Ģirts Boronovskis
"Flatscreen Landscape" - pastels
Gallery MuseumLV , anniversary exhibition.

06.04.2023. – 27.05. 2023.

Ģirts is a born and bred 'Rīgan' whose secondary school education began at Riga Secondary School number 24 , located at the junction of Tallinas and Krišjāņa Barona street. The drawing teacher, who also headed the voluntary drawing group, proved to be fortunate for him - Vilis Vizulis, who at the time was a young artist in his own right, spotted Ģirts special artistic talent. Ģirts represented his school in the drawing Olympiad competition and Vizulis succeeded in persuading his parents that the young man should further his education at the Jaņa Rozentāla Art School.
There was a slight glitch before actually gaining a place there as he had remained first reserve. However, after some discussion, he was duly accepted as a 'rozentāl' student. Ģirts recalls with the utmost sincerity his class teacher Uno Danilevski, who was most caring towards all his students. At the time too a particular interest in the techniques of graphic art came from another source, Līga Bokalder, who was in charge of the graphics group as well as having her own specialisms. Ģirts was not as successful at painting as his fellow students so he is especially grateful towards his painting teacher Imants Melderis, who really encouraged him not to lose interest but to strive to become a more accomplished painter.
Ģirts graduated from the Rozentāl Art School with a linocut work entitled "Factory Work".
Further studies continued at the National Art Academy in the graphics departament led by Aleksandrs Stankevičs. Concurrently with graphics and drawing Ģirts was also painting using water colours and gouache. In his final year he increasingly devotes his attention to the medium of graphics, focusing on the printed book. Pēteris Upītis, a graphics specialist, was his teacher and it was he too who oversaw his final graduation work comprising illustrations for Andrejs Upīša's book "The Wheels of Time". Moreover Ģirts was one of his last students. It is worth noting that the artist is now confident enough to strike out on his own, renouncing usual graphology techniques and instead choosing to employ Indian ink drawings.
No matter how paradoxical it may seem it was marriage that seemed to stimulate his further artistic development .His parents -in-law are the renowned Latvian artists Rita Valners and Eduards Kalniņš. In particular it is Valners who encourages the young artist to try pastels and it is this technique that with time becomes Boronovski's medium of choice through which are mirrored in fine detail his own personal experiences and attitude towards nature. Moreover it is thanks to Eduards Kalniņš's wide experience and technical expertise that Ģirts seriously begins to turn to photography. He not only takes numerous photographs but also develops his own films and colour slides, making copies of black and white photographs in his own workroom. Whilst a student at the Art Academy Ģirts also began work at the Latvian, now National, History Museum. Concurrently with other work this is something he continues with to this day. Chance has meant that his main focus has been on art from a historical viewpoint and undoubtedly much has been achieved in this context. He has curated many historical exhibitions and projects, and is well known and respected in Latvia. Such work has not been just carried out in Latvia but also in other world renowned museums .


When he was young Riga had many cinemas and 'going to the pictures' was one of the most popular forms of entertainment. One cinema in particular stands out, namely "Palladium" which boasted a flat screen. The image projected on to this screen was so huge that one had to turn one's head from side to side, particularly if you happened to be sitting in one of the front rows.
A sensation of this vast expanse of landscape which can seemingly overcome the viewer is a theme in his work. Technology may change, advances may be made offering up panoramic views of the natural world, images captured in flatangled photographic camera work. The question however arises: how to incooperate these feelings of endless landscapes in a work of art? Usually artists do not concern themselves too much about what fits or not on the canvas. Ģirts however is one of those rare landscape artists who strives to capture this elusive emotive endless landscape reality in full in all his work so as to take one's breath away.
The artist's main theme is nature's mood and how to recreate this image for the viewer. To achieve this he explores all the many and varied images created by the changing seasons, the way light changes, the different textures. He paints fog, mists, water, sunsets, meadows- simple, peaceful moods. The artist does not paint seascapes because the sea is constantly moving . He also avoids stones for these in nature are hard, but not always so in paintings. He also totally avoids moonlight. This non- depiction does not stem from prohibition but rather from a sense of self - questioning: will I succeed, will I convincingly be able to portray this? The artist's creations always keep the viewer in mind. He is driven not just by his own creativity but also an awareness of judgement from the side-lines.
"Flatscreen Landscape" is in it own way a unique exhibition , it being quite a rare occasion. It comprehensively displays the artist's mature craftmanship.

Iveta Laure, artist, Mag.art


Riga, April 2023



CV

ĢIRTS BORONOVSKIS

Born on 24 March 1963, Riga

Professional Education:

1981 Jaņa Rozentāla Art High School

1987 Art Academy of Latvia, Graphic Art department, prof. Pēteris Upītis

Graduation work: Book graphic design, Illustrations for Andrejs Upītis book “The Wheels of Time”

Qualification: graphic artist, teacher of fine art

Work Experience:

 

from 1986 until now senior designer at the National History Museum of Latvia

Additional work:

2005–2007 “Mākslas fabrika No. 7” Ltd., an artist

1999–2004 “Lido” Ltd., an environment artist

1995–1999 Magazine “Biznesa Partneri”, an artist

1993–1998 Newspaper “Latvijas Zeme”, an artist

1989–1993 Riga Children’s Art School (now Māra Muižniece’s Riga School of Arts), an art teacher

1985–1988 Allaži eight-year school, an art teacher

Permanent museum expositions and exhibition design:

2022/2023 “Crimplenomania”, the project and implementation, the National History

Museum of Latvia.

2021 “Baltic Appeal to the United Nations”, the design and implementation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia;

“Colourful Latvia”, the project and implementation, the National History Museum of Latvia.

2019/2020 “11 heroic stories. the Military Order of Lāčplēsis, its holders, Lāčplēsis

Day”, the project and implementation, the National History Museum of Latvia.

2019 “Ogre Station”, Ogre History and Art Museum, a constant exhibition, the project

and implementation;

2018 The Salaspils Memorial Ensemble, the exhibition project and implementation.

2017 Ķekava Local History Museum, main exhibition, the project and arrangement;

“Storm Museum” in Jurkalne, the project and implementation.

2016 “On the Way to the Latvian Nation”, the project’s implementation, the National History Museum of Latvia;

“Our Stories, No One Else’s” – the History Museum of Tukums Town, the exhibition and implementation;

2015 “Version–Latvian”, the design and implementation, the National History Museum of Latvia;

2014 “Amber – the Jewel of the Baltic Sea”, the project’s implementation, the National History Museum of Latvia, Minsk (Belarus) and Kiev (Ukraine) History Museums.

2011 “The 2nd LATVIAN RIFLE BRIGADE BATTLE AT THE BANKS OF THE RIVER MAZĀ JUGLA”, an exhibition at the Cultural Heritage Centre of Ikskile County;

“Tinuzi Manor”, the realization;

“Rumbula. 1941: Anatomy of a Crime”, the realization, the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia;

Arrangement of the temporary main exhibition of the Ogre History and Art Museum;

Arrangement of the main exhibition of J. Rozentals Saldus Museum of History and Art;

The layout of the main exposition of the Turaida Museum Reserve in the West Building of the palace.

2007 “Latvian archaeology”, the realization, Warsaw and Biskupin (Poland) Archaeological Museum;

“Money in Latvia” – the realization, Vienna (Austria) Art History Museum and Berlin (Germany) “Bode Museum”.

2006 Realization of the main exhibitions, J. Rozentals Saldus and Ogre History and Art Museums;

“My damp houses”, the realization, Ligatne Nature Park;

“The Baltic Sea”, the realization, the Latvian Nature Museum.

2005 The design and implementation of the main exhibition of Turaida Museum Reserve;

Exhibition arrangement of Ogre History and Art Museum;

Participation in the development and implementation of exhibition design of the Bank of Latvia Visitors’ Centre.

2003 “Castle mounds. The Cours. The Latgalians. The Hatter's Story”, The History Museum of Latvia.

2001 Latvia/France joint project “History, culture and traditions of Latvia”, Museum of Mankind, Paris, France.

2000 Latvia/Sweden joint project “Three Stars – Three Crowns”, the Arsenāls Exhibition Hall of the Latvian National Museum of Art.

1999 “The Latgalians”, the State Historical Museum of Russia, Moscow.

1995 “The Second World War – Remembrance and Warning”, the Latvian War Museum.

1991 “The Saga of Latvia”, the State History Museum, Stockholm, Sweden.

Book Graphic Design:

Illustrated and created book design for the publishing house “Zīlīte” – ”Atgadījums manā dzīvē.

100 bērnu stāsti” (“An incident in my life. 100 children’s stories” arranged by M. and R. Rungulis), for the publishing house “Sprīdītis” – J. Baltvilks ”Vējlukturis mežā: stāstiņi bērniem par dabu” (“Windlight in the forest: stories for children about nature”), J. Wayne ”Diena, kad nogāzās griesti” (“The Day the Ceiling Fell Down”), for the publishing houses “Liesma”, “Zvaigzne” et al.

Group Exhibitions:

Participate in exhibitions since 1985.

Participation in various group exhibitions – “Young Artists Exhibition”, “Autumn”, ”Spring” etc., in Latvia and abroad.

Solo exhibitions:

2002 LANDSCAPES – Pastel Painting, Gallery “Čiris”, Riga

1998 LANDSCAPES, together with photographer Leons Balodis, Exhibition Hall of the History Museum of Latvia

1994 LANDSCAPES – Pastel Painting, Exhibition Hall of the History Museum of Latvia

https://www.liveriga.com/en/visit/events/exhibitions/girts-boronovskis-solo-show-flatscreen-landscape

https://spletnik.lv/ru/latviesu-kultura/1123-girts-boronovskis-platekrana-ainava-pasteli.html

https://www.diena.lv/raksts/kd/kd-afisa/girta-boronovska-izstade-_platekrana-ainava_-14296587

https://pilsetas.lv/pasakumi/girta-boronovska-izstade-platekrana-ainava

On the second floor of the gallery MuseumLV, continues Julia Eresko's personal exhibition "SOS. Life Matters” Part II. The installation " Abandoned city' " illustrates the destructive action of our aggression against each other in everyday life and its role in the destruction of life on Earth. It is a call for peace, to look "for" and not "against" for the continuation of peaceful coexistence.

"We created installation 'Abandoned city' as a space, devastated with our own hands to demonstrate a result of human aggression. Created to evaluate the damage, to estimate the extent of the loss, to feel an impending disaster and to remember the instinct of self-preservation so, that it never happens to the real world. "JJ/2022

Description of installation

Stepping over the threshold, you enter a deserted city. As you walk down the silvery white floor of the narrow hallway, you freeze for a moment as you gaze at the cold neon illuminated red circle centered on what appears to be a simple key. A key whose turn gives the start command to the deadly SS-20 weapon. The photo of this rocket opens up to the full height of the room above the audience, allowing you to experience the terrifying moment of the launch of the rocket and make you raise your eyes higher to the edge of the concrete fence. This wall of Soviet times, surrounded by barbed wire rings, is recognizable by any adult Latvian. Its beauty and relevance is given by graffiti. The author of the whole artistic surface of the wall, is known not only in our country but also far beyond as an anonymous graffiti artist KIWIE. The genre of his art is street graffiti as a testimony of time and events, as a direct, open and loud artistic statement that cannot be missed. The expression, which cannot be passed by with your eyes closed, cannot remain indifferent, cannot be answered anonymously to itself, about its attitude towards this world. KIWIE listens to everyone, his art aimed on passers-by emotions awakening is recognizable and has to remain as a message to our children, prompts us to look for answers to the question: what each of us is creating to fill the Earth's noosphere with the will to live, to develop and to thrive.

About the artists of the project “SOS. Life matters.”

The project “Abandoned city.” brought together not just professionals, but truly like-minded artists, intellectuals, who try through their work to show that a world without people has no meaning, blind and soulless, useless and dead. Neon artist Jānis Brolišs, graffiti artist KIWIE with his artwork “Blind”, Vlad Černovs - the “System pulse” light installation, Alex Veingarts - a video work “Bunker” and “Eternal sunset”, the audiodizainer of the project - Ilya Kalinin took part in the creation of the installation “Abandoned city”.

“Portal”, “Event horizon”, “Key to pandora’s box”, “Life matters” are created by an artist, meistar of neon Janis Brolišs (neonlightroom). His objects, which are made of glass pipes and are installed into artist’s works, surprises with its complexity in working with fragile material, with the precision of execution of clear lines and the effect of the power of light left on the viewer. In four large - scale works glowing neon pipes create an illusion that opens a portal to artist’s cosmos, to the paralel reality that exists between light and darkness, while the key framed in a red circle that launches a deadly weapon becomes a key element in a worl-class catastrophe.

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.

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Gallery's virtual tour

Solo show. Ilze Preisa. "Metaphorical games"
25.01.2023. – 22.03.2023.

Symbol is the key word for Ilze Preisa's artistic practice, which includes painting and graphics. This concept can be applied to all the elements we encounter in Preisa's art - the depicted objects and the colors used. They are combined in compositions full of surreality, which encourages the viewer to indulge in the excitement of translating the content of the works. Ilze Preisa uses Greek myth and biblical motifs in her works, but without setting specific boundaries for the understanding of the offered symbols. Often, the characters of biblical plots and ancient mythology in the modern context become accurate exponents of the current ideas of the era. The presence of mythological motifs, which we encounter in the works of Preisa, is a common phenomenon in modern art, indicating the timelessness of mythological themes. The works are dominated by references of the world's cultural heritage, but highlighting this or that plot, the artist emphasizes personal stories that are important to her. Through mythological characters, the artist talks about human nature, human qualities - passion, betrayal, anger, love. Human nature does not change. Consequently, the associations created by these images are perfectly useful for highlighting one or another aspect of human nature.
In the art of Ilze Preisa, the iconography includes a wide variety of images - a bull, a symbol of power and the strength of the earth, which causes tension with its presence of power, a dress as a symbol of transformation and disguise suggests with its irritating energy, exotic birds, which are beautiful and scary at the same time, the beautiful Medea, whose head is decorated the elegant snakes that repel and tempt at the same time, the curtain that covers the unknown space and encourages you to make a decision - to open it to view or not, cats with wings - the effective symbols of power. A significant element in almost every work of this exhibition is the black-and-white floor arranged in a checkerboard pattern, where we recognize well-known environments in the history of art, from Renaissance rooms to today's modern rooms. This element tends to combine the works of the exhibition into one story consisting of many continuations.
An important element of Ilze Preisa's art is color, which the artist organically incorporates into her theory of symbols. It is almost impossible to determine which of the elements used in artistic practice more accurately expresses the symbolic message of Preisa's artworks - color or the depicted object. Ideally, they complement each other and live in perfect symbiosis.
I.P.: "The series of works Red/Black/White was created by reflecting on the events of recent years, what is happening in the world, around us and in Me.
I chose these three colors because, in my opinion, they best allow me to express this story, reveal my feelings and show my perspective on it. They are strong colors with versatile symbolism in art and culture. Colors that will always contrast with each other. Applying this spectrum of three colors and combining them in different variations, a different story is formed every time. This is my conversation with the viewer".
The exhibition exhibits lithographs made by Preisa, in which the artist continues the themes realized in the paintings, but thanks to the technique and black and white aesthetics, other intonations are formed. I.P: "In these works, I seem to rest myself, in this way also resting my mind from the saturation of the world's "colors".
Art scholar Diana Barčevska
In the exhibition "Metaphorical games" five musical compositions of the Swedish musician and composer Fredrik Carlquist (clarinet, saxophone) are played, which were inspired by the paintings of the painter Ilze Preisa. This music was played for the first time in Barcelona, at her exhibition “Metaphorical Space”.


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Working hours on holidays:

23. december - 11:00- 19:00

24. december - CLOSED
25. december - CLOSED
26. december - CLOSED

27., 28., 29., 30. decembris - 11:00 - 19:00

31. december - CLOSED

 Merry Christmas! We wish You peace, health and success! Happy New Year!

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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