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11th INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR ART MOSCOW 2007
FRANCESKA KIRKE, LEONARDS LAGANOVSKIS, ARNIS BALCUS, IEVA ILTNERE, RITUMS IVANOVS
16.05.2007. - 20.05.2007.
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RIGA GALLERY was participating in the prestigious International Art Fair ART MOSCOW for the seventh time.
ART MOSCOW is an internationally renowned, important art event whose number of participants is limited and selected by an international jury. Marat Guelman (Moscow), Hans Knoll (Vienna), Volker Diehl (Berlin), Aidan Salakhova (Moscow), Elena Selyina (Moscow) is among the experts. The exhibition features all spheres of contemporary art, from video and photography to painting, sculpture and installations.
According to official records, about 35 000 visitors attended the exhibition in 2006, curators of Russian and foreign art museums, art critics and collectors among them.
This year 70 galleries from Russia, Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, USA, Netherlands, Austria, Great Britain, Luxemburg, Finland, etc. are selected to participate in ART MOSCOW. Among the represented artists there will be Tony Oursler, Georg Baselitz, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist, also such artists as Tony Matelli, Valli Export etc.
As each year, the Fair ART MOSCOW will present non-commercial projects as well:
“Komunalka” – 7 popular Russian artists participating in a reality show that will last for 6 days in Central Artists’ House (project initiator and curator Antonio Geusa),
Russian and French joint project “And Just Enjoy Being. Meat”,
Yuri Kalendaryov’s sound sculptures “Beyond the Sound”,
“Shargorod. The 1st Landing Force” – selected works from the international contemporary art festival “Art-Mestechko” that took place in Shargorod, Ukraine, August 2006.
Contemporary art in private collections – works from Vladislav Doronyin’s collection.
Riga Gallery exposition will demonstrate the essence of artworks by significant Latvian artists. Those will be artworks from the most interesting solo exhibitions which took place in the gallery in years 2006 – 2007
Frančeska Kirke (b. 1953) will be represented by artworks from the series „Logomania”. In these series she continues to interpret subjects of classical paintings, complementing them with contemporary elements, such as Playboy hares’ ears etc.
Frančeska Kirke has a significant place on the scene of Latvian painting. The artist has actively participated in exhibitions in Latvia and abroad already since 1974.
In 2002 Frančeska Kirke’s solo exhibition “Museum” was on view at the State Museum of Art; she has held several solo shows at Mimi Ferzt Gallery in New York (2000, 2002) and she has participated in significant group shows like International Contemporary Art Fair ART MOSCOW (2004, 2005, 2006), exhibition “Power of the Body” at Riga Gallery (2006), group exhibitions at Zwolle City Museum (2002), Die Galerie der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Bonn (1995), Granovsky Gallery in San Francisco (1991), in the exhibition “Post-Traditionalism” at Central House of Artists in Moscow (1988). The latest solo exhibition “Private Mythology” was on view at Riga Gallery in November 2006.
Frančeska Kirke’s works are found in the collections of Latvian National Art Museum, Artists’ Union of Latvia Museum, State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum in New Jersey as well as in private collections in Latvia and abroad.
Kirke’s painting is typified by the artist’s specific interpretation of relationships between time and art. She is interested in both contemporary art language and the visual culture of past eras. The artist freely navigates systems of intellectual and visual signs, creates quotations from cultural history and uses them to mirror the particular version of culture typical of the present. Kirke blends traditional means of painting, compositional principles, colours and textures with the post-modernist view of the world.
The internationally renowned master of Latvian conceptualism Leonards Laganovskis (b. 1955) will present in Art Moscow large-scale digital prints, paintings and drawings from his solo exhibition „Vodka. Sex. Perfume” that was on view at Riga Gallery in 2007.
Laganovskis’ modes of artistic expression range from drawings and paintings to photography and objects. The artist has acquired wide international experience, living in Germany for a long period and taking part in art life there, organizing solo exhibitions and participating in group exhibitions abroad. He has received several international grants: Kunst-Werke, Berlin (Germany, 1991), Cultur Senat, Berlin (Germany 1995), The Banff Center for the Arts (Canada, 1992) etc. Leonards Laganovskis was among those artists who participated in important art exhibitions such as “Riga – Lettische Avantgarde” at Kunsthalle in West Berlin (1988), „Avantgarde & Kampagne” at Düseldorf Kunsthalle (1992), „Postconceptual Painting” at Berlin Kunstwerke (1995), „European Art Forum” at Galerie Barbara Weiss in Berlin (1996 – 1998), „Darueber hinaus, Ausgewählte künstlische Positionen an der Schwelle des neuen Jahrtausends” at Hamburg Kunsthalle (2000), International Contemporary Art Fair ART MOSCOW (2005, 2006).
The artist’s works are found in the collections of the Latvian National Museum of Art, Neue Berliner Kunstverein collection in Berlin, Kupferstich Kabinett in Berlin, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum in Rutgers University in New York, Estonian Art Museum in Tallinn, significant private collections in Latvia and abroad, as well as in prospective Contemporary Art Museum of Latvia.
The main theme of “Vodka. Sex. Perfume” artworks is pleasures – things and habits, phobias and objects of desires that manipulate the human being, making him/her more or less dependant from different kind of things. If earlier the artist has explored wine, now he has turned to the basic element of the subject realised in the series of large-scale digital prints. Looking at these series there is a chance to engage in the artist’s favourite language games – one of his main themes and sources of inspiration.
Laganovskis has taken up analysis of language through art quite a long ago – language, letters, texts have always been very important and brought into play in his works many times. Visually depicted intellectual constructions are the basis of Laganovskis’ art, containing both irony and humor.
Drawings from the series “Perfumes” depict subjects of classical art turned into imaginary perfumes.
London-based young Latvian artist Arnis Balčus (b. 1978) at Art Moscow will show selection of works from his latest project „Episodes” which was on view in the artist’s solo exhibition at Riga Gallery in September 2006. Those will be black and white photographs that form 4 different photo-stories.
Arnis Balčus has received Master’s Degree from the Department of Photography of the University of Westminster in London. The artist creates his works in a manner uncommon in Latvia, making staged stories of black-and-white photographs with the artist’s friends, famous DJs, musicians and journalists as actors. He uses B-category film aesthetics (for example Russ Meyer’s cult film “Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” (1965), American blaxplotation films) and comics to create series of black-and-white photographic stories, dealing with stereotyped and banal subjects of love, hate, good and evil, sex and violence, reversing them and provoking a chain of new associations. The artist expresses an ironic attitude towards the innumerable plots of pulp fictions with predictable ends but still fascinating in their banality.
Arnis Balčus participates in exhibitions since 1994. The artist had solo exhibitions at Matthew Bown Gallery in London (2005, 2006), Giedre Bartelt Gallery in Berlin (2003), State Museum of Art Exhibition Hall Arsenāls (2004), Fotogalerie Wien (2004) etc. He has participated in significant group shows like 10th International Contemporary Art Fair ART MOSCOW (2006), exhibition “Power of the Body” at Riga Gallery (2006), group exhibitions at Giedre Bartelt Gallery in Berlin (2004, 2005), exhibition “What is Important?” organised by Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (2004), II Ars Baltica Photo Triennial (1999) etc.
On Art Moscow there will be on view one artwork by Ieva Iltnere (b. 1957) from her recent solo exhibition “Eight Rooms” at Riga Gallery in April 2007.
Ieva Iltnere is one of the most prominent and creative artists of her generation. Her art is capable of speaking about great themes significant for both individual and society through an intimate subject. Iltnere has created her own system of images with a particularly individual style, influenced by different world cultures, 20th century avant-garde art and popular culture, synthesizing traditional painterly means and conceptual approach. The artist and her contemporaries radically changed the society’s ideas on Latvian figural painting.
Ieva Iltnere’s works are found in the collections of Latvian National Art Museum, Artists’ Union of Latvia Museum, State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, Ludwig Museum in Aachen, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum in New Jersey, private collections in Latvia and abroad.
In her recent exhibition the artist has depicted interiors of different epochs, including all the encoded information on the time and space. Iltnere invites to contemplate huge canvases with painted rooms, inhabited by images from art history books, design magazines or the artist’ s personal memories. For example, the painting “Hurricane Katrina” is inspired by Helmut Newton’s famous photography “Wibeke Riding On Her Husband’s Mechanical Bear”. The author combines quotes from the field of culture history, interiors of the 1970s, contemporary and futurist elements with the typical post-modernist outlook, she has been interested in the narrative aspect, the events that have happened in these many rooms and people affected by the closed space.
Riga Gallery project is supported by State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia and Embassy of Republic of Latvia in Russia Federation
More information:
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LEONARDS LAGANOVSKIS. NOISENAJA
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