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03.05. - 03.07.2018 ART FROM LATVIA. IVARS HEINRIHSONS Museo Fundación Antonio Pérez, Cuenca, Spain
03.05. - 03.07.2018
Museo Fundación Antonio Pérez
Calle de Julián Romero, 20, 16001 Cuenca, Spain
"Art from Latvia. Ivars Heinrihsons"
A solo show by Latvian painter Ivars Heinrihsons “Art from Latvia. Ivars Heinrihsons” which will take place from 3rd May until 3rd July, 2018, at one of the most prestigious abstract art museums in Spain – Museo Fundación Antonio Pérez in Cuenca – is part of Ivars Heinrihsons’ travelling exhibition project “Art from Latvia. Ivars Heinrihsons’ Quixotic greetings for Latvia’s Centenary” in Spain in 2018. It is a reflection on the influences of Spanish culture on Latvian creative personalities including painter Ivars Heinrihsons.
The interaction between Latvian and Spanish cultures is particularly marked in the 1930s through the figure of Latvian philosopher, psychologist and translator Konstantins Raudive and the first Latvian translation of Miguel de Cervantes’ masterpiece on Don Quixote. The close connection with Spanish painting and similarities with the Quixotic spirit can also be observed in the works of the contemporary Latvian painter Ivars Heinrihsons. At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, Ivars Heinrihsons abandoned “colourfulness” in painting and deliberately choses an achromatic palette – discovering the grey and the black with El Greco, perceiving Goya’s specific brick red as his own, but in his drawing recognizing the special brown characteristic of Tàpies. We can also sense the Spanish spirit, Antonio Saura’s dramatic expression and tension, in the gesture of black, white and grey lines in Heinrihsons’ galloping horses.
Ivars Heinrihsons is one of the most vivid figures in Latvian painting of this time – a painter, a brilliant representative of neo-expressionism in Latvian contemporary art, and for many years a professor of painting at the Art Academy of Latvia. He has recurrently studied Spanish painting during his travels around Spain, examining artists’ works in museums as well as visiting their creative environments. For Heinrihsons, visiting Spain means getting closer to Goya, El Grecoand Antonio Saura not only virtually also directly through their art, the local surroundings and mentality. He feels them as his own, despite being on the opposite side of Europe.
Ivars Heinrihsons (1945) graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia in 1973. His works are in public collections – Latvian National Museum of Art and Artists' Union of Latvia (Riga, Latvia), the Samlung Friedeman Stockart (Munich, Germany), Grafikens Hus Collection (Mariefred, Sweden), State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow, Russia), Zimmerly Art Museum (New Jersey, USA).
Ivars Heinrihsons’ travelling exhibition project in Spain is part of Latvia’s Centenary celebration programme and has been organized thanks to the cooperation between the Embassy of the Republic of Latvia in the Kingdom of Spain, the Māksla XO gallery in Riga, the Fundación Antonio Pérez and Cuenca City Council.
More about the exhibition:
https://fundacionantonioperez.com/index.php/es/home/fundacion-antonio-perez/noticias/701-letonia-celebra-su-centenario-con-una-exposicion-de-ivars-heinrihsons-en-la-fundacion-antonio-perez
https://fundacionantonioperez.com/index.php/es/
https://fundacionantonioperez.com/index.php/es/2018-c/700-arte-de-letonia-ivars-heinrihsons