Ly Lestberg
dal 5/3/2008 al 25/4/2008
Segnalato da
5/3/2008
Ly Lestberg
Giedre Bartelt Galerie, Berlin
The artist has taken photos of people from the countryside, has hung those pictures in the secular sacral place of their country (Estonia), the foyer of the Parliament, and has entitled that show "Estonia".
Ly Lestberg has taken photos of people from the countryside, has hung
those pictures in the secular sacral place of our country (Estonia) -
the foyer of the Parliament - and has entitled that show "Estonia". I
do not seem to remember in recent times any art project focusing on
countryside. The topic of land is reserved more to dilettantes:
landscape painting, nature-photo, and nostalgic posh pictures of a
horse. It is easy to land in an ethno- or eco-rut, when treating that
subject, i.e. in exoticism. It is little wonder An artist himself is an
exotic thing in the countryside. The land is no longer his domain, not
even the province of his descent. It is actually a major turning point.
Our old modernists, the post-war generation, the present monstres
sacrés, the saint dinosaurs of art are largely from the village and in
spite of their urbane lifestyle they are still close to the land.
In the said secular sacral hall, in the Parliament the artist has
designed a small side chapel, the walls and columns of which are
embellished by mighty portraits of village Hercules' and Samsons, just
like the ceiling of Michelangelo's Sixteen Chapel. The weight lifter
this is a central figure. On the one hand he is utterly realistic. At
every Estonian village-day or a native-corner party the competition of
the strongmen is an obligatory entertainment.
The stills create an impression of randomness, reportage. Actually
there is nothing random there. "Randomness" is an artistic technique,
most subtle perhaps, but still a technique. Those momentary shots,
exorcised to the short-lived material and temporarily hung, represent
eternity It is modern eternity of course. The artist has installed an
explosion behind the central work of the composition, the young boy
having triumphantly swung the weight with a handle over his head. The
weightlifter becomes a bomb-thrower Aren't the bomb-throwers the
terrorists, those who at the last moment, truly in extremis, saved us
from the conclusive vulgarity, vanity of Western society and man, by
returning to them eternity In the project "Estonia" the obscene and
vigorous village man will become the one who is to return to the real
Estonia eternity the seal of life and death. And for that matter, to
those harebrained lawmakers of Estonia, who stalk and strut past those
pictures and sometimes get in the TV news.
For the meaningful composition designed into Estonia-chapel to be
perfect, the vertical and dynamic strong men and women are gazed at
from the opposite wall by the genuine memento mori. It is horizontal
and static. Irony winks at the sanctity and recalls that looking from a
certain distance, state funerals are nothing but a circus. The largest
symbolic power can be achieved by just the most routine realism, and
the "countenance of eternity", like it used to be said, may
unexpectedly manifest itself where ostentatiously it is "only" a matter
of a document, a photo.
Opening on Thursday, March 6th 7-9 p.m.
Giedre Bartelt Galerie
Linienstrasse 161 - Berlin