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Kaspars Podnieks
Born in 1980 in the village of Drusti, Latvia, Podnieks held his first exhibition at the age of 18. Ever since then, he has been experimenting with video and installations, but remains best-known for photographs of himself – and other people – levitating, upright, against the backdrop of his native Drusti, the village being a theme to which he has dedicated the majority of his works. The images are not digitally manipulated; to create the illusion of levitation, the subject of the photograph is suspended above ground, held by a small crane attached to and invisible behind his back. An unsettling sense of tension, set within the landscape of the village, is born, giving rise to images that seem to play with the viewer’s grasp on reality.
Kristaps Gelzis
Kristaps Gelzis is one of the most prominent cultural experimenters in Latvia. Confident with a range of media, from watercolour paintings to performance and installations, he has a special interest in responding to social and cultural trends as global, rather than strictly local, phenomena. Much of his work has a conceptual edge in this sense, while also delving into the nature of the artistic medium. Numerous international shows since the mid-1980s, several high-scale acquisitions (including by the Luciano Benetton collection), as well as participation in the 54th Venice Biennale, have anchored Gelzis as one of Latvia’s most notorious, and recognisable figures in Latvian art.
Liga Purmale
Active on the Latvian art circuit since the 1970s, Liga Purmale belongs to a decidedly established generation of artists. She made her debut in 1974, at the same show as Miervaldis Polis (the pair were about to be married), and hasn’t stopped since. Her style is characterised by various approaches to the question of realism: in the early years, she was associated with quaint, picturesque landscapes, but as her work evolved, so did her focus. In the recent past, her paintings have portrayed urban scenes and dealt with the issues that surround them, both on and off the canvas. Bold in her use of colour, Purmale infuses her work with a sense of dynamism that serves to push her own, continuously changing definition of realism.
Miervaldis Polis
Arguably the best-known representative of Latvian contemporary art, Miervaldis Polis’ rise to fame began in 1974, when he staged an exhibition of hyperrealist paintings in Riga, much to the disdain of the Soviet authorities. His work has remained uncompromising throughout the years, despite his nickname as the national court painter (stemming from his portraits of Latvia’s leaders); in painting, he has re-interpreted the great masters with his signature satirical touch; in performance, he has provoked and fascinated the public, most notably with his never-forgotten ‘Bronze Man’ (1987), a piece of public theatre where Polis walked around Riga, painted bronze, attracting a great deal of attention in a country that was, back then, under Soviet occupation. Ironically, the performance represented man’s longing for glory, and glorification.
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Source link : https://theculturetrip.com/europe/latvia/articles/latvia-s-10-contemporary-artists-you-should-know
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Publish date : 2023-05-12 07:00:00
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