Author: editor

Buster Friendly Format 4-2-7
Gaile Pranckunaite
1/08 – 15/08/2014

The TV set boomed; descending the great empty apartment building’s dust-stricken stairs to the level below, John Isidore made out now the familiar voice of Buster Friendly, burbling happily to his system-wide vast audience.

Buster Friendly was a radio programme created by Gaile Pranckunaite. It was inspired by a fictional TV/radio celebrity from Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. During the weekly programme various audio books and poetry readings would be mixed with looping ambient sounds. The sessions were held down at the radio Rietveld basement, at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy (Amsterdam), broadcasted through the online radio website.

Buster Friendly continues to look for new ways of being audible. This time, for 427, buster’s preparing 3 numeric mixtapes, exploring the fourth, the second and the seventh signs of the zodiac. Next door you may also discover bits of the ninth sign, in video format.

Gaile Pranckunaite ir a graphic designer based in Vilnius.

Support: State Culture Capital Foundation, VKN, Veto Vīni

Photos: Rauls Pauls

Nobody Dances Like That Anymore
Ieva Kraule
05/06 – 19/06/2014

Severin can dance. He’s dancing foxtrot and cha-cha-cha – under his polished shoes covered with grooves created by nimble steps. The moment when the sole touches the varnished floor an unexpected, yet predictable creak dies away in the hustle of the steps and the overall noise turns into an awkward silence; nobody dances like that anymore.

The exhibition took place over the course of seven evenings in June – the 5th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 17th, 18th and 19th, from 6 to 8pm.

Photos: Rauls Pauls

Fermentation
Īrisa Erbse
19/11 – 18/12/2015

Gamma ray

The kernel

Meadow

Saison

Running dune

Arctic sunstone

Sloth (the sinner series)

Schwarz

Īrisa Erbse (1990) works with painting and writes poetry. She has graduated Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Lives and works in Cologne. Her previous exhibitions include “Milling” at Choice space in Cologne (2013), “Lautering” at Distribution Lorry gallery in London (2014).

Photos: Līga Spunde

Breakout. The Lost Knight
Raids Kalniņš
1/10 – 13/11/2015

…Old house
are not those places
graves move
a lot of graves
heavy steps
no sun
life is fading
damp…
damp everywhere

I SEE LIGHT!

FOREFATHERS ARE COMING!

Raids Kalniņš studied wood-sculpting at Liepāja Art Higschool and graduated from Liepāja Institute of Pedagogy. Previous exhibitions have taken place at Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Riga, RIXC Center for New Media Culture, Riga, and Liepāja museum. Selected group shows: “Negatnieki” at Latvian National Museum of Art Exhibition hall “Arsenāls” (2012), “Kvarķirņiks” (2010) and other projects.

Support: State Culture Capital Foundation, VKN, Veto Vīni

Photos: Līga Spunde

Agonisers
Gili Tal
6/08 – 28/08/2015

In his ‘Critique of Everyday Life’, Henry Lefebvre writes of:
‘Intense instants – it is as if they are seeking to shatter the everydayness trapped in generalized exchange. On the one hand, they affix the chain of equivalents to lived experience and daily life. On the other, they detach and shatter it. In the ´micro´, conflicts between these elements and the chains of equivalence are continually arising. Yet the ´macro’, the pressure of the market and exchange, is forever limiting these conflicts and restoring order. At certain periods, people have looked to these moments to transform existence. ‘ [1]

As media and political powers increase in centralisation and control everything around them dilapidates in near perfect reciprocity. At the same time, the reality of this experience is continually subdued by the promise of immediate or virtual presence elsewhere or by identification with a different period in time. The vital elsewhere seems most effective as possibility, as image idea, as a moment of frisson.

There is a cyclical relationship between the material world and its romanticisation that often works on a tragic / euphoric order. Even the most tired iteration of say, Americana (as seemingly mythical signifier of a period ending with the break up of the Breton Woods agreement in the early 1970s and the consequent slide to neoliberalism) is still affective in giving rise to an imagination of urban living that alters in turn the appearance of Poplar, 2015.

In literature the figure of the flâneur embodies one way of achieving transformation. The flâneur wanders round the city floating from salon to café, amusing himself and making discoveries, experiencing the city as if it were the substance of a dream. Since love is the conquest of discontinuity between individuals, there is an erotic dimension to this “losing oneself” in the crowd, or in the city. In a varying light, Marx also referred to this when he stated in the Grundrisse that Capital must “strive to tear down every spatial barrier to intercourse, i.e., to exchange, and conquer the whole earth for its market”, and it seems true that for at least three decades now the invocation of the flaneur, as agent, has led not so much to timeless experiential drift (nevermind the production of revolutionary spaces) as to what is euphemistically named regeneration.

[1] Henri Lefebvre, Critique of Everyday Life, Volume 3, trans. Gregory Elliot (London/New York: Verso, 1991), p. 57.

Gili Tal (b. 1983) lives in London. Her recent solo and two-person shows include “Agonisers” at Temnikova & Kasela, Tallinn (2015), Life Gallery, London, with Lena Tutunjian (2015), “Panoramic Views of the City” at Sandy Brown, Berlin (2014), “Immobilien” at Muda Mura Muri, Zurich (2014), and “Real Pain for Real People” at Lima Zulu, London (2013). She has recently participated in group shows at Kunstverein Munich, Mathew, Berlin and New York, Vilma Gold, London, and Sandy Brown, Berlin.

Photos: Kristiāna Marija Sproģe

Princess PomPom in the Villa of Falling Flowers
Matthew Lutz-Kinoy
18/06 – 1/07/2015*

Princess PomPom in the Villa of Falling Flowers presents itself as a dramatic exhaustion to the 427 gallery space. The narrative of the classic piece of Japanese Literature Genji Monogatari – The Tale of Prince Genji is being introduced as an environment study who’s protagonists are all equally degenderized and presented as an oversized scroll painting.

At the windows of the room cloudy character studies made of string hang from the ceiling. Gallery visitors are invited to enter the story through texture and not through text.

In collaboration with Kim? Contemporary Art Centre as a part of the project „Slash”.

The exhibition “Slash: In Between the Normative and the Fantasy” (curator: Kaspars Vanags) is the first time a public art institution in Latvia is turning towards “slashes” among contemporary art expression. More than 20 years had to pass since the decriminalization of homosexuality for such an exhibition, influenced by the digitalisation of personal life, to be possible – borrowing from the open-source mentality. The other, here, isn’t juxtaposed to the norm as something locked in the solitude of an individual strangeness or an impossible taboo, but as an awareness of an essentially recognizable, reachable, and modifiable aspect of personal identity.

Matthew Lutz-Kinoy (1984, New York) lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles. He completed the Rijksakademie international artist residency in Amsterdam in 2010 and his undergraduate degree at The Cooper Union School of Art, New York in 2007. Recent solo exhibitions include: “Port”, Freedman Fitzpatrick, Los Angeles; “Lutz-Kinoy’s Loose Bodies”, Elaine – Museum für Gegenwarts Kunst, Basel (2013); “Matthew’s Secret”, Galerie van Gelder, Amsterdam (2013); “Werk is Free / Be Free! May Day”, Outpost, Norwich, UK (2013); and “KERAMIKOS” – a touring exhibition with Natsuko Uchino at the Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; Kunsthalle Baden-Baden; Elaine Museum für Ge- genwarts Kunst, Basel and Villa Romana Florence (2012-2013). He has staged performances at the Kunsthalle Baden- Baden; Nomas Foundation, Rome; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the New Museum, New York. His videos have been screened at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Berlinale Film Festival; New Museum, New York; and White Chapel Gallery, London.

Support: State Culture Capital Foundation, Kim? Contemporary Art Center, VKN, Mozaīka, Valmiermuižas alus

*The exhibition was abruptly close because 427 gallery suddenly were kicked out of the space

Photos: Ansis Starks

M.S.
20/05 – 12/06/2015

One of the earliest attempts of Latvian abstract art could be the painting which was initially intended as a parody – in 1920 a group of academically oriented artists collectively (while pretending to be one person – Reinholds Kasparsons) created “bumbist” paintings with which they hoped to uncover the flop of modernism. It was a “bumbist” painting, created by Jānis Roberts Tilbergs, that encouraged M.S. to commit to art. On idle evenings he thought about what he’s seen while drawing lines and mixing colours in his mind.

On May 20^th 2015 gallery 427 opened M.S.’s monograph where finally there’s a collection of everything that’s known about this unknown artist. The monograph introduces M.S.’s creative search that have been created in unknown time period and explores various mediums and themes. The artist felt enthusiasm for drawings, colours and text. His works have never been shown publicly. Luckily over the years most of M.S.’s work has traveled to artist’s friends and associates. The monograph has been supported by people who shared M.S.’s work from their collections: Joey Villemont, Ēriks Apaļsais, Mikko Kuorinki, Inga Meldere, Sebastian Rozenberg, Zoë Paul, Edgars Gluhovs, OAOA, Carl Palm, Nicholas Riis, Alex Turgeon, Jade Fourès-Varnier & Vincent de Hoÿm, Aditya Mandayam & Ada Pola (Brud), Carl Palm, Amanda Ziemele, Evita Vasiļjeva, Neil Haas, Daria Melnikova, Marius Lut, Maija Kurševa, Robin von Einsiedel, Zīle Ziemele.
The publication is supplemented with texts by Jānis Taurens, Vasīlijs Voronovs, Virginija Januškevičiūtė, Valentinas Klimašauskas.

M.S. is born in 80’s, he studied at O. Kalpaks Riga Folk Art Primary School and Riga School of Design and Art, however he didn’t pursue art in the university. M.S. spends his days building practical constructions and is a devoted American football player.

Photos: Raul Paul

15.12. – 26.01.
Carl Palm
15/12/2016 – 26/01/2017

Carl Palm (b. 1980, SE), based in Stockholm

Palm’s work spans across a wide variety of media including drawing, sculpture, print, installation, expanding into the realm of curating. Palm is interested in the step-by-step consideration of the process of art production and presentation and through predominantly sculptural gestures constructs his pieces as the points of emphasis. Intricate and unique in their own right, Palm’s works often point somewhere else, generating content without possessing it, acknowledging the context and presence of the other pieces in the show. Palm was educated at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, MFA.

Carl Palm is the founder of the publication Good Times & Nocturnal News with contributions from international artists and writers. Previous issues have been presented at Komplot in Brussels, Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, Center, Berlin, Untitled, Miami, Friends with Books in Berlin and in connection to the 56th Venice Biennale and the Copenhagen Art Festival at Overgaden.

His recent and upcoming exhibitions include: Diesel Project Space (BE), S1, Portland (US), 427 Riga (LV), Nosbaum Reding (LU), X Bienal de Nicaragua (NI), XII Baltic Triennial at CAC (LT), Yautepec Gallery (MX),Cultural Foundation of Tinos (GR), GL Strand (DK), Overgaden (DK), Parallel Oaxaca (MX), Association Le Commissariat (FR), Kunsthalle Athena (GR), MACBA (ES), TOVES (DE), Kunsthalle Wien (AU), CAC (LT), Center (DE), ARTIUM (ES), Nosbaum Reding (LU), Komplot (BE) Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation (SE) and IASPIS at the 12th Istanbul Biennale (TR).

Photos: Kristiāna Marija Sproģe

Celestial Stems
Agata Melnikova and Daria Melnikova
30/09 – 27/10/2016

Daria Melnikova (b. 1984) has graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia, Visual Communication department. Her solo-exhibitions include: “Yesterday Is The New Tomorrow“ ISSMAG gallery, Moscow (2017), “EX-UVIA” Konstanet, Tallinn (2016), “Room 2. Fool’s Gold” MVT Summer House, Riga (2015), “Room 1. Brewing Harmony” Vita Kuben, Umeo (2014), “A Green Silhouette of Grey” (2014) and “Dashing Lines and Forming Heaps” Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2011). Selected group exhibitions: “Dedication, Exploitation & Haute Collaboration“ Silberkuppe, Berlin (2017), “Stoneroses #5” Riverside, Berne (2016), “Le Fragole del Baltico” Careof, Milan (2015), “Something eerie” Signal Center for Contemporary Art, Malmo, “Lily’s Pool” Art in General, New York (2015), “Literacy-Illiteracy” 16. Tallinn Print Triennial, KUMU, Tallinn (2014), “Present Tense” Kalmar konstmuseum, Kalmar (2014), “Vortex” Project Space Garage, Moscow (2014), “Sculpture Is Space” Hobusepea, Tallinn (2013). Daria is the first laureate of the Kim? Residency Award.

Agata Melnikova (b. 1988) has graduated from Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, Music Theory and History department. In 2015, she created the Closer To The Equator EP for a one-act contemporary ballet performance at the Latvian National Opera. Agata is a Red Bull Music Academy Montreal 2016 alumna.Working under the alias Sign Libra, she has performed live at the Montreal planetarium and at the Ambient Church in New York. In 2016, she started to practise in visual arts.

Photos: Kristiāna Marija Sproģe

Content
Inga Ģibiete
29/07 – 26/08/2016

Viewer:
Shadow of a column. Cool. Metal head with an antenna. Covers from the light. Poles. Head in the bushes. Trees washed by the stream at the coast. A bus with dirty water. Dead dinosaur by the water. Theatrical wood scene. Blue guy in white. Golf club bag on a mountain. Head upside down. Honorary ribbon. Blazer and white skirt.

Support: State Culture Capital Foundation, Akmeņlauzis

Photos: Līga Spunde

Nothing Lost, Nothing Found
Evita Vasiļjeva
21/06 – 22/07/2016

Nothing Lost, Nothing Found
(Reflections on the work of Evita Vasiljeva. Exhibition at the Ateliers, Amsterdam 17-5-16)

First view: In the distance a glimpse of a tall construction made up of several rectangular frames gives an impression of being both light/transparent and imposing.

The white wall seen through the empty frame adds to an antiseptic atmosphere. A fluorescent light placed conspicuously in front of the object suggests being in a workplace with an object still under construction. But as one gets closer, the more or less ethereal quality of an empty frame waiting to be completed changes drastically. Gray, textured surfaces, grainy and worn appear all over the frame; right behind it one discovers traces of the remains of an organic being. At this point the fluorescent light transforms this ‘workplace’ into a stage or podium. Metal rails aligned on the floor imply something mechanical. Could this be a machine of some kind? A machine on display? The idiosyncratic mixture of clean transparency and almost morbid organic traces combined with grey and moldy building materials recalls a literary masterpiece (artists are allowed to read): Franz Kafka’s In the Penal Colony.

The central interest in the penal colony focuses on an elaborate apparatus that administers capital punishment by engraving the law on the body of the condemned prisoner via a multitude of needles. A pre-Nazi example of the revenge of language on mankind. Consequently, one could conclude that Vasiljeva’s exhibit, staging its own apparatus combined with open and empty spaces, gaps, and hygienic decay, is an ode to the missing of the twentieth century. In other words, a dialectical work that explores the tension between representation and life (of the missing).

Second view: Chrome tubing, likely originating from three pieces of furniture, forms another type of frame; a small pastel object resembling a Russian Constructivist architectural model sits precariously on the edge of the tubing. Instantly one discards all pre-war obsession with language and a dialectic of the missing. Here stands a (semi-) frivolous objet trouvé. Like all readymades it uses the context of its newfound artistic environment to draw attention to its origins: not art, but industry. The inclusion of the small architectural model adds to this salute of the industrial, especially since architecture has always been more a question of industrial design than autonomous art. (not to mention the tendencies of Russian Constructivism) Therefore it can be said that the autonomous artist here, Vasiljeva, quotes from an elsewhere, that is, from at least two past artistic movements as well as industry as a major life force.

And the more one inspects other objects in her space, from molded rubber tapestries and naked steel rods to various Constructivist models, the more one senses the presence of invisible quotation marks throughout. This quiet irony falls in line with a tradition that attempts to reconcile the obvious antagonism between freedom and the universe of production, a tradition no longer concerned with the lingering dilemmas of an earlier generation – memory and the redeeming of the past.

Third view: The whole space. Objects and flat images, grey, black, occasional pastel color. The atmosphere, that of an attic or hidden laboratory. In spite of an abundance of daylight, the scattered artworks conjure something opposite, something opaque. Another impression: a teenage girl’s bedroom (A’s room?), just no poster of a pop music icon on the wall. And this overall view is the key: it negates utterly the standpoints of the previous two views. In keeping with the first view, one could have considered this ‘attic’ a parable, a scene or even a crime scene suggesting that the missing of the past will go on haunting us in the future. But taken all together, these works display no memories, no past, only the present. And whereas a museum creates a non-space for readymades, a no man’s land whereby an ordinary industrial object is neither transformed into art, nor allowed to maintain its functionality as everyday object, Vasiljeva’s space offers an entirely harmonious, natural environment that totally dismisses the idea of a tension between art and daily life or industry. Chrome tubing, rubber, and steel rods are no longer re-cycled industrial residue looking for recognition, but part of a completely new universe.

It is a dramaturgy that makes the event of this universe possible, its actuality. One is lead by the artist on an imaginary itinerary through the space without being aware of it. A mixture of raw materials, especially surface textures and sparse color, grips one’s gaze (a similar use of dramaturgy can be found in architecture as in Rem Koolhaas’ Netherlands embassy in Berlin with its signaling use of color and ramped walkway). Perception is the key here, not meaning a sense of awareness, but rather a tingling of the senses. One is stimulated to touch the curious surfaces and approach the objects, peeking into them even when they may be hermetically closed. The cohesiveness of the entire space, rather than challenged by this striking appeal to the senses, is strengthened by it.

Cohesion – opposing elements that belong together. Counterpoint. Opacity and daylight.

So finally nothing of the obsessions of the traditional avant-garde, like the ‘problem’ of language, or ethical responsibility toward the world and History. A turning one’s back on text and especially on context. Still, the pure event with the faintest of external references cannot avoid some present-day relevance: willingly or not, the artist posits opacity and incites perception, quite simply opposing the designer tendency in the arts of neo-liberal times.

Opacity and daylight. Cantatas in Dresden, a taste of Lutheran mysticism.

– Stefan M
Amsterdam, June 2016

Evita Vasiļjeva (born in 1985) is a Netherlands-based Latvian artist. Graduated from the Fine Arts program at the Amsterdam Gerrit Rietveld Academie (in 2012), worked at the artist residency De Ateliers (2014-2016), Amsterdam. Latest solo-exhibitions: “Nothing Lost, Nothing Found” gallery 427, Riga (2016); “Form X” V240, Amsterdam (2016) and “Parallel to Vertical” Kim? Contemporary Arts Centre, Riga (2013); group exhibitions: “Potlach” De Ateliers graduate exhibition, Amsterdam (2016); “A Bigger Peace, a Smaller Peace” the Latvian Museum of Railway History in Riga (2015); “Lily’s Pool” Art in General, New York (2015), “New Participants” De Ateliers, Amsterdam (2014), “Aspen-Kemmern” Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2014); “Vortex“ Project Space Garage, Moscow (2014), “NF Presents: from A to Be to SEE to D” Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2014), “Monograms” Vita Kuben Gallery, Umeå (2014); “Indian Summer” Gallery Fons Welters, Amsterdam (2013).

Support: State Culture Capital Foundation, VKN, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre

Photo: Līga Spunde

x kg
3/8
24/05 – 10/06/2016

Just as a affluent tourist from Berlin in a few days it appears at a sweltering city in North of Portugal. It’s look has changed a bit – a few scratches, something has been battered and broken, but still alive. Hairy, broad-shouldered benefactor takes it in his hands and as if knowing, where it comes from and where it has to go, takes it with him. In a few days it’s look has changed – it has put on some weight and has started to shake impatiently. Trip to Latvia will bend over France, Spain and twice more though midlands of the Netherlands causing certain agitation. It knows that with every stop it will weigh more and the costs of shipping will be more unbearable.
“Travel smart!” shouts some underground office’s advertisement in local newspaper. Also the mailman glides by wearing brand new pants and holding almost empty mug in his hands. The city feels – the package has arrived.

Collective “3/8” consists of four artists that do exhibitions and publications since 2014. The collective works on art works as exploration of mutual collaboration mainly emphasizing the process of creation. “3/8” consists of Kristiāna Marija Sproģe, Jānis Dzirnieks, Jānis Krauklis un Rihards Rusmanis.

Atbalsts: Valsts Kultūrkapitāla fonds, VKN

Photos: 3/8

CGDGCE
Vicente H. J. Mollestad
14/04 – 13/05/2016

I don’t know how to play this! Why not try it this way?
I was playing this morning, and I suddenly thought ‘Hey, Maybe that’s the tuning!’
So I tried different things, pulled and slackened some strings and I’ve come up with this. Frankly, with that much distortion, who can tell the difference?
– Airborne Nun

Vicente H.J. Mollestad (1987, La Paz) is currently an MFA student at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. His work revolves around an extended process of devotion to own experiences and ambitions. By following these instincts to a romantic extreme his practice relates to a discourse found somewhere between neo-conceptualism and abstract expressionism.

Support: State Culture Capital Foundation

Photos: Līga Spunde

The Crocodile Dilemma
Amanda Ziemele
10/03 – 8/04/2016

What is crocodile thinking about? Is consciousness as a part of nature rather similar to photosynthesis, digestion of dancing?

A crocodile has stolen a child. He then tells the child’s mother, “I will return the child if you guess correctly whether or not I will do so.”
The mother replies, “You will not return my child! Therefore return it because I told the truth.”
Crocodile replies, “On opposite – if I return the child, you didn’t tell the truth.”

Amanda Ziemele (1990) works with painting and plays and step-dances in the band Biezoknis. She has graduated from the Painting department at the Art of Academy of Latvia. Has participated in group shows, including “Apzīmētājs” at Tabacco Factory, Riga (2015), “M.S.” at 427, Riga (2015) un Survival Kit 6, Riga (2014).

Support: State Culture Capital Foundation

Photos: Līga Spunde

Invisible Field
4/03/2016

If a branch falls in a forest but no one sees it, is it really happening? If no one hears how the branch breaks, is the sound even there?

This event by being made into words becomes a theoretical speculation that’s over-crocheted with pseudo-philosophical theories.

We invite you to open the white curtain and quietly look at the invisible.

Fashion display Invisible Field 2016. World premiere.

Participants: Armands Berģis, Aksels Bruks, Margrieta Dreiblate, Ivars Krasts, Origo Boys, Konstantīns Paturskis, Dāvis Sliecāns, Kārlis Sliede, Deniss Ševeļovs, Tv Maskava

Support: Valsts Kultūrkapitāla fonds, VKN

Photos: Elīna Vītola

All of Something
Tore Wallert
16/12/2017 – 12/01/2018

Support: Iaspis, Valsts Kultūrkapitāla fonds, VKN
Most sincere and special thanks to Inga Meldere un Daša Meļņikova!

Photos: Tore Wallert

Dunno on the Moon
Elīna Vītola
31/08 – 5/10/2017

Out of sheer idleness Dunno often looked at the painting on the wall with its indistinct crooks and scribbles, and tried to the best of his abilities to understand what’s depicted in it.
– Brother, you better not look at that picture over there, – Kozlik instructed him. – Don’t puzzle over it. There’s nothing to understand anyway. Every artist here draws like that, because the rich only buy that kind of pictures. The first smears, vey, scrawls like this, the other draw on some kind of abtruse buffooncurves, the third well enough – spills sloppy paint in a tray and then flicks it in the middle of canvas so it leaves some preposterous, faulty stain. You look at this stain and cannot understand a thing – pure garbage! But the rich just stare and praise. “Say, we don’t even need painting to be understandable. We don’t even want for artist to teach us whatnot. The rich understand everything as well without an artist, but the poor don’t need to understand anything. That’s why he is poor to understand nothing and to live in the darkness.” Look how they rabbit! Well, borther, I’ve seen enough how the rich live – even though there’s central heating everywhere, with a fireplace, they say, it looks fancier.
Nikolay Nosov. Dunno on the Moon (1965)

Elīna Vītola is a painter that rarely takes part in exhibitions, but gladly attends jour fixes. This is artist’s first collaborating with the known Russian illustrator Heinrich Valk (1918 – 1998).

Support: State Culture Capital Foundation

Photos: Līga Spunde

Nollywood
Frank Boyd
15/06 – 13/07/2017

..therefor living in bondage can be a way of escaping. The mating season starts with a loud croak that dissolves into air like a warm breath. Dark violet shades of bijouterie hanging above the shoulders. Streams of illegal duplicates run like a wild animals. Rain hits hard..

..beige slug leaves a bitter layer of secrets. Talking drums babble on the changing weather. Subtle tones vibrate the images of the cosmos. Talk to tinnitus, hear its cries. Enter the shrine where smoke laughs at lasers. One of twins loses smell, the other talks to tortoise. Howl of the skull that married the daughter of a traveler. Wild tree-dwelling vines gives shadow to seven girls. A thread is lost in a hurry. Trajectory of my next move is determined by a magic stone. Yet I drink too much. The winds carry words back and forth leaving no trace of the question. Dirty shoes step to the beat. The heat is overwhelming. Roots sing the song of loneliness and slowly yawn. Stick into marmalade while brushing your yellow teeth. The moon is high, its round smile heals blisters. Feast of termites. Clean hand shakes with grace. Northern pebbles exhale worries, southern rods bend to the sound of morning hangover. Pistol grip shines like a diamond..

Photo: Raul Paul

British scientists on dogo
F5
18/05 – 8/06/2017

Support: State Culture Capital Foundation, VKN

Photos: Kristiāna Marija Sproģe

– cornered –
Mirak Jamal
30/03 – 3/05/2017

A large acute triangle divided into unequal segments, the narrowest one pointing upwards, is a schematically correct representation of spiritual life. The lower the segment the larger, wider, higher, and more embracing will be the other parts of the triangle.
The entire triangle moves slowly, almost invisible, forward and upward and where the apex was “today,” the second segment is going to be “tomorrow,” that is to say, that which today can be understood only by the apex, and which to the rest of the triangle seems an incomprehensible gibberish, tomorrow forms the true and sensitive life of the second segment.
Kandinsky, Wassily. On The Spiritual In Art (1910). New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim, 1946.

Mirak Jamal, born in Tehran, Iran, grew up in the USSR, Germany, the U.S., and finally Canada where he studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto. His work has shown internationally with recent solo exhibitions: “Mother! Minsk! Where are you!” at Galerie Sultana in Paris, France (2016); “Mirak Djamal, IRONIMUS ’91” at Rolando Anselmi in Berlin (2016); “BRUSSELS OCT. 29TH, 2015” at MonCheri in Brussels, Belgium (2015). Some of the recent group shows include “Black Hole Sun” at The Loon in Toronto, Canada (2016), “Dream Song 386” at Cooper Cole in Toronto, Canada (2015); “Conflicting Evidence” and “An Account of Discovery and Wonder” at 1857 in Oslo, Norway (2015). He lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

Support: State Culture Capital Foundation, VKN

Photo: Kristiāna Marija Sproģe

Egg Punk Karaoke
Bora Akinciturk
15/11 – 21/12/2018

“I hate boiled eggs.“
“Seriously?”
“My mom used to make boiled eggs for breakfast every day.”
“Like, every single day?”
“Yes, every single day, day in and day out. And I am not talking scrambled eggs or omelette, nor that thing, you know, when you crack an egg directly into a pot of boiling water?..”
“Poached eggs.”
“Yes, poached eggs. She never made these either, she would just boil eggs every day. I used to eat them throughout my entire childhood, as long as I can remember myself. It seems that as soon as I stopped drinking her breastmilk, I immediately switched to boiled eggs. First breastmilk — and then boiled eggs straight afterwards. And nothing else, nothing in between.” “And for how long did you have to eat them?”
“Well, as long as I lived with parents.”
“But you still live with parents.”
“Well, yes, sort of, but I am spending less time there now. Sometimes I sleep at your place man.”
“But I live with parents, too. So you either live with my parents or with your own. In any case, you always live with parents.”
“But at least when I am at your parents’ place, I do not have to eat boiled eggs.”
“True dat. My stepfather is allergic to eggs. Once he got drunk with his friends and made a bet that he would eat 5 boiled eggs in one go.”
“And what happened?”
“Well, his throat got swollen, he began to choke hard, flushed all over, and collapsed to the floor…”
“Were you at home when it happened?”
“Yes, my mother was out, I don’t exactly remember where she went, and I stayed home with him. I heard the screaming, rushed into the kitchen and saw him rolling on the floor and choking hard. He was wheezing like a dog.”
“Dogs don’t wheeze.”
“Dogs don’t wheeze.”
“They do. My dog wheezed when it was dying. I thought he would die, too.” “Were you scared?”
“No, I think I didn’t care all that much. I remember standing there and thinking that if he was to die right then and there, then maybe his friends would not leave and would stay in our place till my mother’s return. I didn’t want that. But what I remember is that I was really flabbergasted by the color of his face—he was completely red. You know, red, like … well, like a tomato or something like that. He was really red. I thought people could not have such red faces. I remember he was wearing a red shirt and turned red, you know, the color of his shirt. As if the shirt, you know, extended to his face and he became it. He turned into his own shirt.”
“When I was a child I was really scared of suffocating on something.”
“Like, on what?“
“I don’t know, like, on anything.”
“For example?”
“Well, for example, I was afraid I would swallow a stone.”
“A stone?”
“Well, a stone, yes.”
“Like, a big one?”
“Well, the one big enough to get stuck in my throat.”
“Dude, what should happen for a stone to get stuck in your throat?”
“Well, for example, I could run and fall all of a sudden and my gaping mouth would drag on the ground scooping stones, so I would swallow a stone … or, for example, I would lift my head up while staring at something while a bird flying above my head would drop a stone and it would fall right into my mouth.”
“A bird? Really?”
“Do you know that some birds do carry stones to build their nests?”
“Dude, I’ve never heard of anything like that. In any case, it’s rather stupid to think that a bird would drop a stone and it will fall right into your mouth”
“Why? Are you so damn sure that there is something that would never get in your mouth?”
“Well, it probably wont’ be a stone, and what’s more, a stone dropped by a bird straight into my mouth.”
“You know, I think he’s right. Come to think of it, anything can end up in your mouth. My stepfather, I think, was dead sure that these eggs would never end up in his mouth, but he just made that bet, and there they were.”
“Damn, I will not make a bet with you that I would take a stone into my mouth!”
“Not a stone maybe, but something else—yes. Even those eggs.“
“But what’s the deal with eggs? I am not allergic to them.”
“Well, I’m not talking about eating them, but, say, of stuffing your mouth full of eggs.”
“What?“
“Well, for example, when you put a few peeled boiled eggs into your mouth at once and keep them there for some time without chewing or swallowing them, just keep them in your mouth.”
“I think they will slip out.”
“Well, if you close your mouth tightly they won’t.”
“Peeled boiled eggs are very slippery, so if you close your mouth tightly, then they will slip in the other direction —they will begin to slide down your esophagus and get stuck there.”
“Dude, I’ve just figured something out. You hate boiled eggs and you’re afraid that something might get stuck in your throat.”
“So?”
“Well, it seems the two are linked. Like, you hate eggs because you are afraid that they are going to get stuck in your throat. This might have already happened to you. Maybe in your early childhood that did happen, but you just don’t remember that. You know that we gain our first memories after the age of three, don’t you? Well, that is to say, if your mother started feeding you eggs when you were younger than three, maybe one of those eggs got stuck in your throat once, and you just don’t remember that.”
“Come on, I do remember myself even before the age of three.”
“Oh really? And what is it that you remember?”
“Well, I remember lying in the crib and looking through the bars of the crib into the room, and there was no one in the room at that time, and I really wanted someone to come in and get me out of the crib because I had to look at everything through those thick wooden bars, and that really sucked big time.”
“So you are saying that not only do you remember yourself at that age, but you also remember how you felt?”
“Well, sort of, yes.”
“But this is bullshit, dude. You don’t remember what you did yesterday and you are saying that you remember how you felt when you were lying in the crib with the bars.”
“Yes, I also remember trying to gnaw on those bars incessantly. I would chew on them all the time. Apparently they enraged me so much that I wanted to destroy them. Or at least to get through them somewhere outside.”
“Yeah, like, striving for freedom.”
“Haha.”
“We all sit in cribs with bars, dude.”
“What?”
“I am saying that we all sit in cribs with bars, like, we look at the world through the bars. Everyone is stuck in such a crib for life. The difference between us and the ordinary people is that we understand that we sit in such a crib, while the ordinary people simply don’t get it. They don’t even gnaw at their bars. And they die in their cribs.”
“So, you think there are some people that make it out of their cribs?”
“Yes.”
“And who is it, I wonder?”
“Well, for example, those who do what they want to do. I mean, what they really want to do. For example, my parents hate their jobs, but even so they have been going to work all these years. And it does not even occur to them that you can do something that you really want to, instead of that nonsense that they have spent their whole lives doing. They have no chance. But if you do what you think is right for you, then you would have a chance to get out of this shit.”
“And what is it that you think is right for you?”
“I love music, dude.”
“So you want to become a musician?”
“I am already a musician, I’m a musician right here, right now. I feel it, you know. I am hanging out with you, but I know that while I am hanging out with you, I remain a musician. It’s like a rhythm in your heart. Do you get it, man? A rhythm that never stops. Even if I had a job cleaning elephant shit at a circus I would remain a musician, I would be free in my soul.” “But if you clean elephant shit at a circus, you will be a cleaner of elephant shit, not a musician.”
“Everything is a bit more complicated than how you describe it.”
“Oh, really.”
“You see, there is another level to things. I am not talking about a level higher or lower, but about an altogether different one. One level is where we all live, what we can see around us. But on a different level there is something that we do not see with our eyes, but it still exist, it is still there. It’s like a level of ideas or dreams. And these levels are connected, they are closely intertwined, and if you think that what we see is the only existing reality, then you are just a dumbass.”
“I know who you are. You are my dead cat but in a human body. When I got high I always thought that my cat was, like, talking to me mentally and what it was saying was very similar to what you are saying now. My cat died and became you, I’m telling you.”
“Your cat died last year, and so you think, it took up his abode in my body after that?”
“I have heard of such things happening—like, dead animals don’t want to leave their owners and their souls move into someone who lives next to the owners.”
“It sounds ridiculous. If so, what happens to the souls of those now possessed by the souls of dead animals? Where do they go? Like, an animal possesses a person, but what happens to this person and their own soul?”
“Well, it’s like two souls inhabiting one body, side by side. The souls take turns manifesting themselves. And you can no longer tell who is it that is talking to you at the moment —your sister or your dead cat.”
“My sister should hear you now.”
“Okay, I got it, dudes, the main thing is to be yourself and not to stuff anything into your mouth that you are allergic to.”
“Yeah and not to stare with your mouth agape when birds fly above your head.”
“Damn, I’m starving.”
“Shall we order a pizza?”

– Natalya Serkova

Bora Akinciturk (b. 1982, Turkey). Lives and works in London. Selected exhibitions include “Keep Smiling is The Art of Living”, Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York, USA, 2017, “We’re All Dead, We Just Don’t Know It Yet”, Ultrastudio, Pescara, Italy, 2017; “Fallen Angels”, in collaboration with Noemi Merca, Komplot, Brussels, Belgium, 2017; “Say Yes”, The Beautiful Erah, Salzburg, Austria, 2016; “Politely Declined”, Pilevneli Project, Istanbul, Turkey, 2012. His band Fino Blendax, in collaboration with Ahmet Öğüt at: The ICA, London; Chisenhale Gallery, London; VanAbbe Museum, Eindhoven; The 56th Venice Biennale, Creative Time Summit: The Night Art Made the Future Visible 2015. 

Support: VKKF, VKN

Photos: Līga Spunde

a
drop
in
the
universe
has
universes
of
its
own
Carlos Noronha Feio
9/10 – 8/11/2018

Drop a drop in the universe. Given the cosmic proportions of the subject, the repercussions might well be a set of infinitesimal, albeit infinite, reverberations. A cosmological mise-en-abîme. Portals that open up momentary gateways into parallel universes. Or one of those mirror-encrusted “infinity” rooms where reflections go on and on and on until they’re reduced to the size of a pin prick, and yet they go on.

Lisbon-based Carlos Noronha Feio might not dabble in planetary and star alignments, but the cosmological principles still hold true for the links he untethers when it comes to relationships between cultural insignia, objects, borders and histories across space and time. What, at first, sounds like a series of near unbearable high-pitched electronic trilling – a message from one of those liminal universes – turns out to be a sequential performance of national anthems representing countries whose existence is no longer beholden to a unanimous accordance of geopolitical status, but simply to at least one other state’s recognition. Abkhazia, Kosovo, South Ossetia, Transnistria.

The list – all six hours of it – goes on, compressed into a 20-minute long gallop, the maximal recordable time on one side of a vinyl dubplate. Words, melodies, rhythms – all are garbled into an indistinct, veering on indecipherable, conglomeration of noise. The tragicomedy of it lies in the cartoon-like warble of sped-up voices that soon enough makes way for the realisation that, stripped of any singularity, they become a drop in the ocean (or universe, to keep the image afloat) of time. Which isn’t to say that they’re reduced to a nothing. Quite the opposite. If anything, they speak of the arbitrariness of borders and, by extension, of geopolitical allegiances and notions of belonging, of the ways in which identities are forged but also constricted by other powers that be. For Noronha Feio, these ready-made symbols and images upon which cultural identities are constructed and sustained are fodder for an on-going investigation into the fragility and arbitrariness of these geographically, politically and economically bound ecosystems, but also of the strangeness of the power relations at play. At the end of the day, what we take for granted and as a given may not sustain us long-term.

In 1792, the National Convention of the French Revolution, not content with overthrowing the reigning monarchy, set their sights on the measure by which we count out our seconds, minutes, hours and days. The 12-hour clock, inherited several millennia earlier from the Babylonians, was replaced by a decimal system, which included a ten-day week and a ten-hour day. This type of revolution, though, proved too extreme even for those who achieved the downfall of the political status quo, and the system ultimately lasted only for 17 months before the state reverted to age-old, universally ingrained habits. The implication being that difference is all well and good, except when it comes to the old adage that time is money, and in matters of economic growth, production, prosperity and work-discipline, standardisation is the beat which keeps the world ticking in materialist realities. Yet the GIF which reinserts a different conception and framing of time, using a sped-up image of the Earth’s rotations taken from space as its tangential clock-face, tacitly expunges a geocentric worldview.

Set against a vividly coloured background of semi-abstract patterns, it mimics the more positively inclined another world is possible (spirituality; good luck; protection; trust; defence; serenity; rebirth; Man) (2017), a rug digitally designed by the artist and produced by Portuguese weavers using a distinct and traditional tapestry technique – Arraiolos – that has been passed on and inherited across generations since the Middle Ages. At the same, their imagery bears a heavy indebtedness to Persian carpets as well as, in more contemporary terms, to Afghan war rugs that have their origins in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 and have continued through subsequent periods of military, political and social conflicts that have persisted. Part of an ongoing body of work, which began in 2008-9, this carpet – alongside its siblings – states itself unconvinced as to the objective truth of any cultural or national mythmaking. Instead, it is a confluence of two civilizations now, as before, seemingly at odds with one another, despite the shared threads that go some way to neutralising their perceived polarisation. Pared down, geometric images of war planes sit against more esoteric signs, the former nosing their way to mirror images of Earth and – what look to be – space shuttles (or, more precisely, Sputnik): microcosms adrift in a cosmic soup. And so we’re back to the universe, an open window to a new world, but one where artificially constructed differences are refashioned as multiplicity through shared commonalities.

– Anya Harrison

Carlos Noronha Feio (Lisbon 1981) consumes, juxtaposes and performs media as research into cultural, local and global identity, adopting culturally significant images, locations and symbols as a form of creative interference with meaning, demonstrating the almost arbitrary nature in which cultural significance is interpreted.
Noronha Feio holds a PhD from the Royal College of Art London and he lives and works in Lisbon, London and Moscow. Noronha Feio’s recent projects include “The Fabric of Felicity” at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, “Futures” at CAC-Contemporary Art Centre Vilnius, “even if at heart we are uncertain of the will to connect, there is a common future ahead” at narrative projects in London, “bathed by the bright light of the sunset” at 3+1 Arte Contemporânea in Lisbon, “Oikonomia: a Matter of Trust” at Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea – Museu do Chiado in Lisbon, “You Are Now Entering_________” at CCA Londonderry/Derry in Northern Ireland, “Image Wars” at Abrons Art Center in New York, and “Da outra margem do Atlântico: alguns exemplos da fotografia e do video português” at Centro Cultural Helio Oiticica in Rio de Janeiro. Noronha Feio’s work is included in the publications “The Art of Not Making: The New Artist/Artisan Relationship” as well as in “Nature Morte: Contemporary Artists Reinvigorate the Still Life Tradition”, published by Thames & Hudson. He is present in several private and public collections including MAAT—Fundação EDP in Lisbon, Saatchi Collection in London, and MAR—Museu de Arte do Rio in Rio de Janeiro.
From 2009 up to 2014 he was a director of The Mews Project Space in London’s east end.

Support: VKKF, VKN

Photos: Līga Spunde

kristāls sekunde mode
Māris Bišofs, Maira Dobele & Inga Meldere, Vasilijs Karasjovs, Oļa Vasiļjeva
Curators: Kaspars Groševs & Marta Trektere
5/09 – 4/10/2018

Support: VKKF, VKN

Photos: Līga Spunde

Oчевидное невероятное
Vitaly Bezpalov, Jakub Choma, Gints Gabrāns, Albin Looström
Curator: Kaspars Groševs
29/06 – 23/08/2018

As genius of enlightenment does prepare any,

So does experience and so genius does,

The One is son of agonizing errors,

The friend of paradoxes’s the other one,

And as the God for the contrive is chance,

They all present at once, oh, so many

Miraculous revelations just to us.

Support: VKKF, VKN, Polansky Gallery

Photos: Līga Spunde

Alonso! It’s Elastic
Martin Kohout
10/04 – 10/05/2018

Czech born artist Martin Kohout’s early study background is in cinematography and he has been active in the Berlin and international scene since 2010. His work has a strong grounding in research, both academic and qualitative. His works span a wide range of film, sculpture, print, events and publications. In addition to that he produces music under the name of TOLE and runs a small  publishing house, TLTRPreß. Since graduating Martin was nominated for various awards including most recently; 2015 – Finalist of Open Frame Award, goEast festival, Wiesbaden and, 2014 – Finalist of Jindřich Chalupecký Award 2014, Veletržní Palace of the National Gallery, Prague.

The exhibition is a part of Riga Photography Biennial 2018 programme

Support: VKKF, Čē bārs
Special thanks to Arita Varzinska!

Photos: Līga Spunde

Retrogression
Beth Collar & Eoghan Ryan
24/04/2019 – 24/05/2019

Retrogression is the logical continuation of ongoing conversations between artists Beth Collar and Eoghan Ryan. Their first show, Juvenilia (2018) took as a point of conceptual departure, the revisitation of younger teenage selves during moments of particular ontological despair, Retrogression returns to an even earlier state..
The Pupa is the gestation sack that facilitates transformation from immature to mature in holometabolous insects. It is the hang-time between larva and imago. For Retrogression, the pupa is also the children’s play room of the Airbnb that the artists are staying in. Working together in intimate, performative mode, the two devolve deeper into a fictionalised fantasy early childhood, into a pre-Homo Sapiens, pre-historic breach.
Retrogression works backward to act out the rat tailed maggot embedded up the arsehole before it becomes the top pollinator of flowers, in order to excavate a new understanding of something they don’t yet know the question to and in doing so, (de)generate an exhibition.

Beth Collar was born in Cambridge, England in 1984. She lives in Berlin. Recent solo projects have been at Dilston Grove, London a commission by Matt’s Gallery and CPG, 2019; Waldo @Mathew Gallery, New York; Primary, Nottingham and Matt’s Gallery, London, 2018; Standpoint, London, 2017 and at Fig 2, ICA, London, 2015. Recent group shows and performances have been at PiK, Cologne; Bärenzwinger, Berlin, 2019; Sans Titre, Paris; Lady Helen, London; Goswell Road @Balice Hertling, Paris; Room E-10 27 @Centre, Berlin; Cell Project Space, London; Horse and Pony, Berlin, 2018; Cafe Oto, London; the Kunstverein München; Kunstraum, London, 2017; Glasgow Women’s Library, Glasgow; Freud Museum, London; KW, Berlin, 2016; Cubitt, London; Rijksakademie, Amsterdam; Raven Row, London; the Serpentine Galleries, London; Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, 2015 and Flat Time House, London, 2014. She was recipient of the Mark Tanner Sculpture Award 2016/17.

Eoghan Ryan is an Irish artist currently based in Amsterdam. Selected shows, performances and screenings have taken place at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; South London Gallery; Rowing, London; Spike, Berlin; Serralves Museum, Porto; IFI, Dublin; Outpost, Norwich; Kem, Warsaw; Cubitt, London; Kim? Contemporary, Riga; Plastik Moving Image Festival, Dublin; CAC, Vilnius; Catalyst Arts, Belfast; BDP, Berlin, New Shelter Plan, Copenhagen, EEFF, London and FACT, Liverpool. Eoghan is supported by the Irish Visual Arts Bursary for 2019 and is currently at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten 2019/20.

Supported by VKKF, Culture Ireland

Photo: Līga Spunde