Kriss Salmanis. LOST

Who hasn’t at one time or another felt that things aren’t quite as they appear. At times the trompe d'oeil effect could perhaps be to blame, or some artistic conceptual maneuver. Ceci n'est pas une pipe writes Rene Magritte under a picture where a pipe is unmistakably depicted. A different artist, Marcel Duchamp in turn exhibited a urinal and announced that it was a work of art. The optical illusion of space repeatedly confuses the casual observer, stumbling against the surface of a wall instead of continuing his journey along a pergola-lined alley or in attempting to grasp an object pictured in a two dimensional plane. Krišs Salmanis uses neither surrealist tricks, nor ready made inspired overturns of meaning, but in his characteristically ironic manner, it seems, he manages to warn the observant viewer that something is not quite right with the world.

The artist tends to hide traps in the everyday portrayal of the environment. For example, in one of the video works, it is only after observing a languid Latvian sweltering summer country scene for a longer time that we notice that the tree which can be seen in the foreground is no longer found in its original spot (Videowork “Swelter”, “Lost” 2009 exhibition). The subtle movement creates an almost unnoticeable displacement of reality, allowing one to sense the world’s own pace, which takes place independently of us, and which we can only influence slightly. In another video we may not even notice the funeral procession, the appearance of which, like the mysterious twenty-fifth frame, briefly and unexpectedly appears at an empty country crossroads (Videowork “All Roads”, “Lost” 2009 exhibition). The brief appearance of this scene works like the punctum defined by Roland Barthes , “an attractive or cutting detail”, which tends to be incidental and almost unimportant, but strikes at the epicentre of attention and at times remains in the memory longer than the main picture.

The allegory about life’s journeys which all finish up inescapably the same is openly one of the most existential of Krišs’ works. Usually, ironic rebuses are created, whose existential despair is disguised behind a “complicated futility”. In one of Kurt Vonnegut’s books, this sign decorates the school library where a number of failed perpetual-motion machines are on display (Kurt Vonnegut “Hocus Pocus”, Tapals. Rīga, 2002).

“Complicated futility” would be a suitable motto for the majority of Krišs Salmanis’ works. He is able to masterfully make simple things complex, and by joining a succession of moving pictures in a never ending loop, achieves a moving and at the same time grotesque reminder about the seeming futility of existence. A plasticine person going in a circle tries to clean up his dirty footprints (Videowork “Rondo” 2006). This continues ad infinitum confirming the futility of action. Or one can, for a moment, view the silhouette of a man showering until he washes himself away and disappears. (Videowork “Shower” 2007). Then the animated figure jumps into the picture again and it all starts anew, raising a string of questions about the loss of meaning and problems of representation.

Consumed by “the complicated futility” I return in my thoughts to Marcel Duchamp, who in my opinion also had a pretty sound knowledge of this method, visualising ironic commentary, imitating a resigned inactivity at a time when he was creating such work and time consuming projects, as The Large Glass, La Boîte en Valise and the enigmatic, difficult to decode Étant Donnés. It turns out that not even his closest friends knew about the creation of these works, as for this purpose the artist secretly rented a second workshop. A small part of the work created in secret appears in Duchamp’s self-portrait, in which the profile’s silhouette is supplemented by a fragment of the artist’s face cast. With tongue in cheek – the gesture which many recognize as a sign that something is not to be taken seriously.

Project coordinator: Ieva Zarina

Kriss Salmanis
LOST
Kurator: Ieva Zarina