. Gothic font as the proper form for holy messages is at the same time the emblem of frivolous pop-culture. The potential emptiness behind creation has turned a house – once so familiar object to the artist – into a ghost like figure.

The exhibition is curated by Indrek Grigor.

Location: Kaņepes Kultūras centrs (Skolas iela 15, Riga, Latvia-LV 1010)