February, the month of taking care of those we hold closest is here! This time we have quite a lot of things planned, so you can spend the most quality time together with those you love! After all, is there a better gift than looking in the same direction together?
Perhaps that direction is a painting or a sculpture, perhaps its paying attention to a small, otherwise unnoticed detail. Give February a chance to surprise you, visit Rigas art spaces and experience something new!
Oh, and definitely, keep an eye out for abbreviations like EO (Exhibition Opening), MA (Meet the Artist), or W (Workshop)!
427 & Mr. Greedy CBD Coffee Shop! This year, 427 Gallery is transforming into a CBD and art shop, offering an appreciation of the variety and usefulness of CBD products and the creativity and clarity of mind that comes with it. The cannabis range will be complemented by investigative artwork, available for purchase or for the eye/mind's delight! Uģis Albiņš, Kārlis Biķernieks, Margrieta Griestiņa, Kaspars Groševs, Raids Kalniņš, Latvania, Anna Malicka, Dzelde Mierkalne, Lauma Muižarāja, Shady Ladies, Klára Švandová (Shelter of Trust), Viktor Timofeev and others!
[MA] Bolderāja invites you to another world with Michael Holland's exhibition "Signs and Sleep" that overlaps simplicity with countless references to underground music, discoveries in virtual environments and years of accumulated knowledge in creating his radio show. Michael's work in the visual arts is an extension of his musical practice, an exploration and investigation of the world of music in places we don't hear about immediately in the big headlines, but which form and maintain an identity of place. Cassette recordings abound, a personal and rare recording from the winter months at the end of 2021 has come into my hands; I've listened to it several times, in places it's filled with an arctic coolness, a minimalism, then it breaks into a hypnotic dance somewhere on the other side of the equator. These collage-bookmarks are influenced by Maria Antónia Siza, a lesser-known Portuguese figurative painter, one of whose main motifs in art is people in slumber. A reflexive state of rest, a home where the shelves are full of countless entries and books in progress; it is a leisurely pace, several stops and encounters.
The Birkenfeld Gallery will showcase Latvian-American photographer Ulvys Alberts' photographs of stars of cinema, music and poker. Surrealist miniatures by painter and graphic artist Juris Zvirbulis and the most famous works by legendary Lithuanian photographer Antanas Sutkus.
Rāmis Gallery presents the exhibition "Džemmas Skulme's Watercolours". The exhibition features watercolour paintings by Džemma Skulme, created in different periods of time. You can be excited, because most of them are available to the general public for the first time. The artist's works are characterised by monumentality and ambition in form and content. The images of her works - mothers, dowries, folk songs, caryatids, archers - are brought closer to the symbol through philosophical generalisation and associative imagery.
A small but concentrated exhibition of Alice Medina's paintings "Waiting for You and Spring" has opened in the Rāmis Gallery's cocktail bar "Marmelāde". The paintings in the exhibition are mostly very recent and will be seen for the first time by the general public. Connoisseurs of Alice Medina's signature will recognise her impressionistic palette and loose oil brushstrokes. New perspectives of untouched cities, recognisable motifs and, as the title of the exhibition "Waiting for You and Spring" evokes a sense of longing in the paintings.
ISSP Gallery offers a place for deeper thinking with the exhibition "Laidi" by artist Ieva Epnere. The exhibition features a documentary film about the last 101 years of the Laidy Primary School. Ieva Epnere came to Laidy in the autumn of 2021 as part of a creative residency to learn about the history and stories of the parish and to find inspiration for a new work of art. During the residency, the idea of collaborating with the school's theatre group was born, and the choreographer Elīna Gediņš was invited to create the movement performance "Laidu Legendas". Parallel to the development of the idea, the artist learned about the decision of the Kuldīga County Council to close the school. The disturbing news prompted the artist Ieva Epneris to document the event in a film.
[MA] In Kalnciema Quarter Gallery don't miss out on the exhibition "In Everything", a collaboration between four students of the Painting Department of the Art Academy of Latvia - Elīna Vagre, Stīna Skulme, Renāte Pagaste and Ina Kantiķe. The endless variations of light, the changeability and impermanence of forms, the scope of the moment and sensation, the cyclical and infinite beginning and end are questions that the artists address, each in their own technique and way, depicting the infinite kaleidoscope of possibilities evoked by being in nature and the realisation that the universe really can be in a single drop, a bird's song or a train of breath.
LIEPA, on the other hand, presents the illustrations by Vita Radzina. "Sensitive feelings are the expression of this art form, ink illustrations mixed with collage evoke dream-like emotions, inspiration based on life, people, inspiration to create something new", as well as works by Evelīna Paula Zander. "I don't usually encode emotional messages in symbols, but rather in the interplay of tones, the feeling of material and materiality. I try not to retreat from subjectivity, not to hide behind alien principles, not to become infected by them (although I don't always succeed). There is a simplicity in my work, an objectification of the daily rhythms of repetition. The glimpses are already conceptually complete as circles". This is how the artists talk about their inspiration and their work.
[MA] [EO] [W] The Art Academy of Latvia and Riga Last Thursdays invite visitors to the event series "ART WORKS"! This month's event is dedicated to the Visual Plastic Arts Department of the Academy of Fine Arts - glass, ceramics and textiles. Visitors are also invited to see the latest exhibition of painting students "VILCE4" on the 2nd floor of the LMA and to discover a special painting in the newly opened exhibition space NAGLA in the basement of the LMA. Together with the ceramics students, visitors are invited to see the highly acclaimed studio works, watch the students in the process of creating their art, and touch and learn more about the raw materials of ceramics in a special Workshop.
LOOK will present an exhibition by artist Annemarija Gulbe entitled "Challenge to Heredity", which will explore the components of Latvian identity, nostalgic routines in the kitchen, and the inheritance of crafts and knowledge from generation to generation, within one region or country. Through new works, the excitement for the customary presentation of otherwise seemingly insignificant details and uniqueness of products in society is explored. The visitor is invited to experience an action in which Annemarie will be present almost every day, creating a space for conversation about how the familiar into which we are born or settled may be able to define who we are, what we do, what we live on, and the importance of patriotically practising the knowledge and skills cultivated by our ancestors.
[MA] [EO] M/Gallery will open with Renārs Zvirgzdiņš's solo exhibition ''WEIRD?'', a series of photographs created in 2022 in collaboration with French costume designer Nikita Leroy. During this period, we both studied in Portugal and worked on several projects, during which Nikita created a series of costumes from clothes donated by friends, objects found on the street and various materials. At the end of the study period in Portugal, this photo series was the last project we did together." Renārs says.
Maksla XO presents two new exhibitions in February! The gallery will be showing works by Zane Žeivate "As long as you want" and Luciana Mariano's exhibition "Tea time"! About her creative work Zane says: "When I write poetry, I let my walls fall down. In the process, I strengthen my trust in my feelings. Working with metal and fabric and embroidered text, I seek the place of contemporary urban society, where feelings and rationality participate in a never-ending power game. I explore the boundaries between the man-made environment and human feelings, which are considered weaknesses in structures such as cities." Luciana Mariano is a Brazilian painter of Italian and Portuguese origin, a third generation naivist. Over the last 14 years, she has participated in exhibitions and projects dedicated to naivist art in galleries and museums around the world. "Everything that happens around me: the things I see, hear, feel, become the raw material from which my work is created." shares Luciana.
[MA] At MASA Studija / HEX you can experience the exhibition of Ksenia Labecka's paintings and meet the artist herself! The protagonists of Xenia Labecka's paintings transform the events and emotions of her life into caricatures that reflect her journey of self-discovery, embracing her inner child and exploring her own definition of femininity. Through bright colours and seemingly unstable shapes, she tells the story of her transformation into a personal extraordinary style.
[MA] Provodņiks art room on the 2nd floor will host the exhibition "Earth Code" by Visvaldis Asaris, who studied at the Art Academy of Latvia and Humboldt State University, and has been exhibiting since 1985. He says about his exhibition: "The Earth is not only the space of our lifetime, but also the basis of our identity. The symbiosis of colours and textures in the compositions of the paintings reflect the earth in a symbolic image that poetically reflects the earth as the God-land, the Mother-land, the earth mother, the bosom, love, purity, harvest, gold, country, identity, nation, cultural space, war, winter, spring, summer, autumn..."
[MA] [EO] PILOT offers new insight with the exhibition "The Propaganda Effect: the Soviet Poster in Latvia as a Forgotten Phenomenon" . The poster's strength lies in its ability to quickly, laconically and directly give an easy-to-understand, rhetoric and uncontroversial message to the viewer. By identifying the collection of posters in the Art Academy of Latvia, the exhibition authors – Art History and Theory students Zanda Kagaine, Monta Gintere, Laima Dūda and Inese Gātere – explore the poster as an instrument of propaganda of Soviet power in the territory of Latvia during the Soviet occupation. The exhibition reflects both the various issues related to politics, society and ideology, which are affected by propaganda, as well as attempts to identify the public's reaction to it, by studying the historical records of the museum archives.
[MA] [EO] “Baltā zāle”/"White hall" is the second in TUR_telpa's winter series of exhibitions “From the Cold into the Light” and will present new work by Andris Kaļiņins inspired by his interest in museology and the materiality of painting in its different facets. For “Baltā zāle” Kaļiņins presents an installation of paintings and takes the opportunity to consider the effect of light, color, reflection and absorption in the context of an abstracted museum space.
Also, just like every month we will expect you in M/Darbnīca for a fun Afterparty with DJ@jazzy.marky &@nickustinov.jr!
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