tvvv.plotas_08: artist/statement
TV project / discussion / videoconference
broadcasted by LTV / June 6, 1999 / 10.30. p.m. CET
SCHEME FOR STATEMENT:
If, I awake you in the middle of the night asking to tell your life story in three minutes. Evaldas Jansas is an eccentric Lithuanian artist who comes from painting. Using a video camera to follow his every move, he is painting a portrait of himself in recent temporary Western European exile. He has been arrested many times and is always under threat of the police. You never know if he is pretending or not , but it seems like he is using all possible kinds of stimulants. The theme of the discussion brought up the question “what moves the artist?” If the research is not limited locally, then it is interesting to match different points of view despite their origin – west or east, north or south. What is the truth, that gives you energy to survive?
> Pernilla Carlsson /artist/Stockholm : …My prejudices, my image of what Eastern European women would look like. And that could be having a bit too much of hairspray, too much make-up and these ugly clothes from the eighties. And then I dressed like that and I had this make-up and then I realized that no one looks like that here anymore, of course.
So what I’m curious is my own prejudices, is my own image of this other kind of people. And that’s other work where I go home, where I visit peoples’ home. It’s connected to this, it’s about this lack of taste. What the things that you buy, what does it mean for you? If you buy a certain type of clothes, or make-ups or whatever you buy it mean something to you and you make a choice. I want to raise questions to these issues.
> Evaldas Jansas /artist/Vilnius : I do not fit in with your suppressive standards!
> Alexei Shulgin /media artist/theorist/Moscow : Actually what interests me in art is the search of such temporary zones and possibilities, that are free from the context. There is a notion “temporary autonomous zone”. Certain situations, certain possibilities appear from time to time to be relatively free. And it’s very important to be sensitive to this process and to be able to find these spots.
But of course, all that is a lie. It’s not possible to be free in this world. But to feel a little bit of that freedom – that’s possible. And that’s what fascinates me in making art. And maybe it can be sort of its purpose.
It seems to me personally that in order to be as radical as possible, it means you have to be yourself and don’t join somewhat social and at the same time repressive movements. Instead of playing a game foisted upon you by someone, for instance by the rightists or the leftists, it’s better to foist yourself upon society with your own ideology. This is the only radical possibility as I see it, left for the artist.