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International Competition Exhibition GRATA BALVA 2025 “Golden Age” at MuseumLV Gallery

Exhibition dates: June 12 – September 6, 2025

Venue: MuseumLV Gallery, Grata JJ Cultural Center, A. Pumpura Street 2, Riga

From June 12 to September 6, 2025, MuseumLV Gallery invites visitors to attend the annual competition exhibition GRATA BALVA, which this year is held under the theme “Golden Age.” Organized by MuseumLV Gallery within the framework of the Grata JJ Cultural Center, the project serves as a large-scale platform for showcasing works by contemporary professional artists from Latvia and abroad.

The curator of the project is Professor Dr. art. Deniss Hanovs, who is also the author of the exhibition’s concept.

The theme “Golden Age” offers vast opportunities for artistic interpretation, referencing utopian dreams as well as reflections on the past, present, and future, both personal, historical, and cultural.

This year, 76 contemporary professional artists are participating in the competition, presenting more than 100 works in painting, sculpture, graphics, ceramics, textile, digital art, and installations. All artworks are displayed on both floors of the gallery and are available for purchase.

The first two prize winners have already been announced!

Congratulations to the laureates of the international visual arts competition GRATA BALVA 2025!

The Grata Family Prize is awarded to the painting “New Era”

Artist: Leo Preiss

2025 | Canvas, acrylic | 100 × 90 cm

The Curator’s Prize is awarded to the work “Bulls”

Artist: Ludmila Kolomenska

2024 | Paper, watercolor | 84 × 64 cm

About the Competition

GRATA BALVA is an annual visual arts competition established by MuseumLV Gallery in 2018. The aim of the project is to support professional artists, promote cultural dialogue, and advance contemporary art.

Previous GRATA BALVA themes include:

• Mystery. Ritual Art
• Source of Power
• #artifact #fifthcivilization
• #illusory #reality (in support of Ukrainian refugees)

Competition Highlights

• To ensure maximum objectivity in voting, each artwork is presented anonymously, identified only by a number.
• Voting takes place in person throughout the entire exhibition period at MuseumLV Gallery, Grata JJ Cultural Center.
• Each visitor may vote for 8 favorite artworks. All works are available for purchase!

GRATA BALVA 2025 Prize Information

The GRATA BALVA Visual Arts Competition includes three monetary prizes:

1.    First Prize: “Grata Family Prize” (500 EUR)
Awarded during the exhibition opening by gallery representatives. The jury’s decision is based on the artist’s collaboration history and contribution to the activity of MuseumLV Gallery.

2.    Second Prize: “Curator’s Prize” (500 EUR)
Awarded by the curator of the exhibition “Golden Age,” Professor Dr.art Deniss Hanovs. This prize is also presented at the opening ceremony.

3.    Third Prize: “Audience Choice Award” (300 EUR)
Determined by votes cast by gallery visitors during the exhibition. The votes are counted live on MuseumLV’s Facebook page in early September.
This award is presented at the opening of the next exhibition at MuseumLV Gallery.

Jury:

• Exhibition curator Prof. Dr.art. Deniss Hanovs
• Representative of the general sponsor GRATA ECO HOUSE
• Director of the gallery  Julia Eresko

Come to the gallery, enjoy the art, make your choice, cast your vote!

Each visitor may vote for 8 favorite works. All artworks are available for purchase!

 

The first two prize winners have already been announced!

Congratulations to the laureates of the international visual arts competition GRATA BALVA 2025!

The Grata Family Prize is awarded to the painting “New Era”

Artist: Leo Preiss

2025 | Canvas, acrylic | 100 × 90 cm

The Curator’s Prize is awarded to the work “Bulls”

Artist: Ludmila Kolomenska

2024 | Paper, watercolor | 84 × 64 cm

MuseumLV Gallery invites professional artists to take part in the competition project GRATA BALVA 2025 “The Golden Age” in the field of visual arts.

 

The curator of the exhibition — Professor, Dr.art. Deniss Hanovs. 

 

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GRATA BALVA

 

GRATA BALVA is an annual international competition project, founded in 2018 by MuseumLV Gallery and the cultural center Grata JJ. Every year, the project team invites professional artists from various countries — including Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, France, China, Belarus, the United Kingdom, Russia, the USA, Switzerland, Korea, etc. — to share their creativity and new ideas at the MuseumLV Gallery venue. On average, more than 200 artworks form a multifaceted picture of contemporary art in painting, sculpture, graphics, ceramics, textile, and digital art. The exhibition takes place on both floors of the MuseumLV Gallery.

 

Previous themes of the GRATA BALVA competition:

• “Mystery. Ritual Art”

• “Source of Power”

• “#artefact #fifthcivilization”

• “#illusory #reality” (in support of refugees from Ukraine)

 

The aim of the project is to foster communication, exchange of experience among artists, and to promote their creativity. The monetary prize acts as a motivating factor supporting artistic activity. All artworks presented at the exhibition are available for purchase.

 

The participants of the competition and the target audience of the project are professional artists, whose works meet the gallery’s standards, and visitors from different countries.

 

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About the Competition Prize

 

The Grata Balva in Visual Arts includes two monetary prizes:

• One prize (€500) is awarded by the gallery’s jury and expert committee.

• The second prize (€300) is determined by the exhibition visitors through on-site voting for their favorite work.

 

The first prize is awarded by the gallery representatives based on their experience of working with the artist and the artist’s contribution to the activities of MuseumLV.

The fate of the second prize is decided by counting the votes cast by visitors during the exhibition. This approach actively involves the audience interested in visual art in the artistic process and also broadens the creative community.

 

To ensure maximum fairness for the artists, all works are exhibited without the authors’ names, only under a number.

Voting takes place in person throughout the entire exhibition and also on the official website of MuseumLV | Mākslas galerija | Blogs.

 

The award ceremony has two stages:

• The GRATA BALVA prize (€500) is awarded during the opening of the competition exhibition.

• The Audience Choice Award (Simpātiju Balva) is awarded at the opening of the next exhibition at MuseumLV.

 

Jury:

• Exhibition curator — Prof. Dr.art. Deniss Hanovs

• Representative of the general sponsor GRATA ECO HOUSE

• Gallery director Julija Eresko

 

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Important Information!

 

Submission period: from March 25 to May 31, 2025, during the gallery’s working hours.

Works submitted after May 31 will not be accepted.

 

Before delivering the actual artwork, please ensure that you have sent in advance to the gallery’s email:

1. Your updated CV

2. Your portrait photo

3. A high-quality photo of the planned artwork (preferably 74–200 KB) for the gallery website

4. Information about the work: title, size, year, technique, price

 

This information must be sent at least 2 business days before you deliver the artwork to the gallery.

Without this information, the work will not be accepted.

 

If at any point the number of submitted works exceeds the gallery’s capacity to maintain exhibition quality, the gallery reserves the right to decline later entries, following the principle: first come, first served.

 

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Artwork Dimensions for This Year

 

This year, artworks of any format, including non-standard sizes, will be accepted. However, the gallery reserves the right to refuse certain works. Upon agreement, paintings, sculptures, and installations (objects) are accepted.

 

Each participant is welcome to present one or two additional works thematically related to the main competition piece to enhance the artistic context, but the gallery has the right to decline them. Only one artwork per author is officially submitted to the competition. Additional works serve to enrich the perception and context of the main piece.

 

If the artist wishes to include a conceptual description of the work, it should be submitted in advance for inclusion in the exhibition display.

 

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To participate in the competition, the artist must confirm their intention by sending the following to info@museumlv.com

• Confirmation of participation (in the email)

• A portrait photo

• An updated CV

• A photo of the artwork

• Title, size, year, technique, price

 

After receiving the email, the MuseumLV Gallery team will respond with confirmation of participation and a work schedule.

 

Artworks are accepted only after the gallery’s official confirmation.

Submission deadline: May 31, 2025 (during the gallery’s working hours).

 

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The following works will not be accepted:

• Works with aggressive content

• Works that provoke conflicts

• Works that offend the feelings of others

• Works inciting ethnic hatred

• Works that do not correspond to the theme or specified dimensions of the competition

 

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We support all your creative initiatives in the field of visual arts and wish you great success in the competition and in your artistic journey!

See you at the gallery!

__________  

Sheltering in the Shadow of the “Golden Age”…

 /exhibition curator, cultural researcher, Dr.art, LMA professor Deniss Hanovs/

Concept of the Art Competition Exhibition

Context and Problematics of the Exhibition

In European culture, the so-called “Golden Age” is one of the most enduring mythological, literary, and also political narratives — a chapter in the biography of humanity itself. Throughout history, societies have often been dissatisfied with the present, afraid of it, or unable to cope with its unrelenting stream of events, crises, and catastrophes. And so, in search of relief, they have turned away from the complex, exhausting present, conjuring the idea of a Golden Age — a time that once was or is yet to come, that exists somewhere, or will one day return.

This persistent topos of the Golden Age shaped much of 20th-century cultural space — a century in which we witnessed horrifying catastrophes, many of which began with grand declarations of a new golden era. Wars, violence against nature, against ourselves and each other, bloodshed — all this Ovid already fled from in his poetry, as did the virgin Astraea, symbol of peace and harmony, who left Earth when the Golden Age was no more. In his Bucolics (Fourth Eclogue), Virgil promised the trauma-stricken Romans a new Golden Age, heralded by the return of the virgin — a promise, a fantasy, a literary cry of despair.

The 21st century, too, promised a new Golden Age through digital immortality, where global communication would create and preserve vast new pixelated worlds, filled with limitless possibilities for entertainment and knowledge. Yet this new golden realm carries its own shadows: deception, digital surveillance, citizen control, and data theft.

Our time is filled with challenges on a global scale: environmental disasters, multilayered social crises, identity conflicts — all generating cultural, political, and societal tensions, mass insecurity, and deep fatigue. Many long to escape such a present — but where to, when the interconnected web of events and networks leaves no island undiscovered? All the fairy-tale forests of hermits seeking refuge have been clear-cut; the deserts of prophets mapped, built upon, and most likely sold.

Do spaces still exist — or could they emerge — where the Golden Age lives on? As faith in a better society, where hatred and violence are (still? no longer?) unknown? Or is this just another illusion — a “deep fake,” a profound deception, a mirage of our own making? Perhaps it is not something to wait for, but something to create? Are we capable of that? Do we even want it?

Exhibition Objective

We invite artists to engage in a creative discussion about visions of the future — both in Latvia and globally — by exploring how Latvian artists reflect upon, imagine, or critique the concept:

The Golden Age: Promise or Future Forgery?

This theme is multifaceted and may be explored through various questions:

• How was the Golden Age imagined or constructed in cultural and artistic history?
• What defines the present moment, and how — or why — might we escape it?
• Where would we flee? What does a “golden refuge” look like?
• The allure and destruction of golden forgeries — why do we need illusions?
• Probing the Golden Age — cultural fatigue and future perspectives.

We invite professional artists to submit original works for a collective competition exhibition — whether previously shown or created specifically for this event — that address the core question of the exhibition.

 

NOME Fashion Performance & Press Party at MuseumLV

Date: April 9, 2025

Time: 15:30–16:30

Location: MuseumLV art gallery, Riga

*By paper invitation only



An exclusive event during Riga Fashion Week 2025 — the premiere of NOME, a visionary art and fashion performance by Elina Maligina.




NOME steps onto the world stage as part of Riga Fashion Week 2025 with a bold concept exhibition that merges fashion and contemporary art.



For the first time ever, NOME — the brainchild of Elina Maligina (project creator, artist, and fashion designer) — collaborates with renowned Latvian designer Natalija Jansone, a visionary in high-end couture and precision tailoring. In an exclusive, one-of-a-kind couture piece, Jansone aligns with NOME’s mission: to challenge overconsumption and redefine the future of fashion.



*About the NOME Concept Exhibition



The NOME Concept Exhibition is more than just an art showcase — it’s a movement. This debut exhibition introduces NOME to the world through powerful artistic installations that express its values, philosophy, and core essence.



Spread across seven spaces of the MuseumLV gallery, the exhibition invites guests to immerse themselves in a world of thought-provoking visuals and transformative experiences. Each installation is a statement — a call to awaken, to break free from imposed boundaries, and to embrace true liberation — the kind that comes from within.



*Attendance is by paper invitation only.



Regards,

MuseumLV


TVNET

Šī gada 2. aprīlī kultūras centra GRATA JJ galerija MuseumLV aicina savus draugus, apmeklētājus un vienkārši vizuālās mākslas cienītājus uz tikšanos ar projekta un izstādes autori, kā arī jaunās sociālās kustības NOME radītāju Elīnu Maliginu.

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Būs arī balvu izloze!

Kur: galerija MuseumLV
Kad: 2. aprīlī
Laiks: 17:00 - 19:00

Sarunu valodas: latviešu, krievu, angļu

2 апреля галерея MuseumLV культурного центра GRATA JJ приглашает своих друзей, посетителей и просто любителей визуального искусства на встречу с автором проекта, выставки и создателем нового социального движения NOME Элиной Малыгиной.
Обсудим, рассмотрим, поспорим, насладимся общением и сделаем самые шокирующие фото года в пространстве галереи.

Разиграем призы

Где: галерея MuseumLV Rīgā, A.Pumpura iela, 2

Когда: 2 апреля Время: 17:00 - 19:00

Язык общения: латышский, русский, английский

Билет можно приобрести на месте или по линку
Стоимость 5 евро

NOME IS THE NEW BLACK

www.eyeofnome.com

www.elinamaligina.com

IG eyeofnome
IG museumlvgratajj

Ieeja https://www.bilesuserviss.lv/.../citi/izstade-nome-462609/ Vai klātienē biļetes cena 5 euro

*vietu skaits ierobežots

Ilze Jaunberga
"Oh, Fortuna! Or another corner house"
17.01. - 01.03. 2025.


“O Fortune, like the Moon you are changeable”, claims a medieval poem, noting the inscrutable and arbitrary ways of Fortune, the capricious goddess of Luck and Fate.
The art gallery MuseumLV is proud to announce the long-awaited return of Latvian artist Ilze Jaunberga, known for her fusion of traditional academic painting with surrealist visions, offering a personal exhibition “O, Fortune! A tale of another corner house”.
Already since the early 2000s Jaunberga has meticulously developed figural compositions closely related to the Italian tradition of painting. One of the most recognizable motifs in this artist’s career has been the Carnival of Venice and its magnificent pageantry – observed not from a tourist’s perspective, but from within, drawing on her close ties to Italy and especially the creative community of Venice. Her mentor for many years was Enzo Rossi-Ròiss, a Venetian poet, publicist, and curator; their association not only facilitated the creation and exhibition of this artist’s paintings in Italy, but also immersion in the Italian language and culture. However, the surrealist carnival visions offered by Jaunberga are quite far removed from the dolce vita ethos, which in our region still is often associated with everything Italian.
The entire human existence depends on sustained luck, and is subject to the whims of fate. One appreciates the wheel of Fortune once it starts to rapidly turn downwards. We then say that our or someone’s “luck ran out”, but when the wheel carries us upwards, we proudly attribute the success to ourselves.
The new paintings by Jaunberga, combined with a retrospective of her earlier work, promise another turn in the Carnival of Life – the place of Venetian Palazzo is now occupied by a seven story apartment building in the central part of Riga, where, guided by the changeable Fortune, the artist happens to live. The exhibition shows how the carefree lives of people in this property, another corner house on the Stabu street, turned far worse than could have been imagined, revealing a legal nightmare concocted by a few of their neighbours who have run a criminal enterprise from their residence.
The artist herself, living through this legal drama, calls the apartment building a miniature “failed state”, where the apathy of citizens has allowed the fraud to continue, with “enterpreneurs” increasingly in charge of other people’s property, which may soon result in the eviction of law-abiding citizens.
Press release Jaunberga
Drawing on the ambitious parallel between these two corner houses on the same Stabu street, her own residence and the former Soviet KGB building, the artist highlights the banal persistence of evil, which sprouts wherever we, citizens, fail to stand up for our rights and democratic principles. The vigilance against corruption is needed every day, and the fate of democracy is being determined now, not in some final battle between Good and Evil.
The indifference from state authorities towards the blatant mismanagement of this apartment building has created a permanent Carnival that has trapped its participants with no easy way out. We are begging Fortune to release us from this spectacle, instead of being evicted from our lawful property. O, Fortuna, miserere nobis!

diena.lv
leta

“Digitālā ētika: kā uzvesties internetā” . Publicistes, režisores un blogeres Jevģenijas Šafranekas lekcija.

RU, LV

RU

26 ноября в 19:00 приглашаем вас на встречу-лекцию «Цифровая этика: как вести себя онлайн», которую проведет журналист, публицист, режиссер и популярный блогер Евгения Шафранек.

«Цифровая этика: как вести себя онлайн»
Интернет давно и плотно вошел в нашу жизнь. Но вместе с безграничными возможностями, появились и свои риски. И некоторые, казалось бы мелкие, ошибки могут стоит не только покоя, но и карьеры, личной жизни и репутации.

- может ли неудачное слово привести к серьезным неприятностям и даже откликнуться через годы
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Обо всем этом и многом другом расскажем, объясним и разъясним на нашем двухчасовом курсе сетевой безопасности: разберем живые примеры, вспомним собственный опыт, узнаем законы и правила и, конечно, научимся без уменьшения роли интернета в нашей жизни, избавляться от рисков, страхов и сомнений.

Будьте в сети, но не попадайтесь в сéти!

Где: галерея MusemLV, Pumpura iela 2
Время: 19:00
Стоимость: 30 евро
Язык лекции: русский
Язык общения: русский, латышский
Предварительная покупка билета обязательна, количество мест строго ограничена.
Приобрести билеты можно заранее в галерее либо в сети https://www.bilesuserviss.lv/.../lekcija-digitala-etika.../
Запись и информация по телефону: +371 25409000

LV

26. novembrī 19:00 aicinām jūs uz tikšanos-lekciju “Digitālā ētika: kā uzvesties internetā”, ko vadīs žurnāliste, publiciste, režisore un blogere Jevģenija Šafraneka.

“Digitālā ētika: kā uzvesties internetā”
Internets jau sen ir iegājis mūsu dzīvēs, taču paralēli bezlimita iespējām, parādījušies arī sava veida riski. Dažas, mazas kļūdas var maksāt dārgi – karjeru, privāto dzīvi un reputāciju.

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Par to visu un arī daudz ko citu izstāstīsim un paskaidrosim mūsu kursā (2h) par tīmekļa drošību: ņemsim dzīvus piemērus, atcerēsimies personīgo pieredzi, uzzināsim likumus un noteikumus un, protams, iemācīsimies interneta lomu mūsu dzīvēs, atbrīvojoties no riskiem, bailēm un šaubām.

Esiet tīmeklī, bet neiekļūsties tā tīklos!

Kur: galerijā MuseumLV, A. Pumpura iela 2
Laiks: 19:00
Cena: 30 EUR
Lekcijas valoda: krievu
Saziņas valoda: krievu, latviešu
Nepieciešama iepriekšēja biļešu iegāde, vietu skaits ir stingri ierobežots. Informācija un pieraksts, zvanot +371 25409000