From 8-23 October 2016, a project (model) exhibition Notes on Self-Evident Things is taking place in the small exhibition spaces on the 4th floor of the Latvian National Museum of Art’s main building as part of Boris and Ināra Teterev’s arts programme TÊTE-À-TÊTE 2016.
The works by Latvian artists will be judged by an invited jury, comprised of Juris Dambis, Gvido Princis, Agrita Maderniece, Ilze Purmale, Māra Lāce, Aleksejs Naumovs, Helēna Demakova and the philanthropists Boris and Ināra Teterev. There were three winning proposals in the form of Ernests Kļaviņš’ work Plato and Democritus, Kate Krolle’s Beyond Distant Seas and Remote Mountains, Light Flows Underground, and Krista and Reinis Dzudzillo’s work MMXVIII. Each winner will receive a cash prize in the amount of EUR 1,000. The artists were given a free hand, not being constrained by the imperative to having to choose a specific location in the urban environment, but instead being obliged to submit an idea reflected in their model, which could later be adapted to urban conditions.
The title of the project competition exhibition Notes on Self-Evident Things is taken from a work by art by middle generation Latvian artist Armands Zelčs, which is part of the State-owned portion of the collection of the future Museum of Contemporary Art. According to Latvian literature and culture critic, Anda Baklāne, “Succumbing to leisurely philosophising, one could say that Zelčs’ folded bicycle chasing its tail symbolises the eternal return and the cyclical nature of things. (...) It seemingly plays upon the subject of “reinventing the bicycle”.” This object is characterised by constructive artistic language in conjunction with a mind that espies paradoxes and which, by the way, has been influenced by the impressions made by the virtual world surrounding us.
19 Latvian artists were invited to respond to this idea of a project generating paradoxes and cyclical patterns and to submit public art projects (models) on a scale of 1: 10. Accordingly, the work of art that could potentially be produced does not depict situational elements related to specific social or other trends. The exhibition’s organisers anticipate that the proposals will not only be interesting, ambiguous and universal in nature, but also such that they can be exhibited under an open sky.
The competition models were created by Vents Āboltiņš and Anete Dambrova, Reinis and Krista Dzudzilo, Kristaps Epners, Atis Jākobsons, Ernests Kļaviņš, Kate Krolle, Sarmīte Māliņa and Kristaps Kalns, Laura Prikule, Līga Spunde, Reinis Suhanovs, Evita Vasiļjeva and 3/8 (Kristiana Marija Sproģe, Jānis Dzirnieks, Jānis Krauklis and Rihards Rusmanis).
