02.07. – 03.08.2020

Galerija "Māksla XO"

Elizabetes iela 14, Rīga, LV 1010

ARTURS BERZINS

UNTITLED

“Untitled”
There are several titles I could use for this exhibition – “Eastern European Decorative Art and Industrial Architecture in Olaine 1960-1979” or “Some Motifs in Eastern European Decorative Art and Industrial Architecture in Olaine 1960-1979”.
Even more precise would be “Eastern European Decorative Art and Industrial Architecture in Olaine in the Minds of Some Residents of Olaine 1960-1979”. Or “Naive Works”, or “Eastern Europeanness”.
However, the exhibition is untitled...
The selected images show things and situations that couldn’t be reflected upon verbally, or there isn’t anything meaningful that could be said about them. To some extent, it might be said that these images show the futility of what is happening in the world; some kind of nonsense. Wittgenstein wrote that the pictures show themselves; this, in parallel with the previous thesis, probably corresponds most closely to the selected images.
The sun is an image that distinguishes a specific period and region from other periods and regions. I have compiled, systematized and typologized more than 300 images depicting sun in Eastern European art and design from the 1960s and 1970s.
The exhibition will feature 29 suns, 27 buildings, 32 - 40 variations on trademarks, 1 fabric design sample, 2 stylized trees, 1 - 2 faces, 1 landscape.
In the creation of these works I used various methods, that were typical for Eastern European graphic design works throughout 1960-1979.”Arturs Berzins.

Arturs Berzins (1971, Latvia) – is one of the most interesting contemporary Latvian artists with his own unique, especially refined drawing-painting technique. In his latest exhibition “Untitled” the artist examines events that are happening today and happened in the past. The exhibition touches on current and generally important issues for people nowadays, issues that are significant for both the author and his contemporaries.
Arturs Berzins has been nominated several times for the Purvitis Prize. He graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia with a master's degree in painting (2009) and a master's degree in the history and theory of visual arts and culture (2014). Since 2008, he has organized 25 solo exhibitions, which are conceptual studies of Latvian painting traditions, cultural and system formation structures, time and its course, and thinking traditions. He has participated in more than 27 group exhibitions in Latvia and abroad. The artworks of Arturs Berzins are included in collections of the Latvian National Museum of Art (Riga, Latvia) and the Olaine History and Art Museum (Olaine, Latvia).