For the year 2020 gallery LOW’s regular exhibition programme has been replaced by a mini residency cycle titled GUILD. We have invited like-minded art professionals to form an unholy secret society for insider trading as we collectively explore alternative strategies of artistic expression and administration. By the end of this year we are hoping to find a personally satisfactory answer to the question of what is the particular tone of the local Eastern European voice in the cacophony of the global art market and how can an art institution exist without selling out.
For the first chapter in this enlightening journey we have invited our southern neighbours and confederates with years of experience in the field of bending the rules – Autarkia. Autarkia is an artist day care center, a club of interests, an office space for putative experiences and imaginary solutions, a bistro of experimental gastronomy, a gallery and project development hotel in Vilnius. At their short visit in Riga Autarkia will not only prepare an exhibition and unsanctioned public event at the location of the demolished factory “Kompresors”, but will also gift us a piece of themself to add to our permanent collection of physical manifestations of the metaphysical spaces at the premises of gallery LOW.
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What’s the point?
Despite the fact that our spacecrafts have breached the solar system and anyone with the smartphone is more powerful than a greek god, we are hazed with acute deficiency of purpose and meaning. Do you shiver in cold sweat, at the middle of the night, wondering – what’s the point? This question runs through like a wilful crosswind, smashing the door and blasting the windows open. We know just love isn’t enough, we got to learn boring and hard stuff – respect, attentiveness, humbleness and care. It ain’t so bad let’s set our home on these wreckages, let’s go further – down to earth, after traveling all we could, we are lighter, but wiser now, we will have a lots of fun, rebuilding and reconnecting.
Dear Low, we at “Autarkia” are so excited finally seeing you again, June 19, at your place Ģertrūdes iela 115, 18:00h. Can’t wait, this will be our first international journey abroad, we are putting on our best outfits, curling hair, let’s make the most of this date.
Andrej Polukord, Antanas Gerlikas, Elīna Vītola, Nancie Naive, Lukas Strolia, Valentinas Klimašauskas, Laura Kaminskaitė, Ieva Kraule-Kūna, Žygimantas Kudirka, Robertas Narkus, Nerijus Rimkus, Amanda Ziemele.
made possible by support from: Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture, Piebalgas alus, Caparol and VKKF.
big thanks for: Indre Lutkute
