The first Last Thursday of 2023 is finally here, this time with a special introductory event at the Art Academy of Latvia, as part of the ART WORKS evening series. The evening is also going to be special thanks to several brand new and fresh exhibitions! As we start the new year, why not spend it looking at art and participating in workshops? This last Thursday, sitting at home is definitely forbidden!
RLT invites you to start the next months at the Art Academy of Latvia (LMA)! From 17:00, the evening series "Art Works" will take visitors behind the scenes of one of LMA's departments. This evening you will have the opportunity to take part in special workshops and get to know the Visual Arts Department, which includes the disciplines of Painting, Printmaking and Sculpture.
427: Gallery 427 is taking a new turn as a CBD and art shop, offering an appreciation of the variety and usefulness of CBD products and the creativity and clarity of mind that come with it. The cannabis range will be complemented by investigative artworks, available for purchase or for the eyes/mind to enjoy! 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
Aminori: Opening of Irīna Špakova's solo exhibition "Touch"! Isn't it intriguing? In Irina Špakova's exhibition a model of faith serves as an impulse for the work, in which a human person – his physical and spiritual presence is considered fundamental and superior. A human is romanticized and studied rather as a spontaneous and romantic organism, as strong and living energy flows, rather than as predictable algorithms. Much attention is paid to the point of contact, the invisible intermediary that symbolizes unity with all that exists.
Gallery Rāmis: Opening & Workshop as part of RLT! This month we will be able to witness the opening of Arthur Acopyan's solo exhibition "Destinies" at Galerie Rāmis! "In my portraits I try to capture the feelings that arise from shifting everyday life - every person's destiny has its own story, for me it's not important to portray it academically, but to catch the invisible emotions that come from the important turning points in life." This is how Arturs Akopjans talks about his work. Along with the exhibition, visitors will be given a glimpse behind the scenes of the Galerija Rāmis salon - the framing workshop!
Kalnciema Kvartāla Galerija: Until 21.00 we invite you to take a look at Maruta Gredzena's exhibition "Absurdly Corrected" The exhibition is guided by a selection of real quotes in the form of installations and graphics from the most popular everyday communication tool - the mobile phone. The surreal reality of the auto-corrector makes the everyday interesting and, by making it come alive through objects in space, the artist makes us appreciate the beautiful in the mistakes, the incorrect, and invites us to dialogue about the use of language in everyday life in a new form.
KIM?: If you haven't visited KIM? yet, we strongly recommend it, as Evelīna Deičmane's current exhibition Dejorgans has been nominated for the Purvītis Prize 2023, as well as for the Kilograms of Culture 2022 winter vote in the visual arts category. At a time when fictional narratives and global reality impose overlapping dystopias simultaneously, Deitchmann's “Dejorgan” is designed as a territory to seek and find the limits of personal freedom - a place that cannot harm anyone. Alongside this exhibition you can also see Leonard Laganovsky's "Identifying marks: a female gallerist". In 1995, during his stay in Berlin, Leonard Laganovsky staged a series of photographs in the Barbara Weiss Gallery, in which the image of the "contemporary German gallerist" is played out. The series is considered a complete work, with the author adding a narrative element to the images - a loosely anglicised and sometimes (re)altered text taken from women's and business magazines popular in Germany at the time, such as Cosmopolitan, L'Ociel, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, etc.
RĀMIS-Marmelade: Laura Kaktina's uniquely precise works can also be seen at the Ramis-Marmelade space this month! The exhibition reveals the word "Transition" on two levels. Visually - technically creating smooth color transitions. At the conceptual level, the works represent stylized landscapes, created as metaphors for different psychological conditions. Moving from challenge to solution.
ISSP: For one last day, you can have the chance to see Reinis Hofmanis' solo exhibition "Room No.13"! Along with the subdued aesthetics of Hofmanis' photographs, there is an unmistakable interaction between man and the environment over time, for example the appearance of sewage and electrical artefacts in centuries-old buildings. These artefacts, known as utility infrastructure in architectural terms, have become a unique metaphor for the relationship between man and the environment.
LMA-NAGLA: Alongside the Art Works series, LMA-NAGLA will also be exhibiting a new, previously unseen work of art. What will it be? You can only find out by coming!
LIEPA: As part of the gallery evening at the Liepa bar you can see the exhibition by Ivars Pommers, whose works are related to the reflection on the influence of childhood experiences on personality formation and the role of socio-cultural context in the processes of sexual identity formation. Through a replica of a childhood toy car in concrete, the artist evokes the robust post-Soviet urban environment in which he grew up.
LOOK: Until 21:00, everyone is welcome to “look” at Zile Ziemele's solo exhibition "Distances". The exhibition ponders about boundaries between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the acceptable and the incomprehensible. Boundaries in our minds and physical lines that separate territories and underline thoughts. In her latest works, which create a dialogue with compositions created during the pandemic, painter Zīle Ziemele has tried to capture the calming and at the same time anxious nature of sociality and routine.
M/Gallery: Opening of the solo exhibition "2022 GOT ME TRIPPIN" by Arturas "Mr.Boga" Bogdanovičs! As the artist himself says, "In 2022 I had the honour to travel around the world quite a lot; thanks to skateboarding! Obviously, I always had my camera at hand and I managed to collect a large file of pictures. I went on exciting journeys where my passions - skateboarding and photography - often took me through the roof, stunning me." We have nothing to add here, we can only look forward to the unveiling.
MAKSLA XO: Kristaps Zariņš' exhibition "Four Paintings" will include 4 large-format works created between 2022 and 2023. They create a transcendental environment without the boundaries of time and space, where historical images from different times meet the protagonists of Kristaps Zariņš' paintings from different years. The painting "Welcome!", created at the turn of 2021/2022, serves as an introduction to the new exhibition. In the centre of the painting, two figures - El Greco and the Woman-Angel with Roses from Fra Angelico's painting - are the hosts of a house inviting you to come in..." When thinking about large-scale paintings - we feel that their impact can only be appreciated if seeing them live.
MASA Studija: If you are fascinated by the erotic and the organic, then you must visit Veronika Rondine's solo show. Veronika Rondine makes erotic portraits and describes herself as an orgasmic artist. In her work, Veronika explores the theme of female sexuality and the relationship with the body. "I portray the female body because it is the most beautiful in the world." (Well, can anyone disagree with that?)
PILOT: This month PILOT shares the new and the awarded! Liene Rumpe, Sabīne Šnē, Jānis Šneiders, Dāvis Ozols, Egija Damberga, Atis Izands - "BDO Young Artist Award Exhibition." This competition's exhibition, will display six artworks created independently of each other, is a field of research in which collective processes can be viewed through the sublimation of each artist's personal experience where the creative process offers possibility to understand what is happening around us.
Provodņiks: Everyone is invited to visit the new solo exhibition "Incarnation" by artist Ilona Abileva. The artist has created a series of large-format paintings in which she continues to explore existence as a field of interaction between art and mythology. The artist herself says about her exhibition: “This exhibition is a close-up look at the bull as the embodiment of the supreme deity of the ancient Greek pantheon.” Ilona Abileva mainly creates her works in large format. "Large formats help me to better reveal the nature of the characters I paint," says the artist.
TUR: Is it possible to see the invisible? Inga Erdmane's exhibition “Invisible cities” will be the first of three exhibitions. For it she has created new work that is focussed on Tallinas ielas kvartāls, its history and how the memories from what was before has faded with time. The artist’s interest in systems and structures is often focused on boundaries, where individuals enter spaces that are obscured or recollection is forgotten. For “Invisible Cities” Erdmane explored archives; interviewed witnesses from when Tallinas kvartāls was an emergency vehicle depot and garage; and collected photographs from private and public collections. One thing is for sure - we will never see that which we don't focus on.
*AFTERPARTY* As always every art lover is welcome to let loose in M/Gallery. This evening - Riga Graduate School of Love! Riga Graduate School of Love features Elvi Soulsystems and Judzhen – two disc jockeys from very different walks of musical life, yet they have been friends for ages and played together in some formats or others for ages. It’s one of those partnerships that seems unlikely or even surprising from the outside but is completely natural and easy on the inside. One is smiling and waving too much, the other is thinking and conceptualising too much. One is short and bald, the other is tall and capped. One is a people’s person, the other is an introvert. One is from Riga, the other is from Viljaka. Both share a passion for music. Period. Everything – from crackly soul music to spiritual disco to rough footwork to dusty jungle. But they’re pretty much classic house players at heart. It always leads back to house music.
