“Saules Suns”
Daiga Grantiņa
Curators: Inga Lāce, Valentinas Klimašauskas
Organized by: Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art- LCCA
Friday morning, the team of the Latvian Pavilion — artist Daiga Grantiņa, curators Inga Lāce and Valentinas Klimašauskas, founder of Kim? Contemporary Art Centre Zane Čulkstēna and the director of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art — introduced the Pavilion to media representatives and invited guests including Minister for Culture Dace Melbārde and the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Latvia in Italy Solvita Āboltiņa. The Pavilion will be available to visitors from May 11 to November 24.
“Daiga Grantiņa has developed her own unique manner of expression and artistic style, which in the first sight may not represent conventional Latvian characteristics, however, when inspecting her work closer they can be noticed. moreover, because of the choice to centre the work around the notion of sun – i would like to highlight that as a very Latvian worldview.” highlights the Minister for Culture Dace Melbārde.
Solvita Āboltiņa, the Ambassador of the Republic of Latvia in Italy adds “Latvia’s participation in the most recognised art event is a part of our identity, as one of the former the Ambassadors of Latvia in Italy underlined that one of our most important aims in Italy is to take part in the International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. Today the name of Latvia shines alongside the name of the bright artist Daiga Grantiņa, this is the essence of national participation. While we deeply appreciate our belonging to the wider global community which allows us to travel and to live where we wish, we also put great value on the cultural diversity each nation brings to our community.”
“The artist employs a wide variety of materials trespassing the limits of and inverting their traditional uses. In her work, encounters and collisions alike take place rst in the realm of materials. Sometimes, wholly different substances are cast together, while at other times they are moulded into a single object, entirely transformed, or are simply placed next to each other. No-one knows or can predict the effect of these transformations on the visitor as they enter, pass through and leave the installation – and this suggests a scenario of endless possibilities. I would also like to claim that such encounters in the material realm can be further extended – that they might allow us to imagine meetings between other entities, creatures, people, ideas and ideologies.” adds the curator of the exhibition Inga Lāce.
The exposition consists of an installation built from organic and synthetic materials that, in the words of the curators “interacts not only with the architectural space around it but also with its viewers and their perceptions, moods and imaginations” in which “content, form and meaning are all interwoven”. The numerous paths through the installation resonate with the multiple meanings of the work, that ground itself in references to the history of art, science and technology, simultaneously, taking interest in the world of today, providing a commentary on topics such as the ecology, power and gender.
Latvia has participated in the International Art Exhibition since 1999 and in 2017 the Latvian Pavilion was developed by the artist Miķelis Fišers. The organizers of the Latvian Pavilion 2019 would like to express their gratitude to the general supporters of the project – The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, Jānis Zuzāns, SIA Alfor and Galerie Joseph Tang – as well as to the supporters of the exhibition: Embassy of th Republic of Latvia in Italy, Magnetic Latvia, Delfi, Arctic Paper, Krassky Interior Showroom, BTA Latvia, Mousse and Pēteris Viņķelis.