Brīvība

ENG // Spick and span, dusty and touchingly marked with spills – the streets, sidewalks and facades are the skin of the city, at once protecting and disclosing everything that happens inside. Pēteris Vīksna uses his skill of finding a surgically precise angle to illuminate the city in a cross-section, revealing several layers of visuality in each landscape and photo. The carefully-crafted form of the photos is one such layer; another one is the landscapes’ mystique, in which chance, time or natural movement gives a glimpse of life even through the plaster of a tower block, while the most commonplace shred of industrial plastic can suddenly make one think of the human being who added it to the landscape.

Surprisingly this is the first solo-show by Vīksna. The way he’s manipulating the space adds more questions – what makes this combination of industrial elements so alive? What constructs our gaze in…