A Guide to Making a Genie

A Guide to Making a Genie
Atis Jākobsons, Raids Kalniņš, Lev Kazachenko, Zane Raudiņa, Ieva Rubeze,
Viktors Timofejevs, Alexandra Zuckerman
Curators: Ieva Kraule and Kaspars Groševs
12/12/2014 – 6/02/2015

While the city is dressing up in bright Christmas lights and children are having fun in the ice-rinks with their parents sweating in the shops’ queues, in this darkest time of the year the shiny white walls of the gallery are wrapping themselves into a cloak of rosy light. Every now and again dizzying swirls of sandalwood smoke veil what has never been disclosed to the ignorant. Lifeless flowers have hung their heads down in the presence of winter. Artists’ works hiding in the dark corners of the gallery are peering back at the viewer – some in remembrance of the beginng of the world and ancient rituals, others striving to heal the ones weakened by the Christmas hustle. In a place now hiding beyond the strict rules of the rational and the material, these words are heard quietly:

Om! I wish, I plead and I command for a lot of pure, good, strong cosmic prana and akasha to flow, appear and accumulate right away in this space around me. May prana and akasha flow from the East, the West, the North, the South, the heights, the depths, the vastness, the faraway and all the states where they are currently free and can assist in the work of creation. May the prana and akasha flow that can extricate from water, fire, earth and air.”
(Mirdza Bendrupe)

Support: State Culture Capital Foundation, VKN, Valmiermuižas alus, Veto vīni

Photos: Līga Spunde

κπ

κπ
Līva Rutmane
6/11 – 5/12/2014

The necessity of this symbol has been reviewed by the Latvianizing Society that considers it to be if not acceptable, then at least suitable and necessary addition to the Latvian language. After tiring yet fruitful debates lead by chairman D. K. it was decided that this symbol – ka-pa-pi? or KPP? – seems to be the most suitable Latvian version of the often used letter combination.

For the sake of further euphony it was decided to pronounce this new Latvian letter combination by basing it on the pronounciation of greek alphabet letters of κ (kappa) un π (pi) thus ensuring its attractiveness to the users of international language and youths.

Hence examining the essence of this letter combination it was concluded that it expresses surprise, but that its conotation is rather negative – in Latvian it could be described by “troubled” and “agitated”, that indicates anxiety, an unpleasant insertion in the daily routine, a perplexity of what is happening. With this letter combination indicating the very inability of describing the existing insertion in the occurence thus arriving at an exclamation, the subject’s reaction to the absurd. Similarly this exclamation could be used when recognising the discord arising in a moment of sudden appearance of the asymetry of physical reality, finding a distortion in the succession of habits, as well as the realisation of an awkward mistake, marking the beginning and end of a euphoric state, in case of a rapid change of circumstance etc.

Līva Rutmane was born in 1984, graduated MA in Graphic Art at the Art Academy of Latvia (2014) and currently draws. She has been participating in exhibitions since 2002. There are no remarkable changes or drastic turns expected in the future.

Support: State Capital Culture Foundation, VKN, Chomsky

Photos: Līva Rutmane

Dance Blue

Dance Blue
Marija Olšauskaitė
18/09 – 25/10/2014

If I would write longhand invitation ‘I would like to invite You to an exhibition’, the word sexy could be transparent. Anchor plate binds a single My bar, it lingers for a new pole. Dance sad, while curtains are standing.

Marija Olšauskaitė (b. 1989) lives and works in Vilnius, Lithuania. Olšauskaitė studied sculpture at Vilnius Academy of Arts. Recent exhibitions include: Marija & Petras Olšauskai: “Miss Bird”, Art in General, New York (2014), “What thinks me”, Saint-Petersburg (2014), solo exhibition at Round Studio, Vilnius (2013), “Auction” Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius (2012), solo exhibition at The Gardens, Vilnius (2012), “Ornament” National Gallery of Art, Vilnius (2012).

Support: State Culture Capital Foundation, VKN, Kim? Contemporary Art Center, Malduguns, Veto Vīni

Photos: Rauls Pauls

Second Water

Second Water
Monika Lipšic
18/09 – 25/10.2014

Voice~over reads a theory of metaphor in a composition about this particular problem of aesthetics. If we watched more at beautiful things our eyes would turn more beautiful – reads the voice. But if beauty is the object of love, and love has three steps until we reach the very giving and abstract loving, how to experience beauty not embodied in anything physical or spiritual? Metaphors make us see one thing as another. A successful metaphor evokes an image which we otherwise haven’t seen before – it provokes to realize something for the first time. The composition about a metaphor sailing in the sea of stories.

Monika Lipšic lives and works in Vilnius. Her last projects were exhibition curated in Saint-Petersburg “What thinks me” (2014), Agency’s show curated at CAC, Vilnius – “Agency. Scripted by characters” (2014), group performance “Karaoke Police. A Game of Opposites” (2013-2014), residency Joy & Mirror. “Actions on the island in Sardinia”, exhibition film “Exhibition on Stage. God from the Machine” (2013), exhibition “The Collector”, CAC, Vilnius and others.

Support: State Culture Capital Foundation, VKN, Kim? Contemporary Art Center, Malduguns, Veto Vīni

Photos: Rauls Pauls

Like Nature But Not

Like Nature But Not
Vivienne Griffin
20/08 – 13/09/2014

How can one recoup yet remember the infinite beauty of nature? Returning home diffused dusk is rolling around the floor, the sun-tan fades in the cool light of the refrigerator, the impressions are shifted from their source and positioned in a new context between the damp walls.

A glacier is like a river caught in the shutter of camera. Click. Except that it’s in real time, a slow moving thing, melting shifting screaming down the fucking mountains, chunks falling off into the river and on to the sea.

Vivienne Griffin lives and works in London. She studied in Hunter College, New York (MFA 2009). Griffin works with various media, including text, drawing, performance and sculpture. She often collaborates with Irish artist Cian McConn and has participated in many group shows. Her previous solo show “The Me Song For Now Here” (2013) took place at Bureau Inc. gallery, New York.

Photos: Rauls Pauls

Buster Friendly Format 4-2-7

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

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

FAREWELL

FAREWELL
Augustas Serapinas, Līva Rutmane, OAOA, Lev Kazachenko, Linards Kulless, Marija Olšauskaitė, Vivienne Griffin, Jóhan Martin Christiansen
26/04 – 31/05/2014

Photos: Rauls Pauls