Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Glezniecības izstāžu apmeklējums manā dzīvē ir izteikti reta parādība, bet šodien sanāca tā, ka bija ļoti operatīvi jāpārplāno mūsu "laiks brīvsolī", jo mainīgie laika apstākļi nemotivēja kaut kur braukt ar riteņiem, līdz ar to vispirms devāmies uz restorānu, bet tad prasījās turpat tuvumā kādu gramu kultūras. Un tā mēs nonācām Mūkusalas mākslas salonā, kurā šobrīd skatāma Vladimira Glušenkova retrospektīva izstāde. Par mākslinieku un viņa daiļradi nezināju nenieka, taču izstādes nosaukums "Absurda mitoloģija" teica - jāiet!

Patiesībā es sevi neuzskatu par postmoderni alternatīvās mākslas cienītāju un no tiem cilvēkiem, kas tusē pa Andrejsalas alternatīvajiem pasākumiem, es nepavisam neesmu. Taču "Rīgas mākslas telpa" vismaz ar pirmo tur redzēto izstādi - paraspoguļiem - mani bija ieintriģējusi. "Nelāgs joks" arī ieinteresēja ar savu aprakstu, taču praksē sevišķi saistoša šī izstāde neizrādījās. Faktiski šajā izstādē patiešām tika rādīti dažādu mākslinieku un "mākslinieku" muļķīgi joki, kuri reizēm bija vienkārši nejauki (proti - tādi, kas man patīk), bet reizēm - stulbi. Dažādos žanros, dažādās tehnikās un kopumā pat nemaz ne garlaicīgi. Labs bija kāds velsietis, kas bija safilmējis pāris stundas ar dažādiem nelāgiem jokiem, tos bija tiešām interesanti skatīties. Bet viss šī pasākuma iekārtojums man vispamatīgāk atsita atmiņā Turīnas Kino muzeja iekārtojumu tikai tādā pusbomžu variantā. No video filmām, ko šeit izrādīja, kā jau minēju, daļa man patika - lieliskas bija plastilīna pornenes, minūti garais kaprača Baywatch bija spēcīgs, bet karostā filmētā bērnu futbola spēle bija bezjēdzīga, sieviete, kas ekrānā runāja par to, kā viņa izliekas par mākslinieci, nebija smieklīga un latvietis - porno video reklamētājs izstāžu prezentācijās nebija baudām ilgāk par vienu-divām minūtēm, jo pārāk atsita lētu un stulbu "Slēptās kameras" raidījumu. Vispār būtu interesanti pārmaiņas pēc aiziet uz kādu klasiskāku izstādi, bet redzēs kā nu sanāks.

Vispirms uz spoguļu valstību aizdevās Liencha kopā ar L (piektdien), bet sestdienas vakarā Lienčai radās iespēja šai izstādē paviesoties vēlreiz - nu jau kopā ar savu laulāto draugu (mani).

It would be a sin for me and my wife not to visit a museum of erotic on our trip to Berlin. After all, everyone knows that Berlin is the European capital of both sex and drugs. Not of rock`n`roll though, that`s not an area where Germans have excelled in the past few decades. But who needs rock`n`roll in a museum of erotics? Sadly we were a bit dissapointed with the museum. We had already been in a similar place in Prague and there it was much more interesting - for there were lots of ancient technical sexual appliances - both funny and gross. Here the museum mostly consists of "erotic" works of art - drawings and sculptures with vaginas and penises. To me the most interesting aspect of this museum was looking at other visitiors. Actually I do find it kinda peculiar seing single men and women in this museum. I can completely understand how a couple can go to a place like this, or even two friends but what sort of pathetic people go to a sex museum alone?

The Berlin Zoo is one of the oldest and biggest zoo`s in the world. I had been there some ten years ago, but for my better half it was the first visit. There`s lots of animals in here and they are kept nicely, but who am I to write about animals? In comparison to the Budapest zoo this one is certainly better, so it is better than the zoo in Riga, yet a zoo is still a zoo - a place you visit once you go to a big city - but not a place you think much about afterwards.

We went to this place in order to see the biggest skeleton of a dinosaur that any museum has in its collection. Yet the skeleton wasn`t there for some reason, so we spent some time looking at rocks. I can`t say that I find rocks particulary interesting. There were a few dinosaur bones though but that`s not really the same as a dinousaur itself.

I went to see this exhibition so I would have been in an art gallery in Berlin. I am not a huge fan of paintings, so my hopes weren`t too high before the thing. The biggest problem with paintings lies in the fact that I find them quite boring and the only thing of at least some sort of interest for me is seeing famous paintings so I could later say - I`ve seen them. As for this exhibition, it consists of paintings from the era of 14th century until the 17th century and I can`t say that I noticed a lot of works by famous painters, and I can`t say that I enjoyed this stuff much.

Latvians and comedy? It`s not like fish and chips, it`s more like fish and meat. Or I don`t know what and I don`t know what. Ok, Maris Bishofs went to Israel and spent there a few years but he still comes from Latvia. At this exhibition there were his drawings done over a period of something like fourty years - starting with the work back home for a magazine named "Dadzis" and including work back home again for our biggest daily newspaper "Diena". Basically his work is done as carricatures. The technique is very simple - I guess I would be able to draw like that. But what he has is a massive amount of ideas, of creativity and certainly of wit. The level of details is extremely low - Bishofs doesn`t draw what you can see everywhere around you, and if he does that he does it in a minimalistic manner giving you a perfect impression of what life is like. And what is life like? It`s not particulary great, there are banks and casinos everywhere, people ar reduced to numbers and have about as much individuality as birds flying south. I enjoyed this exhibition like I rarely enjoy something. It`s in the following style - you laugh and think at the same time: damn, is it sad! A wonderful experience for sure.

Well, I`m not so sure what I was looking for. Nothing in particular, I suppose. You see, this was an exhibition where you could see different kinds of chicken (because it`s the year of the rooster right now), and so I went there and checked them out. Chickens are just chickens, basically. Ok, there were some ducks, pheasants and quails as well but the amount of the birds wasn`t particulary big, nor were they particulary beautiful. On the other hand - the expectations for an exhibition like this shouldn`t be very high.

I`m becoming smart, you know. It`s only the beginning of February, but it`s the fourth exhibition I`ve already been to this year! And it goes either into the first or the second place. Of course, before this exhibition the name of Silvio Vigliaturo wasn`t known to me - as you probably know I`m not a big expert of modern art (or of classical art for that matters). How can I describe what the exhibition had? Well, the basic thing was glass and forms made of it. And these forms were coloured in a somewhat weird manner - with paint, not coloured glass, that`s for sure. Most of the works depicted either lovers, rock`n`roll musicians (not certain musicians but musicians as such) or amazones. As it was written on the wall - Vigliaturo`s inspiration comes mostly from Picasso, Matisse and Marc Shagal. About the first and the third one I guess I could have guessed. It`s a lot of abstraction, of course, but an interesting abstraction for sure. I`m not gonna say that this exhibition made me think or something like that - it was just beautiful, and I don`t ask for nothing more.

In the Soviet Union Mr. Vysotsky was a real icon - his songs were symbolising not agreeing with many things, something like that. In 1980 he died from having too much alcohol and morphium - he wasn`t what you call a real pioneer in everyday life, and not even in his songs. But even now - 25 years after his death Vysotsky is still celebrated as an actor, as a poet and even as a singer. This exhibition was to show some info about his songs, and about his life. What I found good was that the exhibition didn`t only provide positive information about the hero but also gave some critique - which is a logical thing if a person was as controversial as Mr. Vysotsky. On my personal opionion of him - some of the songs have good lyrics, musically they are lamer than the ones by Leonard Cohen but he was a great actor, especially I like his most famous work - "Mesto vstrechi izmenit nelzja" - if you were born in the Soviet Union you`re bound to know this one. About the exhibition - it was pretty good, but not groundbreaking of course.

Going to an art gallery isn`t a very regular thing in my diary. Why is it so? I`m not quite so sure. Apperantely I like art, but I`m just too lazy to go and look at it. This Maija Tabaka is probably the most famous (at least in Latvia) living painter of my country. And her works certainly have their charm. Mostly her paintings look a bit goth - the characters often have a bit greenish/pale faces and you`d probably never call her style very optimistic. The colours are either very bright and a bit agressive or very thick and spaced. I guess her favourite colours are black and white. But you can never know. What did the paintings remind me of? Probably, there`s a very slight similarity to Andy Warhol, with the exception that (as far as I know) the paintings weren`t done by updating photos. Still stylistically there is something similar to that. One thing I`m sure of is that Maija Tabaka doesn`t specialise on painting landscapes - there are people everythere, and quite a huge part of them are Roma people. And the ones that aren`t Roma look like they were a bit mad, posessed or even like zombies. I`m not gonna try to dig deeper, possibly even searching for the meaning but I`m certainly glad that I went to this exhibition and I found the pictures very interesting (man, did the last sentence sound like some right-thinking crap I`d probably use in an essay back at school).

I went there on a mission to write about this exhibition. Here you can see the original artefacts from an era in which most of us (the post-Soviet people) were living quite a long time. Pictures of Lenin on the wall, posters instructing people what to do and what not to do, red banners, and that kind of stuff can be found here. What I liked was that such an exhibition was made and that it didn`t only provide information on the KGB, concentration camps, etc, but also showed some moments from the everyday life of a typical soviet person. But it still seemed a bit tendentious - you could feel that the people who created this exhibition weren`t really neutral when choosing the objects - they wanted to show how grey and uninteresting life was in the Soviet Union, despite the fact that being in danger is a great adrenalyniser, that there`s no way the government can make people to have no fun at all (if it is not a concentration camp, a gheto or a prison we`re talking about, and despite what nationalists say nowadays - people didn`t live in a prison in the soviet times).

What do you want to tell me? Nothing. A title similar to this one was added to most of the pieces of art at this exhibition. If it was only that, I`d say, it ain`t so bad. But there was also some crazy stuff about visions and something that goes with them. Gray forms on huge black sheets, disturbing sounds, video of tomography and a few quite bloody photos - that`s what I saw. I really don`t want to taste the soup although it is not that sour as it might seem. Yeah, and I`ve never been to something like this before.

Blimey! Hell! Yuk! Disgusting! I didn`t think that I would dislike it half as much as I did. If this sort of crap is erotical what the hell is porn in that case? If a fat ugly woman is hanged in some stupid chains and a whip is placed inside her you-know-what it ain`t sexy to my oppinion. I`d rather just not talk about it.