We are delighted to invite you to join us for the opening of Baltic Triennial 13 – GIVE UP THE GHOST at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga.
The opening celebration will include a weekend of performances featuring Adam Christensen and Keira Fox, Eglė Budvytytė, Sandra Jõgeva and Caroline Achaintre. (detailed programme to follow).
At the heart of BT13’s final chapter taking place at Kim? [1] are the live components which continue on BT13’s eagerness to foster audience engagement and blur the lines in between the exhibition format and other types of spectacles – whether private or public.
Artistic Director: Vincent Honoré [2]
BT13 in Riga centres on questions of social norms, relations and structures, while also considering the notion of ghosting and fading away in relation to the large-scale exhibition format itself. Its epicentre is a major new commission by Ben Burgis and Ksenia Pedan: an immersive, psychologically off-kilter environment that engulfs the majority of Kim?. On Friday, September 21, Adam Christensen and Keira Fox will inhabit and respond to the space in a durational three hour-long performance that will include live music and sound by Vindicatrix.
The exhibition includes new commissions by Eglė Budvytytė, who will deliver Incantantion Karaoke, an awkward and fragile one-person karaoke channeling multiple non-human voices and perspectives; Mare Tralla’ humorous, performative video vignettes thatsee the artist grapple with their personal relationship to activism; and a public talk show-performance about breasts by Sandra Jõgeva and guests that considers social norms and the notion of the (gendered) body as a symbolically-loaded space.
Responding to the haunted scenario presented by Ben Burgis’ and Ksenia Pedan’s installation, and referring back to the title of BT13, Kim? will dedicate a space to be populated by ghosts and memories that make up the entirety of the Triennial. Over the course of the exhibition’s eight weeks, this gallery will see a gradual and momentary (re)appearance of all the artists and poets that have appeared in BT13 since its beginning, each one offering an ephemeral gesture – be it a video, song, poem or text – in lieu of their physical presence. Its first indication will be the ritualistic burning of a set of large-scale wicker screens by Caroline Achaintre, which were first made for and presented as part of BT13’s Vilnius chapter. Meanwhile, the closing of the Triennial will see off-site film screenings of Pierre Huyghe’s The Host and the Cloud (2011) and Derek Jarman’s Blue (1993), a swansong to mortality and physical being.
As such, the Riga chapter turns into a natural coda for the Triennial, less a retrospective rather than a natural inclination to consider what is given up and what is left behind. A ghost of a ghost.
The Triennial celebrates the Centennial of the restored Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
For the first time since its foundation in 1979, Baltic Triennial 13 is being organised by and taking place in all three Baltic countries: Lithuania at Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius [3] (May 11 – August 12), Estonia at Tallinna Kunstihoone [4] (June 29 – September 2 with a closing weekend of performances) and Latvia at Kim? [1] (September 21 – November 18). The three distinct exhibitions act as different chapters to form the Triennial.
Curatorial Team:
Dina Akhmadeeva, Canan Batur, Neringa Bumblienė, Cédric Fauq, Anya Harrison
More information: https://www.baltictriennial13.org/ [5]
After the opening event at Kim? [1] we invite you to continue the celebration at the BT13 Riga official afterparty: A ghost of a ghost [6] at Piens [7] with a welcome drink (Baltic Triennal 13 HAUNTED COCTAIL) and continuous DJ sets.