The series Robust Boast consists of an ensemble of sculptural forms – primarily bas-reliefs – that draw upon the widespread use of the language of classical architecture and decoration in the West, its cultural commodification, and how such appropriated motifs have now become common symbols of perceived status across much of the non-western world.
As Eastern European architecture rapidly transformed during the 1990s in response to the region’s emerging sociopolitical landscape, typical working-class homes began to incorporate unlikely designs and recurring ornamentation copied from romanticized histories of the West. Such aesthetic ruptures and uncanny combinations often arose from the misinterpretation of cultural influences and perhaps pointed to the East’s collective desire to ‘catch up’ with the West through alignment to similar standards and values as expressed by architectural notions of beauty and harmony.
Furthermore, this work investigates the fact that many of the ancient meanings embodied by such decorations have been diluted or even forgotten. Their original purposes as symbols in ritual sacrifices to the gods is far from our thoughts when the majority of us now look at beautiful Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassical buildings. It is speculated that ritualistic tools, ranging from remains of offerings and garlands of flowers, spears, darts and ropes to sacred trees and the first wooden temples, have all been recorded in stone. Copied and refined by Romans, popularized during the Italian Renaissance, and then widely employed by architects of subsequent times, they have now become highly affordable and commonplace across the world. The works combine the knowledge of the decorations’ origins with Eastern adaptations, practices and tastes, into elegant objects with a strong visual and cultural legacy, while also blending 3D digital processes with well-known traditional and analogue forms. Robust Boast is a series of works developed during a 2019 residency at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels.
Installation views, Larisa Sitar: Robust Boast, WIELS Project Room, Brussels, 5 December 2019–5 January 2020. Photo © Alexandra Bertels