"Laikmeta" pēdas Berlīnē un Arnolds Dzirkals: Pārsteigums latviešu modernistu žurnāla simtgadē
Traces of "Laikmets" in Berlin and Arnolds Dzirkals: A Centenary Surprise for the Latvian Modernist Journal

Summary/Abstract: During the heyday of European avant-garde periodicals in the German capital in 1923, in collaboration with the German art critic Paul Westheim's (1886–1963) publication "Das Kunstblatt" as the main partner and model, the only four issues of the first Latvian art magazine "Laikmets" (The Epoch) were published in the hyperinflationary conditions of the Weimar Republic. The initiator of the journal was sculptor Kārlis Zāle (also Zālīte, Zālīts, 1888–1942), a prominent figure in Berlin’s international avant-garde movement. His co-publisher and editor in the German metropolis was Zāle’s assistant, the little-known sculptor Arnolds Dzirkals (also Dzirkalis, 1896–1942). They invited the writer and art theoretician Andrejs Kurcijs (real last name Kuršinskis, 1884–1959) to join the editorial team. At the height of Latvian classical modernism, the theoretical ideas and priority of form proposed by "Laikmets", together with the activism manifested by Kurcijs claimed to establish a "new epoch of artistic culture". On the centenary of the magazine, the Latvian National Museum of Art, having been in contact with Berlin antiquarian Marco Gietmann, unexpectedly supplemented its collection with a fragmentary set of materials from the archives of Dzirkals and the "Laikmets" editorial office. Marco Gietmann had obtained these materials from the German art historian, former director of the West Berlin museum "Galerie des 20. Jahrhunderts" (1945–1968) Adolf Jannasch’s (1898–1984) son, lawyer Alexander Jannasch. These documents are valuable primary sources of international contacts during Latvia’s period of classical modernism. They emphasise the importance of the “Berlin episode” alongside the Parisian influences and fill in some blank spots in the reconstruction of the publishing history of the avant-garde magazine "Laikmets". Remnants of the editorial archive complement the testimonies held by the Latvian National Museum of Art that document the early period of the magazine and are included in the auxiliary collection of the sculptor Teodors Zaļkalns’ (1876–1972) memorial collection. The new materials, which mostly illustrate subsequent activities, have been added to the Zaļkalns document collection through attribution, based on the collaboration of the three sculptors in the magazine "Laikmets", which was published by the newly established publishing house "Latvijas tēlnieks" (Latvian Sculptor). Until now, Dzirkals had been perceived as the most enigmatic person in the publishing history of "Laikmets". The acquisition of his archive prompted the re-examination of the biography of Zāle’s fellow sculptor and his incompletely understood creative output. The article is focused on the Berlin period (1922–1923) when Dzirkals and his mentor Zāle took part in the art life of the avant-garde melting pot and shared a circle of acquaintances. Both had contacts with the modernists from the Russian emigre "Dom Iskusstv" (Дом Искусств – House of Art), German "Novembergruppe" and "Galerie Der Sturm", and became closer to the Italian writer Ruggero Vasari’s (1898–1968) informal International Futurist or Berlin Futurist group. Dzirkals has exhibited twice at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition (Große Berliner Kunstausstellung) and together with the short-lived Synthesis Group (Gruppe Synthès), participated in the International Congress of Progressive Artists (Union internationaler fortschrittlicher Künstler) in Düsseldorf. In his modernist abstraction of form, the disciple followed Zāle at first (“Seated Woman”, 1922) but then reoriented himself to Alexander Archipenko’s (Oлександр Архипенко, 1887–1964) examples. Dzirkals’ “Standing Female Figure” (1922) together with sculptures by Zāle and Zaļkalns, was reproduced in several new 1923 publications in Berlin, demonstrating his belonging to the circle of avant-garde artists he had met. Regarding Dzirkals’ biography, events before and after the Berlin episode have been complemented but there is still uncertainty about the archival data unverified in other ways. These aspects concern his artistic education, employment and migration along Western European routes as well as the sources of the sculptor’s financial support. The information that this dandy reveler was spotted in Baden-Baden, Monte Carlo, repeatedly in Paris, Berlin, Rome and Florence or elsewhere in Europe, suggests he was and adventurous flâneur, experiencing modern urban life during his wanderings abroad. The part of the "Laikmets" editorial archive, encompassing the period of the magazine’s third, fourth and unpublished fifth issues, gives an insight into Latvian modernists’ publishing activities in Berlin, involving communication with foreign like-minded colleagues and supporters in Riga. The most valuable documents are the correspondence between involved persons, manuscripts of articles, rare printed works and evidence of technical preparations. Thanks to Westheim, an important text by purist theoreticians was received for publication and translated by the Latvian magazine’s de facto editor Kurcijs. A list of artists’ works from Vasari’s gallery and Italian writer Giovanni Titta Ròsa’s (1891–1972) essay about Enrico Prampolini (1894–1956) are evidence of the preparatory work for the unrealised “Futurist issue”. Painter Ludolfs Liberts’ (1895–1959) correspondence with the Berliners allows us to trace the work on the last issue and his previously unknown role in the distribution of "Laikmets" in Latvia. The private section of Dzirkals’ archive does not reveal the metamorphosis of the Vidzeme flax merchant’s middle son from a well-off country boy to a modern interwar European metropolitan who managed to assume the identities of a Berlin publisher and Paris gallery owner. The life of the magazine, ambitiously launched in Berlin and a bibliographical rarity today, was over even before the end of hyperinflation and the dispersal of the journal’s creators towards either Riga or Paris. Latvian modernists who familiarised themselves with the dynamic cultural environment and joined the international network of inventors and supporters of “new art”, established direct contacts with the avant-garde circles but did not assimilate in both cosmopolitan metropolises that tempted them to search for new creative impulses away from the Riga they were used to.

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