Dear colleagues and friends of the Grata JJ Cultural Centre and the MuseumLV art gallery,

We kindly invite you to attend the opening ceremony of the exhibition “Multilayered Identity: Encountering the Other in Urban Space” on June 12, 2026, at 16:30, at the MuseumLV art gallery, located at 2 Andreja Pumpura Street, Riga, in the Grata JJ Cultural Centre.

From June 11 to August 1, 2026, the MuseumLV art gallery and the Grata JJ Cultural Centre will host the annual international visual art competition exhibition Grata Balva 2026, titled “Multilayered Identity: Encountering the Other in Urban Space”.

The exhibition is curated by Deniss Hanovs, cultural researcher and professor at the Latvian Academy of Art.

We would appreciate it if you could confirm your attendance at the opening by June 11.

About the GRATA BALVA project
GRATA BALVA is an annual international competition project established in 2018 by

MuseumLV Gallery in cooperation with the Grata JJ Cultural Center.

Every year the project team invites professional artists from various countries, including

Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, France, China, the United Kingdom, the United States, Switzerland, South Korea, and others, to share their creative experience and new ideas in the exhibition halls of MuseumLV Gallery.

On average, more than 200 artworks form a multifaceted representation of contemporary art in painting, sculpture, graphics, ceramics, textile art, digital art, as well as performance art had been received in previous years.
The exhibition takes place on both floors of the gallery.

The aim of the project is to encourage communication and exchange of experience among artists and to promote their creative work.
The cash prize serves as an additional motivation for artists’ professional development.
All exhibited works are available for purchase.

Participants and audience include professional artists whose work meets the gallery’s quality standards, as well as visitors from various countries.

Previous GRATA BALVA themes

• “Mystery. Ritual Art”
• “Source of Power”
• “#artifact #fifthcivilization”
• “#illusory #reality” (supporting Ukrainian refugees) • “Golden Age”

Among the laureates of the Grata Balva competition are artists such as Juris Ģērmanis, Aleksejs Naumovs, Dita Lūse, Vadims Markevičs, Linda Kozule, Anita Paegle, Ilze Muceniece-Adamaite, Leo Preiss.

Cash prizes in the competition
The GRATA BALVA visual arts competition provides several monetary awards:

• Main Prize – GRATA BALVA (500 €) awarded by the gallery representatives based on cooperation experience and the artist’s contribution to the activities of MuseumLV Gallery.

• Curator’s Prize – 300 € and the opportunity to hold a solo exhibition at MuseumLV Gallery are determined by visitor voting during the exhibition.

• Sponsor prizes

To ensure maximum transparency and objectivity, all works are exhibited anonymously, marked only with a number.
Voting takes place in person throughout the exhibition period.

Award ceremony

Awards are presented in two stages:

• GRATA BALVA – 500 € is awarded during the opening of the exhibition.

• Audience Choice Award – results are counted and announced on the last day of the exhibition, while the award itself is presented at the opening of the next exhibition in September at MuseumLV Gallery.

• Curator’s Prize are presented during the opening ceremony. 

Jury

• Deniss Hanovs – exhibition curator, cultural researcher, professor at the Art Academy of Latvia
• Representative of GRATA ECO HOUSE, the general sponsor
• Jūlija Eresko, director of MuseumLV Gallery

• Representatives of sponsors and partner companies