The opening of the second edition of the collection of articles WunderKombināts, titled WunderKombināts II. Latvian Art Yearbook 2023, will take place on 15 December at 18.00 at the ISSP Gallery, inviting all interested to take a first in-person look at the publication and meet its makers and some of the authors in a pre-festive season mood.
WunderKombināts II continues the journey towards the goal set out in the previous year – to become a platform dedicated to non-academic, critically analytic and interdisciplinary exchange which deals with the processes and poignant questions in Latvian visual art in relation to other events in contemporary culture and socio-politics. The task of the book remains fostering local art scholarship and the regular exchange of ideas, theories and visions as well as the documentation of contemporary processes.
The year of the making of the publication, 2023, was marked by division and fragmentation. In recognition of how fragile the existing world order has become, it seems that over the last two years we have started to accept the inner condition of the state of the exception as the new normal. In order not to lose focus on the Russian war in Ukraine, the publication contains two articles by Ukrainian researchers – Svitlana Biedarieva and Kateryna Botanova, including, about the West’s dominant perspective in the interpretations of this war. The Latvian authors included in the publication turn to the problems of art’s internal organisation and infrastructure, intersections of contemporary art with other disciplines, and the idea to focus on the oeuvre or a specific work of a selected artist, analysing it in the current theoretical discourse, is also retained. The coexistence of division and contradictions is also highlighted by the author of the publication’s visual essay, Latvian digital artist Santa France, whose work counterposes magical and catastrophic thinking, paraphrasing human desire for control over their destiny.
The yearbook includes articles by Svitlana Biedarieva, Kateryna Botanova, Liāna Ivete Žilde, Žanete Liekīte, Iliana Veinberga, Rasa Jansone and Stella Pelše, as well as a visual essay by Santa France. WunderKombināts II. Latvian Art Yearbook 2023 is published by the association Wunder Kombinat, editors – Laura Brokāne and Elīna Ķempele. The editors of the first edition, Santa Hirša and Šelda Puķīte, also took part in the making of the publication. The book was designed by Aleksejs Muraško and printed by Jelgavas tipogrāfija.
The yearbook will go on sale after 15 December. It will first be available for purchase at the opening event.
The publication has been accompanied by a programme of public events – Santa France’s personal exhibition I’m in This Photo and I Don’t Like It, which remains on view at the ISSP gallery until 7 March 2024, the international panel discussion East Not Least, a lecture and creative workshop by Belgian curator, independent publisher and educator An Paenhuysen as well as audio and video conversations with the publication’s authors, which were made in collaboration with magazine for literature and culture Punctum.
The project is organised by the culture organisation Wunder Kombinat (WK), which brings together a number of Latvian curators, researchers and producers. WK is focused on the Latvian art scene – its study, support and popularisation locally and internationally, looking for broader interrelationships in the context of Eastern Europe and the Nordics as well as foregrounding and promoting socially critical artistic practices.
The project is made in collaboration with the ISSP Gallery, magazine for literature and culture Punctum and the Art Academy of Latvia.
The book was published with financial support from the State Culture Capital Foundation. The public programme was made with support from the Riga City Council.
