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IEVADVĀRDI

Author(s): Māra Ķimele,Inga Pērkone-Redoviča / Language(s): English,Latvian Issue: 2/2015

The collection of research articles “Culture Crossroads”, Issue No. 8 is dedicated to the international research conference organised by the Latvian Academy of Culture “Leftist Ideas in Culture. The Password – Asja” (held in Riga on 6–7 March 2015) and the ideas and insights gained at the conference. The proceedings consist of articles, based on the papers and discussions delivered at the conference. Asja is the theatre director Anna Lācis (1891–1979), more widely known in the world as Asja Lācis – a fascinating personality, a vivid example how leftist ideas have influenced people’s personal and creative biographies. [...]

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ANNA (ASJA) LĀCIS KULTŪRU UN IDEOLOĢIJU KRUSTPUNKTĀ

Author(s): Beata Paškevica / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 2/2015

The article explores the course of formation of the positions of Asja Lācis’s theatre aesthetics in the early period of her activity, mainly in Riga during the 1920s. The article takes a chronological look at the first theatre impressions of German and Latvian theatres in Riga. Special attention is paid to Asja Lācis’s change of aesthetic views under the influence of the Russian avant-garde. In contrast to the exuberance of Hedda Gabler and the existential loneliness in Ibsen’s psychological theatre, the new Russian avant-garde theatrical search stressed the biomechanical conception and the role of the actor as a player in a theatre company. The key position in Asja Lācis’s personal work of directing in Riga amateur theatre of the leftist trade unions was the aesthetic requirements of the proletarian cult and the theatre of October. She tried to create a radical avant-garde theatre and expressed her aesthetic views in a number of articles in the Latvian leftist press. Anna Lācis’s experiments in Oryol and the Riga theatres, which were based on her acquired experience of the Russian avant-garde, served as a catalyst for her further cooperation with Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht; it also influenced the development of different contemporary theatre trends.

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ANNAS LĀCIS DARBĪBA LATVIJĀ 20. GADSIMTA 20. GADOS. EKSPRESIONISMA ŽESTS

Author(s): Rita Lūriņa / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 2/2015

The theatre director Anna Lācis belongs to the generation of modernists who found the origins of their creative impulses in the bright and erudite flow of arts education at the beginning of the 20th century. The wheel of the turn of the centuries threw Anna Lācis into the expression of idealism of the revolution, ideology and art forms. The stage requirements for this expression organised the flexibility of the actor along geometrically constructive laconic lines. Anna Lācis was one of the creators of this kind of gesture for a short time in Latvia in the 1920s. Her activity in Latvia was focused on the ideas and practice of formation of the so-called Proletarian Theatre. Anna Lācis’s choice of working with amateurs was determined not only by her position of an adherent to proletarian ideology and her brave civic liberty, but probably also by the coincidence of circumstances. When Anna Lācis was in Latvia, she gladly communicated not only with the left-wing revolutionary intellectuals (the poet Linards Laicens, the writer Leons Paegle, and others), but also with the representatives of Riga theatrical environment of the time. Unfortunately we cannot speak about Anna Lācis’s creative contribution to the Latvian Professional theatre of the time; however, her stagings lend us a wonderful opportunity to see a part of the multi-faceted spectrum that the beginning of the 20th century offered to the stage form of the actor and appreciate the erudition that her education had provided.

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ANNA LĀCIS AMONG THE CREATORS OF THE IDEOLOGICAL CHILDREN’S THEATRE

Author(s): Joanna Crawley / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The moral and political coup d’état in West Germany in 1968 brought new ambitions and goals. Women and children were recognised as victims of existing institutions. In order to change their lives, a vision and examples were necessary. This is why the summary of the Programme of the Proletarian Children’s Theatre by Asja Lācis and Walter Benjamin, which appeared in an alternative magazine, and subsequently Asja Lācis’s autobiography, entitled “Profession – Revolutionist”, caused an immediate reaction and became a new organisational strategic basis for work with children and youngsters. In these works, newly established children’s theatres, such as Teater im Märkischen Viertel, Gruppe Spielumwelt, Volker Ludwig’s Reichskabarett (subsequently – Grips) and TAT, found particular inspiration for anti-authoritarian activity. Volker Ludwig saw a way of bridging theatre and emancipation-oriented education in Asja Lācis’s works. The Grips-Theatre, which has existed for over 40 years, has become the most influential ideological theatre for children. Its different kinds of activities are now in use all over the world. The present paper explores the impact of Asja Lācis’s ideas on contemporary children’s theatre, demonstrating how concrete her discoveries were in the context of the theatre of her time.

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THE RELEVANCE OF ASJA LĀCIS’S KINDERTHEATER TODAY: A BRAZILIAN PERSPECTIVE

Author(s): Ligia Cortez,Jorge de Almeida / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The goal of the article is to show that Asja Lācis’s theatre programme, which was based on her reasoning about historical, practical and political issues in the theatre for children and adolescents, can be significant in the development of modern youth theatre in Brazil. Walter Benjamin’s Programme of the Proletarian Children’s Theatre, which included and explained Asja Lācis’s ideas, enhanced a better understanding of the involvement of art and theatre in politics, as well as the education based on emancipated artistic experience. The article views these ideas from a historical perspective by studying the case of “Casa do Teatro”. This institution is an heir to the tradition of education theatre, whose political dimension is associated with the resistance to Brazilian dictatorship (1964– 1984). Through emphasising theatre activities as a type of conscious education, certain aspects of Asja Lācis’s ideas gain the kind of significance that Brecht’s and Benjamin’s works have possibly lost in the context of contemporary politics and the latest trends in theatre development.

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POLITISKAIS AKTĪVISMS KĀ TEĀTRA FORMA

Author(s): Zane Kreicberga / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 2/2015

Nowadays political activism can be considered as a form of theatre: its strategies and tactics often employ the means proposed by Brecht and other thinkers of the political theatre. However, there is a paradox if artistic activism is being practised exclusively in the artistic context, it can find itself in a deadlock. The article is dedicated to the phenomenon of artistic activism, exploring such examples as protest movements born in the UK “Reclaim the Streets” and “Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army”, “Nano-rallies” in Barnaul, Russia, the act of “The Standing Man” in Turkey, and the activities in media space by the American activist collective “The Yes Men”. The artists create the language and aesthetics of protest merging the borders of life, art and protest.

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POLITISKI DOKUMENTI LATVIJAS LAIKMETĪGAJĀ MĀKSLĀ

Author(s): Krista Burāne / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 2/2015

Socially and politically significant themes rarely become the content of the works of art in Latvian contemporary art. It can most likely be explained by the past Soviet traumatic experience when the art had to compulsorily serve state political life and ideology. In Latvia a large part of artists represent the rightist art for the art’s sake opinion which is concerned about the form of the work of art, not the issues of its content. Rightist art also stresses the freedom of artists in their relationship with society so that the artists could think within the framework of the Latvian concept of one’s own place and green piece of land. One of the main issues of debates on the relationship of politics and art is the question of social life aesthetisation in a work of art which promotes observation, not a vigorous action, thus suffering and people’s lives are turned into a commodity. However, is it not possible for aesthetics to serve as a trigger for an action to change the existing situation and improve the common well-being of society? This action could, for instance, reduce social loneliness, change social behaviour, and create alternative forms of economic and political life. It could be a work of art which does not pity, as pity humiliates, but a work of art which identifies oneself with suffering because identification helps, and in a way represents a contemporary leftist view of the world which is different from the classically rightist or leftist viewpoints which state that there is no place for politics in art and vice versa. The article examines the works of Latvian modern artists (Jānis Balodis, Ivars Drulle, Dāvis Sīmanis and Arnis Balčus) of four different fields. The chosen works are of a socially active character; they also use political documents of different forms in order to encourage the involvement of the viewer in discussions which are important for society.

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Kako (je) tvornica mijenja(la) grad: primjer tvornice Dalmatinka

Author(s): Dragana Modrić / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 2/2018

The opening of the Dalmatinka spinning mill and thread factory in the middle of the 20th century marked both the industrial and cultural revolution in the undeveloped and rural area of the Dalmatian Hinterland. As one of the most successful textile factories in Southeastern Europe, Dalmatinka was the initiator of the local economy, and the social and urban development of the town of Sinj. Since its very beginning, Dalmatinka instituted a housing care policy that aff ected the urbanization of the town. The factory displays the history of workers, housing care policy, infrastructure development of the town, as well as social phenomena such as female emancipation. This article presents an analysis of the results of a study which was conducted within the project “Industrial heritage and memory culture on the example of the Dalmatinka factory – Sinj” and points to the possibility of analysing the project in the context of establishing the political in art as an important element in engaging the public/community.

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Environment and Ecology Issues in Works of German Street Art

Author(s): Alise Taškāne / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

This article deals with the development of environmental and ecological issues in Germany since the 1970s, and how these issues are represented in works of street art since the beginning of the development of modern graffiti, and later street art, in Germany. The purpose of this research is to identify differences in the ecological and environmental issues in works of graffiti and street art from the 1970s to present day in Germany. This has been done by examining general themes of environmental and ecological issues in graffiti and street art and by studying some of the specific examples of artwork, using research methods by visual analysis based on study “Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design” by Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen, and visual analysis of iconography and iconology, described by Marion G. Müller in “The SAGE Handbook of Visual Research Methods” by Eric Margolis and Luc Pauwels. The first phase of the research involves an overview of the sociopolitical background of the ecological and environmental issues in Germany since the 1970s, as well as development of modern graffiti and street art in Germany in the context of ecology and environment, using the method of iconology. The second phase involves examining physical examples of graffiti and street art in Germany. The final phase deals with regional differences reflected in artists’ work in Germany. This article will provide general insights in graffiti and street art in Germany and it will explore how German artists tackle the environmental and ecological issues in their works.

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Preservation of Street Art in Paris. An Example for Riga?

Author(s): Valērija Želve / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

In many cities graffiti and street art is considered as vandalism and is often connected with crime. However, in some cities majority of the population does not agree with such a statement. They see street art and graffiti as decoration of the city. They think the artists deserve a safe space for expressing themselves. It is already a little step towards preserving the street art movement, as, of course, not all the citizens will share this opinion, since place of street art is still a very arguable question in many cities around the world. More and more organisations, associations and projects of different types are being created to promote and protect the urban art. Promotion of street art can be expressed in different ways, for example, panel discussions and workshops, exhibitions and festivals. Several street art and graffiti related spaces are being opened in Paris. Museums, warehouses, walls, schools – every kind of space could be used as a platform for the artists. This is also a nice way to show to the city council how important this culture is to the citizens of Paris. At the same time Riga cannot be yet proud of a thriving street art and graffiti culture. But what if Riga actually took Paris as an example? Could similar organisations in Latvia improve the society’s attitude towards urban cultures? Could the safe platform for street art be a solution for its popularization in Riga? The aim of this paper is to introduce organisations which promote and protect street art and graffiti in Paris and to evaluate if street art positions in Paris could actually be an example for Riga. The conclusion is that the bigger amount of such organisations is able to actually change the attitude of society towards the urban art and Riga can surely learn a lot from Paris – creating spaces for graffiti and street artists can not only make their positions better, but also it can have a positive impact for the city’s social life and attract a specific type of tourists to the capital.

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Role of Street Art and Graffiti in Urban Development Planning. The Analysis of the City of Riga

Author(s): Oskars Goba / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

Creative city discourses have named the arts as a driver of urban change and regeneration. Although governments continue to criminalize graffiti, they have taken part in the creative city discourses [McAuliffe 2012]. Opportunities for graffiti writers to have their graffiti recognised as something valuable have arisen. Meanwhile street art has been recognised as a legitimate urban artistic practice [McAuliffe 2013]. Nevertheless, the strategic urban development planning of the city of Riga does not include street art and graffiti. Meanwhile Lisbon municipality pursues these practices strategically. It has established street art and graffiti as fields of expertise of The Department of Culture Heritage. It is responsible for the institutionalization of street art and graffiti in Lisbon. However, Riga city representatives lack the knowledge and understanding about the positive contribution of street art and graffiti. Initiatives to create legal places for graffiti in Riga have been unsuccessful because the views of the municipality members and the graffiti writers in regard to these territories and their use have differed greatly. Besides, the development planning in the city of Riga is a relatively new practice; therefore, planning in specific fields has not been developed yet. This article will examine how graffiti and street art supports urban development and how these practices are implemented in the cities of Riga and Lisbon.

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Towards Social Cinema: Extending of Riga Poetic Style in the 1970s

Author(s): Inga Pērkone-Redoviča / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

In the 1960s, a group of young and very gifted documentary filmmakers established themselves at Riga Film Studio and developed a poetic style, based on visual metaphors which they named themselves as Riga Style but later in the Soviet and East European context the style and its creators came to be known as Riga Poetic Documentary Film School. Yet in the 1970s one can identify pronounced focusing by the documentary filmmakers on social issues, the aspirations to offer in their films analysis of the problems existing in the society and sometimes offering their solution without losing the artistic qualities of the films. The article written in 1971 by Armīns Lejiņš, the script writer and theorist of the poetic cinema, “Poetic Cinema + Scientific Cinema = Social Cinema” can be perceived as their manifesto. Lejiņš was convinced that by combining poetry and science, Riga documentary filmmakers could facilitate henceforth logical, analytical and dialectical thinking culture in their films. Within the framework of my article, I’ll provide a broader insight into the social angle of films by Latvian documentary filmmakers, into their thematic and aesthetic aspects, and also offer a more detailed analysis of the film “The Woman We Expect?” (Sieviete, kuru gaida?, 1978) – the concept, the process of its making, relations with censorship and its reception.

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Visual Representation of Riga: Living Space in Soviet Cinematography

Author(s): Jānis Matvejs / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

This study contributes to the field of the human geography by conducting a content analysis of a vast number of Soviet movies with focusing on development and spatial organization of living spaces in Riga. In this article, the author sheds light on the construction of meaning of space and cultural politics, where relation of dominance is defined and contested in visual representation of Riga’s residential apartments. The aim of this article is to examine the portrayal of lived space of Riga through the movies of the Soviet period. During this research, the author has used a qualitative research methodology based on the best practices of human geography data transcription and coding. The research consists of the analysis of 290 movies. The main findings show that living spaces are frequently portrayed in the Soviet cinema and they form an integral part of the Soviet urban perception. However, state-imposed censorship throughout the Soviet period strictly regulated geographical disposition in representing living spaces through intensifying or neglecting particular areas of Riga. The images of Riga and of living space found in films are often ideologically charged.

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Towards the Value of the Emerging Art. The Case of the Art Academy of Latvia

Author(s): Linda Teikmane / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

As the notion of the art market, employability and social economic impact drives higher art education even more towards art market and art world centred approaches, the role of emerging art and artists in art education and research rises. The research addresses the value of emerging art and emerging artists, particularly, the alumni of the Art Academy of Latvia and the Painting department of the Art Academy of Latvia in the period 2006–2010. It discusses the use of the terms of the emerging art and the emerging artists, methodological approaches towards the foundation of values of art and culture, applying of the institutional theory and never-established role of emerging art in the culture and creative industries. It also discusses necessity to further develop approach that would allow to establish value of the emerging art and the role of emerging artists inside cultural and art institutions, namely, art education institutions.

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Principles and Logic of the Depiction of Flowers in Vanitas Photography

Author(s): Līga Sakse / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

Art must reflect something that cannot be called trivial or perceived by rational means, as well as what we cannot experience in reality – the borderline between life and non-existence, death among other things. Certainly, ways of depiction vary – there are works of art where the temporariness of life and the inevitability of death have been modelled as a type of a game and there are also those works of art that bear an indirect reminder of death – through allegories or metaphors. Vanitas belongs to the latter. Vanitas is an allegorically presented still life that emerged as an independent genre in about 1550 and became most widespread in the 16th and 17th centuries in Belgium and Flanders. Traditionally the composition of a still life of this type included a human skull, a burnt-out candle, small cut flowers as well as other objects that all seemed to say – everything and anything is transient. The purpose of the paper is to undertake the comparative analysis of vanitas still lives by artists from the USA, Japan and Germany. The photographs of flowers will be used to read the cultural historical message contained in them as well as the technical means of expression used in photography that are enhanced by a profoundly personal depiction. The perceivable designation created by the photographer and the aesthetic object registered by the collective consciousness will be defined and described taking into consideration, as far as possible, the social context that has led to the creation of the given artefact. Works of art will be summarised according to different principles of depiction and the main trends that are reflected in contemporary art photography and have not been encountered before will be outlined. It will result in a general overview through applying acceptable norms that will make it possible to determine whether the picture is or is not contemporary as well as to establish criteria characterising the concept of the contemporary.

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Asara uz vaiga. Eduarda Pāvula aktiera kodu meklējot

Author(s): Inga Pērkone-Redoviča / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 1/2015

Eduards Pāvuls (1929–2006) is one of the most beloved Latvian theatre and cinema actors, a charismatic player of common people. Starting with the 1950s, Pāvuls becomes a messenger of a new age in the art of acting. In his characters he rejects the histrionically encoded style of acting that is characterised by theatrical signs canonised over centuries. Instead, he uses expression codes taken from real life. Pāvuls succeeds in conveying, what can be called Zeitgeist in the art of acting. In the cinema it is represented by the influence of Method Theatre in Hollywood and by acting based in improvisation in the forms of New Wave films at the turning of the 1950s and the 1960s in the world. However, the essential changes do not so much proceed from acting techniques, but from change in public opinion about what a character should be like in a work of art.

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Vai mākslai ir uzdevums? Valsts pasūtījums vs radoša brīvība

Author(s): Dagmāra Beitnere-Le Galla / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 1/2014

This article outlines several trajectories in art sociology in respect of the issue of the artist and a piece of art. What is the status of an artist and self-awareness within the relations of social context: in the realisation of the social life of a piece of art? Applied theories have been chosen to discuss the public space in search of an answer to the question: whether art represents the state procurement or the artist is a free and creative personality in a democratic society? Another question is as follows: Does art have a task? During the last decade several pieces of art depicting harsh reality have been created in Latvia in the manner of social criticism. In the new social system society is not only searching for criticism, but is also longing for art that represents social integrity and identity.

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Starpdisciplinaritāte mūzikas kultūras pētniecībā

Author(s): Ieva Pauloviča / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 1/2008

The meaning of "musical culture" is explained as the sum total of political, economic, social and cultural elements that could have an impact on the development of music in the territory of Vidzeme. In this way the article deals with the approach of interdisciplinarity that can be used today to research musical culture in Vidzeme (formerly Livland) during the 17th century. This method is not prevalent in Latvian musicology. The author suggests the use of this method in the research of music history. In this article, some interdisciplinary examples show how to discover and reflect the musical culture of Vidzeme (historical Livland) during Swedish rule in the 17th century (1621-1710). Several kinds of documentary sources from the 17th century explore typical musical facts. Some of them describe the environment of musical culture and its development. Another document reflects the social and economic life of local musicians' and their musical work. There were many sacristians, singers, teachers and some organists whose work was related to creating the common musical environment in Vidzeme during this century Historical maps of estates and architectural plans of churches give additional information that visualizes historical facts about the musical culture during the 17th century. They are useful as an illustration and a visual source of information. It both gives some new ideas and supports the facts found in written texts. It is possible to study the musical culture of Vidzeme with an interdisciplinary approach. The facts revealed by documents of geography, architecture, history, economics, maps and others reveal crucial information about the social and economic life of musicians and the musical environment in Vidzeme during the 17th century.

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Nacionālās identitātes refleksija Latviešu komponistu mūzikā

Author(s): Solveiga Selga-Timpere / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 1/2006

Towards the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century such Latvian composers as Jurjānu Andrejs, Emils Dārziņš, Emils Melngailis, Vītols and Alfreds Kalniņš got influenced from that ethical, spiritual and musical heritage which has been stored up in Latvian folk songs, each of them in his own and very specific way. At the same time the common memories, connected with Latvian history and reflected in folk songs, grew fundamental for Latvian national identity. Therefore it was considered to be the source of creation for Latvian composers of the above period, that influenced also composers of the following generations. That resulted in the establishment of a particular tradition of com position which incorporated different features of Latvian national identity. Before 1990 under the conditions of different reigning totalitarian ideologic it was impossible to engage in comprehensive studies of the expression of national identity in music and arts in Latvia. Likewise misunderstood ideas of globalisation do not promote the interest in the cultural values of one's own people and in related ethnical and esthetic aspects in general. The Latvian compos er Emils Dārziņš pointed out in "All Ready for a Journey" an essay written as early as the beginning of the 20th century that the Latvian people have their own cultural mission among other people, citing as an argument the ample amount of folk poetry and songs, their ethical, philosophic depth, the musical versatility and the beauty of melodies, typical for the Latvian ethnic culture, which could be further developed under beneficial conditions of a state in which culture is one of the major priorities of life. Contrary to the assumption that the Latvian nation al awakening begun in the 2nd part of the 19th century the author postulates the hypothesis that the first indications of national awakening in Latvia appeared already in the 18th century alongside with the tradition of choir singing intro duced by Herrnhutian Brethren and further developed and refined by the Latvian farmers in Vidzeme.

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«Шуйский» период Иоакима Шартомского — подвижника благочестия и иконописца XVII века

Author(s): Yury Anatolevich Ivanov,Sergey Yuryevich Zakharov / Language(s): Russian Issue: 4/2018

In the article the initial stage of selfless activity of Joachim Shartomsky — one of ascetic of piety of the XVII century is considered. World outlook bases of his icon-painting tradition, spiritual influence on local society in the years of end of the Troubles, the reason and feature of his special honoring in the region are shown. The article discusses the early stage activities of Joachim Shartomski one of the ascetics of the XVII century, the Objective of this study is to show how a personal life example of a monk-recluse, making his prayer and service to the people in the form of icon painting has had a significant impact on the local society during the difficult years of complete Turmoil. A brief life description of the ascetic is given; the ideological foundations of his iconographic tradition are shown. The article provides an overview of sources covering different periods of the life of the monk Joachim, especially his early period when he lived in Shuya, Nikolo-Shartomsky monastery. When analyzing the above information, it is noted that Joachim Shartomsky was revered at the local level, but little known in the historical science of ascetic piety, and his personality deserves attention not only as the object of hagiographic studies, but in the historical and iconographic aspects. The combination in the personality of the monk-ascetic of deep ascetic life and iconographic talent is quite rare in the history of Russian iconography. It is emphasized that from the images written by the monk there were not only many healings, but also that the miracles themselves became a factor of spiritual enlightenment of the people in a difficult historical period. The conclusions drawn are that the Holiness of the ascetic gave him an icon of the grace of healing themselves of the miraculous icon became the signs and symbols of the Renaissance of the region. The basic conclusion is the historical fact of the influence of the personality of Joachim Shartomsky and his miracle-working icons on the spiritual aspect of Shuya at the time subsequent to repeated ruin, as well as the acknowledgement that Russian monks contributed to the preservation of statehood in Russia at the time of the vacillation of mind.

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