The ALMA Contemporary Art Foundation cordially invites you to the exhibition “The Harmony of Chaos”, with the participation of three artists: Camille Henrot, Māra Brīvere and Daiga Grantiņa.
The conceptual basis for the exhibition is shaped by a look back at the origins of the world. Myths inform us that the universe emerged from chaos, darkness, emptiness. In turn, scientists inform us that man developed from water-based bacteria or primates, while according to religion, it was created by God, Allah or the Buddha.
Each artist invited to take part in the exhibition tells her own story, touching upon scenarios for the emergence of physical reality, as well as the course it took and its consequences. Personal quests for answers can be found in various media solutions in their works, which allude to the role of man in the story of the world and his relations with its order.
One of the gallery spaces is devoted to Camille Henrot’s video installation Grosse Fatigue, which was exhibited at the 55th Venice Art Biennale (2013) in “The Encyclopedic Palace”, an exhibition curated by Massimiliano Gioni, and received a Silver Lion.
With this video, Henrot’s has sought to create an interpretation of the birth of the world, focusing on a study of the mythology of ancient civilizations, discovering the natural world and animal species, cosmography, philosophy, technological science and the intangible environment of the Internet.
The exhibition will also showcase three newly created works by the artist Māra Brīvere.
Her painting is characterized by measurements of feelings, captured with minute-precision, comprised of personally and delicately “portrayed” signs or road signs, which aid clear vision – devoid of the sediment of domestic contamination and contemporary context. Her large-scale works focus on man’s unity with nature, the unjustifiable thrusts of destiny, and the imperceptible of her roots and soul. Māra, in a manner characteristic of the absolute faith of a child, strives for the truth; no matter how elusive it is, because this is the only course that can lead to self-discovery.
In 2015, Māra Brīvere graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia’s Painting Department’s Master’s Conceptual Painting Workshop. She is the recipient of a scholarship from the “Vītolu Foundation” and the recipient of the AAL Boriss Bērziņš’ Drawing Grant. In 2013, Gallery ALMA hosted a joint exhibition by Māra Brīvere and Zane Tuča “Let My Silence Speak…”, as well as a solo exhibition “Blue Veins” last summer.
The third participant is Riga-born Daiga Grantiņa, who is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the University of Fine Arts Hamburg, has spent a long time in Berlin and currently lives in Paris. Her works have been exhibited at art institutions and galleries such as Galerie Joseph Tang and Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Hester and Yvon Lambert in New York, Kunstwerke Berlin, FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais in France, etc.
The exhibition includes two objects by Grantiņa, which are a melting of plastic and other synthetic materials according to the yin and yang principle. The sculptures Crashino and Negligencia include elements from casino gaming machines and vehicle spare parts, causing them to light up like artefacts washed up from the ocean of worldly existence.
Exhibition Curator Elīna Sproģe
