Modern ethnography of two artists’ view Viesturs Linde Faculty of Humanities, Liepaja University
Annotation Andris Vītoliņš Andris Vītoliņš – although the majority of his life can be associated with Riga, he is not stranger for Liepaja. He was born in 1975 September 28 in Liepaja, graduated from Art Academy of Latvia, where he has been working as a tutor since Year 2007. The artist would describe ruins as contemporary national symbol. These unfinished objects decay incredibly fast. The ruins are a business card for this system. When arriving to the capital city form airport, we can see our national pride – the ruins. Arriving by train in the square of the central station – the ruins. Arriving to Liepaja or going via Saldus – ruins again. When crossing the border of Latvia, there are also ruins – abandoned customs buildings. The sacrifice of the little person in the way of survival. While following utopia and invaluable promises about the sweet future, lot of people are ready to fight for the survival over many years. They are ready to suffer every day, spend hours and hours on their way, pay for petrol and go in the dark towards the promised dream village. While spending enormous amount of time and regularly getting up at night in order to be at work on time, they are fine to scarify healthy sex-life. They are fine with all the mortgages to spend the rest of their lives in tasteless colour dwellings. These weird people are ready to fight against the serious allergens caused by syntactic floors and plastic windows. They are happy to raise their kids in degraded environment without sufficient streets and infrastructure. This is the best place! You do not need serious diploma to build something, but you have serious clients who are ready to pay! There is no role for professionalism the main points are political and public relation manipulations in order to achieve some warmth for oneself. The majority of projects are built in traditions of out-to-date technologies that cause a lot of trouble for clients afterwards. Enormous gas and electricity bills and exhaustion of air-conditioners reimburse the ambitions of architect and client. Martinas Gauba Martinas Gauba has graduated from the University of Sauliai. Created 23 personal exhibitions and participated in 70 group exhibitions. The art works of Martinas Gauba are created in the manner of graphics, sculpture and painting. Martinas Gauba is one of the most promising and eccentric new generation artists in Baltic. His story telling works are provocative and positive at the same time. Every day anaesthetic and sometimes even perverse situations are expressed with delicate irony, besides; the contemporary message is developed by the artist working with traditional media like painting and sculpture.