Modern society consists of scenarios, which are made up of routines of things to happen. In his exhibition (10 000) Melancholy Folds, Artūrs Virtmanis is making us understand and re-examine one of these collectively established experiences – a melancholy clinic. This allows us to view the artworks in terms of influential contemporary art – Nicolas Bourriaud’s definition of postproduction: “Postproduction artists use scenarios to decode and produce different story lines and alternative narratives. Art brings collective scenarios to consciousness and offers us other pathways through reality.”
The show is the artist’s first solo exhibition in Riga. Despite having completed his studies in Sculpture at the Latvian Academy of Art in 1996, and spending 15 creative years in New York, Virtmanis (b. 1971) has kindred spirits from his generation in Latvia – something that is evident now. They are among artists who appeared during the 1990s with unprecedented “stupid art” and audited the predictable value criteria of Latvian art – artists such as Miķelis Fišers, Gints Gabrāns and Jānis Viņķelis.
“That’s what’s always been of interest to me,” Virtmanis writes in a long letter in advance of the exhibition. “I am interested in entropy, in things that are semi-collapsed; the moment when pathos disappears.” Entropy is an important word; even the artist’s homepage is named in accordance to it (www.entropicsalon.com). If the theory of the end of the world appears somewhere in the flood of associations and indicates that the Universe will slowly be extinguished via the gradual dissipation of energy until everything is dark, and peaceful, then you are not completely mistaken. And yet Virtmanis obviously projects the concept of entropy not toward cosmic endlessness, but instead toward the human soul; where his exhibition title (10 000) Melancholy Folds is rooted. Virtmanis’ work looks at culture – an entity that can be influenced and altered by people…
~Exhibition curator: Inga Šteimane
We experience melancholy as a set of “symptoms” – sadness, unclear yearnings, a heavy heart, a slower pace of life. As the starting point of the project the artist has taken the lines of Fernando Pessoa: „Happy the creators of pessimistic systems! Besides taking refuge in the fact of having made something, they can exult in their explanation of universal suffering, and include themselves in it.”
Arturs Virtmanis(1971) studied sculpture in Latvian Academy of Arts (1990 – 1996). He has lived in New York since 1996 working in the fields of scenography, design and architecture. He has had four solo shows and has participated in numerous group shows in such New York City galleries as Exit Art, Gallery PS122, Cynthia Broan Gallery, Fishtank Gallery among others; Morris Museum and Jersey City Museum and shows organized by Pro Arts in New Jersey. Some of the recent design projects include a futuristic carousel design “Sea Glass” in Battery Park, New York (2011), scenography for the Broadway spectacle “Spiderman – Turn Off The Dark” New York (2010), observation-tower “The Spiral In The Sky” New York (2009) – all together with designer George Tsypin. In 2002 Virtmanis created installation “Two Theaters” for the 8th Venice’s Architecture Biennale, Russian pavilion. In 2000 in collaboration with Boym Design Studio he created design objects “Souvenirs for the End of the Century” that where exhibited at the “American Century” show at The Whitney Museum of American Art.
