2019

Rats dream about the places they want to explore

Rats Dream About The Places They Want To Explore
Maren Karlson
06/12/2019 – 10/01/2020

Opening: December 6th 7pm

it’s what the rock says
because the earth speaks
it sings too
lalalalala doo doo doo oooooooooo
No Where is quiet
she was in my dreams again last
night
did i swallow a spore that made me dream
Drink coffee in the morning
Ya it’s hazelnut
Refuse to write down dream
because the rat doesn’t write it
down why should i?
OK taurus is stubborn. I write it down:

she has short brown hair that’s somewhat brittle but it smells really lovely like a worn in t-shirt that hasn’t been washed. she must dye it that color. I think she has a lot of greys, but it doesn’t matter. If she didn’t dye it I’d still think she was beautiful. age doesn’t matter. i get to roll around in her bed and smell her sheets and smell her hair. i wonder why smelling things is so comforting. breathe in really deep and fall past this part of dream into another. into another. into another. singing in my ear, it’s so quiet it tickles. my ears are sensitive. but i breathe back into hers. hers is a shell that spirals inwards. trace the shape until the scale of my finger outgrows it. not sure i can reach the center of the labyrinth but she tells me I can and puts my finger back where it was and tells me to continue on my path.

I wake up.

– Brook Hsu, 2019

Maren Karslon is a drawer and painter living and working in Berlin.

Supported by: VKKF

Photos: Līga Spunde

Parasitia

Parasitia
Anni Puolakka
10/10 – 08/11/2019

Parasiting parasites in a psychedelic ceremony.

Parasitia
Parasitia
Blood blending into sepia
We are each other’s media
In my secret world
In my sacred words
Cats living in conspiracies
Infants are eating infancy
Sipatiara
Sipatiara
Mother is joining antifa
Business as usual mama
Raining bugs and birds
Snowing bats and moose
Breast bursting milk for immune boost
Feast hurting head my brain is juiced
Rapatiasi
Rapatiasi
True parasites are you and me
True parasites are you and me

Co-performers: Marta Trektere and Ieva Tarejeva
Costumes made in collaboration with Karolina Janulevičiūtė
Music made in collaboration with Miša Skalskis

Anni Puolakka is a visual and performance artist based in Helsinki and Rotterdam. She incorporates biographical and documentary materials into fictional worlds in her videos, performances, videos installations and images. They play with the boundaries and potential of humans as they seek meaningful and vibrant – sometimes drowsy or ambivalent – involvement with other beings and objects. Puolakka’s works have recently been shown at No Moon (NYC), Kunsthalle Bratislava, Le Lieu Unique (Nantes), Kiasma Museum of Modern Art (Helsinki), and Performance Space (Sydney).

Thank you: Kaspars Groševs
Supported by: VKKF, Arts Promotion Centre Finland and Nordic Culture Point

Photos: Ira Brut, Kristine Madjare, Miša Skalskis, Liga Spunde

Bludna Loza

Bludna Loza
Anna Slama & Marek Delong
Curator: Christina Gigliotti
04/09 – 27/09/2019

It’s not easy to find the Bludna Loza, but she’s there. After walking some half day, sleeping on the dried pine needles and earth, hungry and sore, you’ll find her. She is not the tallest tree in the woods, nor the fattest, nor lushest. In fact, Bludna Loza has no leaves at all. Her bark is dark and wrinkled. Some say her roots run so deeply into the ground you could never find where they end. Ancient, slow growing, she is the keeper of our memories. All lives that have transpired and died on our planet are held inside her belly.

When you find her, press your palm to her trunk. Run your hands along her craggy roots and you will feel the pulsations, the flow of energy emanating from her–the tree that knows not death.

– Christina Gigliotti

Marek Delong and Anna Slama are an artist duo from the Czech Republic, based in Prague and Stockholm. They started to cooperate while they both studied at Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno, Czech Republic. Currently their works are created in a two seperate places and meet physically usually while installing a final exhibition piece, where they create an intended complex scenery.

Together they presented their work in solo exhibitions: “Andromeda” at Catbox Contemporary, New York, 2019, “Will I Be a Better Man If I Stop Dreaming of the Stars” at Futura, Prague, 2019, “Sticky Moment” at EKA Gallery, Tallinn, 2018, “Femme Fatale Brewery” at Karlin Studios, Prague, 2017), “Good Old Sober Addict” at City Surfer Office, Prague, 2016. Group shows: “Letting Go” at Trafo Gallery Budapest, 2017, “Afterbirth of a Dream” at Meetfactory, Prague, 2017, “Robin” at YABY, Madrid, 2018, “Wicked Anima Fun” at Gallery Stephanie Kelly, Dresden, 2018 and “When the Sick Rule the World” at Gr_und, Berlin, 2019.

Support: VKKF
Special thanks to: Rebeka Lukošus and Laima Ruduša

Photos: Līga Spunde

Champs-Élysées

Champs-Élysées
Botond Keresztesi, Emma Stern, Līga Spunde, Sandra Kosorotova, Tea Stražičić, Nick Zhu
Curated by Marta Trektere un Kaspars Groševs
7/06 – 16/08/2019

Support: State Culture Capital Foundation, Nordic Culture Point

Photo: Līga Spunde

Retrogression

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

First thirst Flesh blush

First thirst Flesh blush
Bogna Wisniewska
through conversations
with curator Katie Lenanton
9/03 – 11/04/2019

Smitten, making a space together, fresh paint, treats, eyelashes, thinking of your eyes / hearts / stomachs, no sorries, not guilty about pleasure, first flush.

Dear Bogna,
The first time I ate a Karelian pie (karjalanpiirakka), I anticipated heady pleasure—the salty tang of cheese—but instead found myself masticating a bland potato-y paste. My tongue went searching for something that wasn’t present here, but I knew existed.
Perhaps now you anticipate where this is going. After frequenting so many exhibitions, solo searching, hoping to be moved, I saw a painting so audacious I laughed on the spot. I looked around grinning wildly, trying to intercept a gaze, hoping to share the sensation of facing off against a 2.5m piirakka, gamboling brush strokes, pillowy, reverent, wide-eyed ridiculous, self-deprecating, generous, sincere. That it existed (in that moment, in that place, counter to all prior exhibition impressions that would be too cumbersome and boring to recount) made me so happy. Fuck, thinking of it now, I’m breathless and stunned.
Months later, curiously googling your name after another out-and-about encounter, I gasp and we three are (re)united.
I get so much pleasure starting every day smiling at this piirakka you have kindly loaned me, and of course this pleasure is inseparable from our friendship, a thing suffused with pleasures—comfortable company, uncomfortable honesty, unwavering support, a space to test how things sound out loud, exposure, things moving through us, a working exchange that makes all the other aspects of artworking worth it (+ the feasting and skumppa and shared witnessing and adventures, and for me at least, a deep satisfaction around all that is unspoken).
You know that so often I become despondent, wondering what a painting (what making a thing) can do these days that exists outside the maker’s desire to make visual their unfolding thinking, inscribe moments, enshrine, provide others access to their lens, make the air more toxic, permit an inhabiting rather than an articulating. Can painting not be selfish?
You let me peel off some tape, and as I saw parts of their surface discarded, I realised these paintings-in-progress privilege residue. They are decidedly unsentimental. They are generous in that your lens is there, but you provide a green screen too, for others to project and meld their lens with yours. A soft, shared making of space, welcoming others into a sphere of affinity. A thing worth doing.
Hanging out to think about Riga, we are aware that something is coming. For more than 17 years you have trusted painting, and I trust you. The other day I mentioned the word precipice. I’m so happy to be teetering here with you.
With love,
Katie

Bogna Wisniewska ( b.1988, Poland ). Lives and works in Helsinki. Since 2018 member of artist run gallery SIC in Helsinki. Selected exhibition include “Altered Flakes” SIC, Helsinki, Finland 2018; “fullonornamental” 2,04 gallery, St. Petersburg, Russia 2018; ”kesärulla/ summer roll” SIC Helsinki, Finland 2017;“rethinking digitalisation” Exhibition Laboratory, Helsinki, Finland 2017.

Support: VKKF, Arts Promotion Centre Finland Taiteen edistämiskeskus – Taike, The Paulo Foundation, Finnish Cultural Foundation

Photos: Līga Spunde

Aminals

Aminals
Alexander Iezzi & Viktor Timofeev
Curator: Marta Trektere
25/01 – 1/03/2019

V−E+F=∑i(ei3-ei2+1)=∑i(1−ei6)=2

This pattern began down the center of the iris’s blade, right in the inflorescence, somewhere between its symmetrical six-lobed flowers. The pattern was adorned with consistent veining and small dots. In the centre of the blade it had a beard full with tiny insects that were crawling around the magnificent, purple flower. The queen bee is assigned with a challenge: solve the most complex math task that has ever existed.

Kas dārzā, kas dārzā?
Bitīt’ rožu dārziņā.
Kas dārzā, kas dārzā?
Bitīt’ rožu dārziņā.

Ložņā, bitīt,
Caur zaru zariem,
Caur zaru zariem,
Caur lapu lapām.

Ja citu atrod,
Liec to savā vietā.

Three bees were at the table next to me. At first, I didn’t know they were bees, at first I thought they were wasps — the ones which sting so painfully. When I was a kid a wasp flew on my nose. I remembered my father used to squash them with just one finger — even once on his nose — it seemed easy and painless. Well, it wasn’t this way for me. I squashed the wasp with my finger and a sudden heatwave took over my face. It was a feeling like when you burn yourself with a cigarette. I ran to my grandma’s. She was boiling potatoes for dinner. I was crying so hard and said that I just wanted squash the wasp like the grown-ups do. The next day, my face appeared as if I was a sibling of the Michelin Man.

Parallel to this unpleasant childhood memory — in just the same minute — I looked into one’s eyes and realized it was not wasp at all. It was the Queen Bee, drone and the worker who referred to herself as a parasite. Queen Bee had the most exquisite yellow dress, rhinestoned from head to toe with Swarovski’s. Drone was wearing a little black fedora which he felt would look quite good with a striped black and yellow tuxedo. The parasite looked very humble, wearing no colors, just a plain, gray turtleneck. Parasite said that she was tired from working in a factory and pretending to be happy and that she really wants to HoH’egh.

Queen bee poured dressing on her salad and tossed the leaves around her plate. Drone poured his wine and ladled soup, and all the time, parasite filled the plates and tore the bread. The table was small and hexagonal. You could imagine that there is enough space for all of them, but the Queen Bee took the majority of table. The other two were cramped, but they were efficient nonetheless. Apparently they were coming here often and had been practicing serving and eating with the Queen. Queen’s face slipped and chopped; she didn’t talk once. Had I touched her shoulder and asked for the time, there would have been snarling — a flash of teeth.

– Marta Trektere

Viktor Timofeev born 1984 Riga, Latvia. Recent exhibitions include: “God Room” at Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York (2018), “HAPPINESS” in collaboration with Anni Puolakka, Jaakko Pallasvuo, TARWUK at Cordova, Barcelona, (2018), “Portable Landscapes” at the Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga (2018), “Stairway to Melon” at Kim? Contemporary Art Center, Riga, 2017; “S.T.A.T.E.” at Drawing Room, London (2016). Recent releases include Zolitude, in collaboration with Kaspars Groševs, Quantum Natives (2017), Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, lobitlandscapes (2016).

Alexander Iezzi born 1987 Tucson, Arizona, USA. Recent performances and exhibitions include: “Some Elementary Dinner Sculpture” at Peach, Rotterdam (2019), “Signs of Invasion” (performance) with Billy Bultheel at Ku’damm Kuree, Berlin (2018), “Tripping Autonomy” at De Kroon, Rotterdam (2018), “Kunsthalle For Music” (performance) at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2018); “My New Feelings Whip” (performance) at Galleri Syster, Luleå (2017), “BOOKLUB 10” (performance) at MoMA, New York (2016).

Support: VKKF, CBK Rotterdam, VKN, Valmiermuižas alus
Special thanks to Laura Adamoviča, Artūrs Kalvāns

Photos: Līga Spunde