Oļegs Tillbergs

In the 1990s, Oļegs Tilbergs was one of the most prominent members of the so-called “Installator” generation of Latvian contemporary artists. His installations are notable for their monumentality and associative multilayering. They often deal with Soviet and post-Soviet realities. In the early 1990s, in his installation “Floods” (1994), Tillbergs collected hundreds of rusty buckets in his suburban Riga garden, transforming them into images of human fates, i.e. symbols of heavy, brutal work. Tilbergs’ buckets were once young and shiny, like the men and women who carried water, milk, potatoes, rubbish and much else besides in them. The rusted, worn-out buckets have been transformed into symbols of collective historical experience, but new ones will replace them, since while there are people, there will be work.

The international practical scientific seminar “Naftas termināli Austrumbaltijā – vides problēmas” (Oil Terminals in the Eastern Baltic – Environmental Problems) was held in Jūrmala in 1997. At that time, Tillbergs created the installation “White Wings” devoted to the ecological crisis at the seashore. White sheets soaked in oil fluttered over barrels of oil, reminiscent of birds unable to lift their wings and fly away.

Floods. 1994.

White Wings. 1997.