Kim? Contemporary Art Centre
Andrei Tarkovsky within The Case of the Cafe

The Case in the Cafe was a series of events initiated by Kim? Contemporary Art Centre in order to investigate the connection of abstract ideas by penetrating some specific spots (authors, works, events) of art in 20th and 21st century Latvia and beyond, which in the framework of this investigation process and still being left without the presence of the “big” theories works for a further construction of informative perception.

 

Within The Case in the Cafe: Andrei Tarkovsky in no time at all

 

one can cross space in no time at all

 

Last night I dreamt I was dying.
But I saw, or rather felt,
everything what was going on around me.
I felt that Lara is close to me
and also some friends.
I had a feeling as if I was so feeble and week-willed
that I could only observe my own body and
witness my own death.
The most important thing I experienced in this dream,
however, was the long-forgotten feeling
that this is not a dream, but reality.
This feeling was so strong,
that the wave of sadness overwhelmed my soul,
a kind of symphaty to myself,
as if my pain belonged to a stranger,
as if I observed him from outside,
as if I were outside the borders of my previous life,
as if my previous life was a life of a child,
who has no experience and is completely defenseless.
Time ceased to exist.
Anxiety, the feeling of immortality…
I also saw people who ridiculously and pointlessly
ran back and forth fretting about my death.
And then I came back to life,
but no one seemed to be surprised.

 

Andrej Tarkovskij. Lichtbilder: Die Polaroids. Schirmer/Mosel Verlag GmbH, 2004, p.112.

 

It is a pure coincidence that this November with a quite of delay Riga hosts various events that mark the 80th anniversary of Andrei Tarkovsky. On preview in the new episode of the Kim’s?one-painting display and talk series The Case in the Cafe are three Andrei Tarkovsky’s polaroids from the collection of Alexander Larionov, carefully selected by Kristīne Kursiša un Miks Mitrēvics.