The Young Painters Prize Tradition: Who Is the Winner After All?

For the eleventh time, the Young Painter Prize (XI YPP) called on the artists from the Baltic states to showcase their new works, and represent their countries, schools of painting and creative principles. The XI YPP main prize was awarded to Sandra Strele (Latvia), while the special prizes went to Eglė Norkutė (Lithuania) and Arnolds Andersons (Latvia). The international jury admitted that it took them an unprecedented amount of time to pick this year’s  winner. We discuss the questions related to young contemporary painters with the following XI YPP jury members: Maarit Murka, one of Latvia’s most renowned artists; Arūnas Gelūnas, the director of the Lithuanian Art Museum; Paulus Fugers, artist, curator, founder and director of the SomoS residency centre in Berlin; Šelda Pukite, art critic and curator; and Vilius Kavaliauskas, art collector, founding manager of both Lewben Art Foundation and Lithuanian Expatriate Art Foundation.

Why do you think we need projects like YPP? Is the format of art competition still relevant today? Who needs it more—artist or their audiences? Who benefits from them most?

Vilius Kavaliauskas: Certainly, artists are the main beneficiaries. I would say that this project is useful not only to the YPP winners but to all the finalists. This is how most of these painters enter the radars of art collectors, both current and prospective ones. Many previous finalists, including well known names such as Andrius Zakarauskas, Jonas Jurcikas, Adomas Danusevičius and Kristina Ališauskaitė, belong to an entirely new generation of artists who grew up with YPP. We certainly say that YPP had influenced their careers one way or another.

Arūnas Gelūnas: I can only applaud the organisers Julija Dailidėnaitė and Vilmantas Marcinkevičius for this idea and for their work keeping it alive. Young artists are particularly vulnerable. They often lack recognition and are generally not trusted by the audience and collectors. Making it to the list of the 20 finalists in an art competition is a really good incentive for young creatives. You get to be recognised not by your mom, dad, favourite teacher, or a colleague, but by an international jury of professionals that do not know you personally, which is why it is so exciting. Another question is what happens after, and whether the award brings the status, gives one wings or opens the doors to the residencies as well as the hearts of the gallerists and collectors. I think that this is exactly what this award is all about. A CV record that says that you have been acknowledged by an international jury adds a lot of weight to your creative biography. I think that the society itself is interested in seeing what new blood circulates in culture, and it wants to find out about the recent tendencies, if there are any.

Šelda Puķīte: To me, it is a complicated question. Honestly, I haven’t got a straight answer. It makes me wonder whether we really need a competition limited to a single medium, because, for example, I am interested in photography and all the festivals related to photography. I don’t even like the term ‘photography’ being used in the festival titles, because I think that today the discourses revolve around the image culture rather than photography per se.

Paulus Fugers: I think awards like these stimulate the artists. The whole point of a competition—or a contest—is that this is exactly what an artist eventually has to face in both real life and the art market itself. It is important to see what your colleagues are doing, what the tendencies are, and evaluate yourself accordingly. By taking part in such projects an artist receives a feedback, while their art becomes an object of public discussions, all of which are vital to the young artist’s career. They only benefit from a confrontation with both the audience and their colleagues. This helps to purify their artistic characters.

Vilius, this year you have switched from being an active observer to a jury member. Any thoughts on the matter, now that the work is done? Did you like the works of the finalists? Do you see them as an interesting new generation of painters?

Vilius Kavaliauskas: Indeed, we at the Lewben Art Foundation have been sponsoring the YPP for many years now, and I was honoured to have become its jury member. It certainly was an interesting experience, and I am very happy about the finalists. New experiences are always good, and did see many good artworks. Even though this year none of my personal favourites made it to the final, I am glad to see Sandra Strele as a finalist—Lewben Art Foundation had already acquired one of her works back in 2018, and this year we are planning to add another one as well.

It is great that, as an art collector, you have already saw her potential a year ago. You seem to have a talent for spotting successful artists. What made you obtain her artwork last year?

Vilius Kavaliauskas: Sandra Strele got noticed by us because she stood out from the rest of the contestants. It might have also been due to the fact that her work reminded me of David Hockney—who is one of my favourite artists. I am not sure if this can be called a talent for spotting the successful artists. Perhaps, after collecting art for many years, one simply acquires an intuition. This once happened with the artist Helen Marten whose artwork “Becoming Branch” we acquired in the early 2014—the very same year she became the winner of the prestigious Turner Prize. This was a really joyous experience, and maybe we’ll have more of similar occurrences in the future.

The countries of the Baltic region have always liked competing and comparing themselves with other countries. Are there any general tendencies in painting across the Baltic states? Are there any stark differences or obvious similarities? Or, perhaps, given the contemporary state of globalisation, it is not worth thinking about painting in terms of locality?

Arūnas Gelūnas: In my subjective opinion, Lithuanians are inevitably more emotional and expressionistic. This is evident in both plastic expression and thinking, and it surely shows in Lithuanian conceptual art. Both Latvians and Estonians lean towards a conceptualism that is rather colder and more geometric.

Šelda Puķīte: The differences are apparent, indeed. For example, during the process of picking this year’s winners, I told my colleagues about the so-called ‘Riga Style’ that Latvians are so fond of. We could actually see some of the Riga Style paintings in the XI YPP show. How should I describe it? These paintings are monochrome, mystical, dreamy, and metaphysical. The term ‘Riga Style’ might have arisen as a rather joking reference, but a certain generation of Latvian artists is really interested in it, even though this hype is now gradually receding.

Today other tendencies start coming to the fore. Globalisation is making an impact on all three Baltic countries, and we see many related similarities between the styles of painting, experimental tendencies and themes. There are more similarities today than there were, for example, a decade ago. Having said that, the differences are also apparent as well. Latvian painting is still very much influenced by the schools of realism and hyper-realism—these traditions are also evident in Estonia, but Latvians have always had an upper hand in this regard. We actually saw this in the works of this year’s finalists. Even this year’s finalist Sandra Strele displayed these tendencies, even though she managed to transform them into a style of her own.

Maarit Murka: During the process of picking the winner, I also told my colleagues in the jury that Sandra Strele’s artwork is very reminiscent of the contemporary Estonian painting. Of course, just like any other country, Estonia has a wide variety of painting styles. But there is always some dominant trends or styles which are particularly valued and liked, and which young artists tend to follow. I even noticed certain influences from what is currently trendy in Estonian painting. Compared to Estonia, Lithuanian painting seems a bit too old-fashioned and traditional, because, in Estonia, painting is now often understood in terms of installation, and a painting is rather regarded as an object. It is not merely about paint on a canvas surface anymore.

Mr. Paulus, until your involvement in this year’s YPP competition, you seemed to be least acquainted with the painting of the Baltic region. What are your impressions?

Paulus Fugers: It was my first visit to the Baltic region, and I finally had a chance to learn about the local context of painting. Seeing the artworks and reading through the applications left me pleasantly surprised. The overall context had left a really good impression. You were asking about the differences and similarities within the Baltic region, but I think we shouldn’t focus on things like nationality or sex. To me, it is not important whether an artist is a man or a woman, Lithuanian or Estonian. Yes, I am interested in the fact that these artists are from the Baltic countries, but I wouldn’t go further than that in terms of the regional differences and similarities. I think, there is a growing interest in the art of the Baltic region. Naturally, this interest has been greatly rekindled by Lithuania being this year’s winner of the Venice Biennale—this was an event that had opened up new horizons and strengthened the focus on the region.

What is happening with the medium of painting today? What are the challenges it faces? Also, what have you noticed in the works of the young artists this year?

Paulus Fugers: This is a good question indeed, especially given that the medium of painting has been pronounced dead many times already. Yet it surely lives on. We were haunted by the similar fears when the digital books came around, as we were fearing they would kill the printed ones. I don’t think this will happen because books need a physical body. The same goes for painting—it cannot be supplemented with its digital version. The painters themselves need their paints, brushes and canvases to be physical. These elements are not going anywhere. What is interesting to me, though, is how the digital elements manifest in painting. For example, the painting of this year’s YPP winner depicts a sterile environment that resembles the aesthetic of a digital environment.

Maarit Murka: I think that the media of painting is definitely influenced by global tendencies. For example, being a painting graduate myself, I always say that I like painting. But I find it funny when someone says that I am a painter, because I only use a specific medium or technique insofar that they are necessary for the realisation of a specific idea: for instance, if I need it to be sculptural, I will turn to sculpture. And if I see that I don’t know something, I will always ask for help.

The medium of painting is in constant flux. While seeking for new ways of self-expression, artists are always trying to break the rules and traditions. Perhaps, this is why many Estonian artists use the elements of painting—fabric, wood, paint, water—to make objects rather than traditional paintings. Over the last three decades, we have been observing a similar situation in fashion as well—young people were reshaping and transforming the tendencies that have long overstayed their welcome.

Of course, we cannot forget the influence of the digital. For instance, one painting had sparked a lot of debates about whether it was supposed to be considered a painting at all, because the very name of the competition itself specifies a particular media. We finally agreed that, even if this was not the case of classical easel painting, we still cannot ignore the fact that it is possible to paint via computer as well.