Solo show. Jūlija Eresko. "SOS. Life matters"
28.10. 2022. - 11.01.2023.

Our bonds are severed, lost in the past,
Our roots are fractured, torn out, cast.
All our dreams erased in the social threads,
Our children forgotten, our homes time-shreds.

No memory stirs of our ancestral name,
No gaze follows skies where sunsets flame,
No warm wind felt on the skin’s embrace,
No tales of the past for our hearts to trace.

Where are the secrets of eternity’s song?
Who will we be when all good is gone?
Meanings will burn in the void’s abyss,
Winds shall return to Earth of the Fallen Angels’ kiss.

The soulless universe holds its design—
To shatter our thoughts, our source divine,
Love, kindness, faith, creativity, will—
Life only matters if we live it still.

Only as long as we live it still.

JJ (Jūlija Eresko)/ 2022

SOS. Life matters

“I capture the Present as an artefact; I place it into the Future and offer to contemplate a picture where the only deleted variable of the equation is the human being. The being, which has become an artefact.

While not rejecting the Present or creating a different reality, I invite you to glance into a credible Future and to appreciate the loss – the uniqueness of human civilization. A civilization that has created science and religion, art and medicine, technologies and sports... Civilization, whose very existence is dashing to a thoughtless act of self-destruction.

I suggest the formation of one's own opinion regarding the value of each human life, the achievements and uniqueness of the existence of the contemporary civilization, and while relying on the experience and the heritage from the past, to choose the direction towards life. Each life matters. Any life matters now.”

Exhibition “SOS. Life matters” is located on two floors of gallery MuseumLV.

In the halls of the first floor of the gallery there are paintings made in various techniques using both classical and modern materials, as well as original video works by JJ and objects created in collaboration with neon master Janis Brolišs.

On the second floor of exhibition “SOS. Dzīvei ir nozīme”, the author presented the installation “Abandoned city”, which was supported by hundreds of drawings by the children of Riga, as well as KIWIE, an artist working in the street graffiti genre, created his work in the gallery. Each guest has the opportunity to become a co-author of this project, leaving their inscription on the wall as a memory of their stay in this part of the city.

CV

Julija Eresko (JJ) received art education at the Boston Art Institute, the Riga College of Design and the British Academy of Art in Rome, majoring in painting and graphics. She developed her creativity in the field of visual arts, interior design and furniture design, has participated in numerous art exhibitions both in Riga, Jurmala, Daugavpils and outside Latvia. In 2017 Julia Eresko founded the Grata JJ cultural center and the MuseumLV art gallery in Riga (LV) and Switzerland, and in 2018 - the Grata Art Foundation, being the author and scenographer of countless projects of the MuseumLV gallery both in Latvia and abroad up to this day manages the gallery and cultural center Grata JJ.

With gratitude for the creativity and support to: Irēna Bužinska, Laura Tuča, Jānis Pūga, Kristīne Martinova, Didzis Grodzs, Jevģenija Šafraneka, Jānis Brolišs, Aija Rulle, also for translation Dita Lūse, Irēna Petrova, Ilmārs Zvirgzds and for video Aleksandrs Veingarts.

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Exhibition's virtual tour

Evgeny Merman “Bilder Atlas”. Solo show.

26.08.2022. – 15.10.2022.
Art Gallery MuseumLV and Cultural Center Grata JJ
Andreja Pumpura Street 2, Rīga, LV – 1010
Working hours: Tue. – Fri: 11:00 – 19:00, Sat.: 11:00 – 17:00

Context
Evgeny Merman is a native of Ukraine based in Israel. This travelling exhibition has been previously shown in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Vilnius, Lithuania; it includes large-scale paintings, all inspired by an illustrated geographical atlas, which was published in several editions at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in Leipzig, Germany. Along with landscapes and sites, the illustrations depict the inhabitants of countries, islands, deserts, and mountains in different parts of the world, detailing the structure of the body, skull and facial features of different races and nationalities from the perspective of German explorer and illustrator, in the dusk of the German Empire and the birth of the Nationalist Nazi movement. Merman’s oil paintings follow the illustrations accompanying the second volume of the atlas dedicated to non-European countries, focusing on certain images that aroused his curiosity: people from different cultures and nationalities, fauna and flora.
Merman’s choice to use the little monochromatic drawings in the book and give them a large colorful interpretation is a defiant stance. It is difficult to find local references in his work, such is the case with the present series of paintings, where the reference is to European painting (or illustration). At the same time, the selection of images may not be entirely random and can be related to the biography and geo-political reality of the artist. His practice here is reminiscent of the ‘cover’ practice of popular music, or the re-producing of old movies, through which he appropriates the original illustrations and "dresses" them in new, personal, and up-to-date attire. Through this process, a discussion of the power relations between a dominant culture and a controlled culture, as shaped by hundreds of years of colonialism, develops. The discussion is reinforced by the choice of images from this volume of the atlas, which deals, as stated, with what Europeans call "the Third World." Merman's paintings emphasize the dissonance between Western admiration for "the noble savage" and the history of the occupation and exploitation of these "savages” and remind us how throughout history and to this day the fear of the stranger and the unknown translates into hatred and violence.
This debate has gained relevance in recent months considering Russian aggression against Ukraine and its citizens. The Russian power, which has embraced Eastern European countries with a bear hug for most of the twentieth century, is struggling to relinquish cultural and economic control over the former Soviet Union, and has declared Ukraine part of Russia, and its citizens Russians. Ukrainian independence and a return to the original culture and language are perceived by the Russian hegemony as a revolt, and the approach to the West as a threat to Russia. The issue of dominance and control discussed in Merman's paintings is therefore not a historical issue, it is contemporary and relevant, and touches personally on the artist, his homeland, his family and his friends.
Evgeny Merman approaches the atlas with the eyes of a painter, he only refers to the drawings and ignores the German text that he cannot read. His painterly approach in this series is less meticulous and less realistic than the illustrator's approach. He chooses the themes and compositions that interest him as a painter, occasionally connecting images from various illustrations to one painting, or only referring to a section from the original illustration. The result is a very colorful series of paintings, characterized by quick and expressive brushstrokes, which gives new and updated life to the old world that the great historical and traumatic events of the twentieth century have changed beyond recognition.
The exhibition has been made possible with the generous support of the Tsekh Contemporary Art Galleries in Kyiv and Vilnius.
Curator: Ilan Wizgan

BIO
Education
1985-1987 — Kiev Art School. Fine Art Department. Ukraine. 1989-1990 — Kiev Academia of Fine Art. Ukraine 1996-1998 — School of Visual Arts. (SVA). Video art and related media. New York. USA
Selected exhibitions and projects
2021 – “ArtGuards”. Lemon Frame Gallery. Tel Aviv. (solo) 2020 – “Inneroutfuture” – Special project. Nulobaz Gallery. Tel Aviv,Israel. (solo) 2019 – “Bilder Atlas 1”. Tsekh Gallery. Kiev, Ukraine. (solo) 2019 – “Territories”. MACT / Museum and Center of Contemporary Art, Ticino, Switzerland. (group show) 2016 — "Morte Faschismus. Morte Kommunismus”. HKHTC, Hong Kong. (solo) 1998 — Tel Hai Museum. Upper Galilee, Israel. (group show)
1997 — "Last Hero". Gallery Camera Obscure. Tel Aviv, Israel. (solo) 1996 — “Station transformation” project. Tel Aviv, Israel. (group show) 1995 — "Concerning the Spiritual in Art. W. Kandinsky”, Jerusalem's Municipal gallery. (solo) 1995 — "Dreams about Punt", Sara Conforti Gallery. Tel Aviv, Israel. (solo)
Awards
2019 - 1st Prize at 33th Kyoto Art Festival, International Juried Exhibition of Art 2019. Japan.

Selected collections
The Jerusalem Municipality collection. The Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Museum. MACT / Museum and Center of Contemporary Art, Ticino, Switzerland.

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 Charity project GRATA BALVA 2022 “#illusory#reality” in support of Ukrainian refugees.

26.08.2022. – 15.10.2022.
Art Gallery MuseumLV and Cultural  Center Grata JJ
Andreja Pumpura Street 2, Rīga, LV – 1010
Working hours: Tue. – Fri: 11:00 – 19:00, Sat.: 11:00 – 17:00

The GRATA AWARD is an international project that has become a tradition of MuseumLV gallery and the Grata JJ cultural center, inviting professional artists to create original artworks every year, thereby encouraging creativity. The aim of the project is to provide a platform for artists, for mutual creative communication and exchange of experiences, as well as to introduce a wider audience to these artist’s work. The GRATA PRIZE 2022 visual art competition this year is taking place in a special format - as a charity competition. All the funds that the cultural center GRATA JJ gallery MuseumLV will get from the sale of the works of the competition will be directed as material assistance to Ukrainian refugees in Latvia.
Every year the organizers of the competition choose the theme of the competition, this year it is "#illusory #reality". Everyday we create a reality based on our own illusions. The reality of the modern world, by itself constantly interacting, destroying and creating new conditions, knocks us out of the personal spaces subordinate to our nature and throws us into a world consisting of society's desires and illusions. The creative illusory space is a special world that belongs to each of us, reflecting our beliefs, tastes, concerns, sense of beauty, hopes and dreams. The creative illusory space is a special world in which we exist parallel to the real world.
GRATA AWARD in visual art has two prizes - 500 EUR each. All proceeds of the MuseumLV gallery from the sale of works, including the first of two gallery prizes of 500 euros, will be donated to "Young Folks Lv",

https://youngfolks.lv/

whose enthusiasts work 24/7 directly on the spot (at the station and bus station) with incoming transit Ukrainian refugees.

The fate of the second prize is determined by the vote of the exhibition visitors. In this way, the organizers hope to achieve greater public interest in visual art and its processes, as well as attract a wider audience to the creative environment. To ensure as fair as possible audience voting, all works are exhibited with numbers, without authors' names. Voting takes place in person throughout the duration of the exhibition, as well as on the gallery's MuseumLV website.
During the exhibition, all works are offered for sale to interested parties. Juris Ģermanis, Aleksejs Naumovs, Dita Lūse, Vadims Markevičs, Linda Kozule, Anita Paegle and Ilze Muceniece-Adamaite have already become nominees and winners of previous years. All information about the GRATA charity fund can be found here https://museumlv.com/about_us/ , the GAF "Art helps vision" charity exhibition and the "Art helps vision" charity auction.

GRATA PRIZE competition exhibitions:"Mistērija. Rituālā māksla"
"Spēka avots"
“#artefakts #piektācivilizācija”

Catalog of artworks

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5 years - 50 exhibitions - 140 events - 1892692 website visits


The history of the establishment of Grata JJ cultural center and art gallery MuseumLV began with the idea to unite and educate Latvian modern society and to support Latvian artists who have started their career after Latvia attained full independence in 1991.
The gallery endowment for contemporary visual art is aimed at popularizing Latvian professional artists whose skills are based on a classical European values as well as the authors, whose perception of the world is much broader than generally accepted boundaries.
The MuseumLV gallery organizes solo and group exhibitions on a basis of 4 exposition weeks per month approximately. Sometimes it reaches 3 exhibitions on display.
The Culture Center also includes the Grata Art Charitable Foundation, Grata Art Academy project, Grata Prize Art contest.
MuseumLV established annual art contest exhibition for Grata Prize with 2 nominations: Gallery MuseumLV Prize - to support senior artists and Audience Choice Award - to discover young talents. All of our authors are professional artists, lots of them got the honor to be exhibited at National Museums around the world and in Latvia.
We have also focused on education projects, which include weekly lectures led by art historians, documentary films and videos about contemporary Latvian artists https://youtube.com/channel/UCoUIcssPBmdjrpc6Sz-_Eqw , as well as artists' master classes, live broadcasts, discussions available to anyone interested in current art topics with the participation of art critics and artists, creative art classes for adults and children, poetry evenings, concerts, theater performances, documentary screenings and many other educational activities. Classes are led by professional art historians and critics, whose jobs are at the Latvian National Museum of Art, the Latvian Academy of Arts, and the Latvian Academy of Sciences - holders of high academic degrees.
You may ask, why our activity is so intense? The MuseumLV project is not a game for us, it is not a job, but a fulfillment of our creative life. It is the artist's life and desire to share it with everyone who is ready to receive it.

We are grateful to our visitors, guests, artists and all those who are not indifferent to the creative people who participate in the activities of the gallery and support us with their participation and attention for 5 years. The team of gallery MuseumLV and the cultural center Grata JJ wish you health, well-being and peace.

Solo exhibition. Portraits in photogrpahs "Jānis Deinats. Times. So sweet"
May 26 - July 9


Time leaves its imprints on faces. Individual imprints on each face. This is how portraits are born. Times change. Portraits remain. As interim periods.
There are also times of exposition. The amount of light that appears on faces. The light in a person is captured. Or the absence thereof. Time will tell.
There are creative times, political times, times of upheaval and bad times.
Portraits are never silent, because they reflect the times.


The outstanding photographer Jānis Deinats has been taking photographs since 1989. He is renowned as a distinguished portraitist, but until now there has never really been an exhibition of his portraits.
Jānis Deinats’ photographic portraits are a visual testimony to his age. The exhibition TIMES. SO SWEET will showcase his portraits of over 70 Latvian celebrities, people who are well-known to the public including politicians, sports stars, musicians, poets and actors. However, let’s be honest, this is also an exhibition about forgetting. If a group of young people were to walk into the exhibition today, most of them would ask, who are all these old men and women. But what about in 20 years’ time? These days celebrity quickly turns into anonymity.
The exhibition at the MuseumLV Art Gallery will occupy two floors. One room will be dedicated to the outstanding National Theatre actress Elza Radziņa. This February, while browsing through his archive for images for this exhibition, Jānis Deinats discovered a roll of film that he had shot in the early 1990s, whose emulsion had been damaged during development. He was greatly surprised to discover that the images obtained from this film were of Elza Radziņa. The film itself was produced at the SVEMA Factory in Shostka, Ukraine. Another major surprise was the discovery that Elza Radziņa was actually born in 1917 in Kharkiv, Ukraine into a Latvian family of refugees seeking safety during the First World War.
A separate room will contain large-scale (130x100m) images. These are fragments of Jānis Deinats’ series of photographs I PHOTOGRAPH REMOTELY and I PHOTOGRAPH. Taken during the COVID -19 pandemic, these series form a testimony to this age and its psychological typology, visually accenting the effect of the “fissure” in social relations, as well as the acutely felt sense of just how small people actually are amidst this new and uncertain “big” world.

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april 14th 11.00 - 19.00

april 15th closed

april 16th closed

april 17th closed

april 18th closed

april 19th 11.00 - 19.00

Joint exhibition of Giorgia Zhang, Siqi Chen, Mary Zhang “On the move”.

13.04.2022. – 14.05.2022.

Art Gallery MuseumLV and Cultural  Center Grata JJ

Andreja Pumpura Street 2, Rīga, LV – 1010

Working hours: Tue. – Fri: 11:00 – 19:00, Sat.: 11:00 – 17:00

ON THE MOVE

Travelling and moving to other countries is supposed to be on free choice. However, it has become an unfortunate necessity for many people nowadays. Our civilization has faced the issue of migration throughout history development; moreover, the subject of refugees took a special place in this process. Currently, this issue has become much more sensitive.

Nowadays, more than ever, each one of us is a ‘citizen of the world’. Many people choose to study, travel, get acquainted with new traditions of other nations, move to another place and accumulate the cultural experience of other countries. More and more discussions emerged concerning cultural differences, the need for acceptance through involvement, participation and living as a form of empathy, and opportunities to expand one’s range of personality by exploring similarities and differences.

The term ‘different’ has become a topic interest of conversation in every society, where, of course, opinions on this phenomenon are still divided. Undoubtedly, this is because culture is always the most vital identifier for both individuals and nations. This issue often creates a certain amount of public confusion and possibly a fear of something new, which is perceived as a threat to old foundations and generational traditions entrenched in the subconscious.

Dr. Siqi Chen has devoted several studies to the issue of refugee children. How do people adapt to life in an unfamiliar country, how does it affect the human psyche, and what kind of outside support is needed? These issues will be discussed during the exhibition.

This exhibition is an investigation of society taken from 3 generations’ perspectives. The authors’ representations claim that now we all need to visualize stories about people’s lives outside their homeland, stories of hope, mutual understanding, love for people, regardless of nationality. This project is about the courage to go further, about the desire to be on the move because the world is full of opportunities. We all need friendly advice and enthusiastic participation. Today, the experience of those who have chosen to live outside their homeland is becoming supportive for those who have left their land.

Giorgia Zhang/ Chang Zhang (2005) is talented in painting and filmmaking; she studies in a local school in Riga. Giorgia shares about living in a foreign country:” Many difficulties are dealt with, and I think sometimes I have to learn how to live with them. Living in a foreign country is a valuable experience. Throughout the years, I have learnt to stand up against things that I am not comfortable with.” Chang’s room illustrates her generation’s insight into the daily lives of the vulnerable population.

Dr. Siqi Chen (1990) is a researcher and architect who lives in Berlin. Siqi’s installations, videos and photos are rooted in extensive research about fugitive children in this exhibition. All recurring themes are the lives of fugitive children in host countries, their psychological consequences, the legacy of social conflicts, and its lasting effects on global capitalism. As a social researcher who works with humans in daily life, one of her tasks is to make things clear and understandable for everyone outside her work. So she often interlinks facts and individuals to reflect a diversity of social experiences for the minority groups.

Mary Zhang /Hongge Zhang (1967) was born in Beijing, China. However, she has chosen Riga for settling over the past few years. Mary is a Registered Urban Planner in the People’s Republic of China. Before coming to Latvia, she mainly worked in architecture and urban design for about 25 years. She also owns 20 years of experience in the traditional Chinese art field, working on representing traditional Chinese history, calligraphy, and antique patterns in combinations with new artistic techniques. Mary Zhang’s call is to understand the diversity between Eastern and Western cultures, help locals develop a good relationship with the Chinese people, and overcome the gap between the two nations. She thinks you have to be brave to live in a foreign country. She urges her not to be afraid of cultural differences and live up to her dreams, respecting and accepting the values of the country in which one is located, either because of one’s tendencies or circumstances.

Curator of the exhibition “On the move”: Laura Tuča

 

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LTV Kultūras ziņas

Due to the change of exposition on the second floor,  on 09.04 and 12.04 gallery is closed for the visitors. We will wait for you on 13.04 to the new exhibition "On the Move"

Authors of the exhibition: Mary Zhang, Giorgia Zhang and Siqi Chen