“I paint, fold and engrave time. Much of today’s photography will remain non-material and won’t get to age. With each reproduction, the image changes until it becomes something entirely different – perhaps more akin to the aura it initially possessed.”
Vladislavs Goļikovs
This series was started in 2014, and each work contains 29 aged passport photos of me. I never met my grandfather Vladislavs Goļikovs (1929–1980) while he was alive. He passed away nine years before I was born. I can tell from the photos that he was a handsome man. His face is so familiar and warm. The piece is based on my grandfather’s passport photo, taken 66 years ago. This photograph has been loved, and I cherish it too. The paper has worn thin – touched by time and human hands, it has become something more like a museum relic, an artefact of love. In this picture, he is 29 years young, but the folds and scratches on the surface of the photograph, hardened and cracked over time, resemble wrinkles – as if life itself, with all its weight, was etched onto his face. The life he experienced but had no knowledge of at the time this photo was taken. I am still young, and my skin is smooth just like his was 66 years ago. “Vladislavs Goļikovs” is a series of miniature works in which I have turned my passport photo into history. Based on his photo I recreate the signs of aging onto my own image. This piece is a deeply personal meeting of two people who were close yet never met each other. My photos will most likely stay forever “young” or will disappear altogether along with the data storage device they are kept in. Nobody will be able to carry my picture in their breast pocket for the simple reason the picture won’t exist at all. I am leaving physical evidence of me having existed. Everything is new and old at the same time although the first work is separated from the last one by eleven years of my life.
Illuminations
In Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1935) its author notes that reproduction devalues the aura of a work of art. I film a scene of myself reading this essay, then I film the same scene using the same camera, and I repeat this process again and again. With each reproduction, the image changes and transforms until it becomes something entirely different – perhaps more akin to the aura it initially possessed. This repetitiveness reveals the hidden qualities of the image, as if every layer unveils something new. The more the image is removed from its initial clarity, the more it reclaims its unique presence, distancing itself from purely mechanical reproduction. In a way, the process of filming is a ritual – a technological cycle that, instead of erasing the aura, reveals it anew in a different form.
Vallija Vindberga
Movement captured between two hard covers, which is static. This work is a path or a line segment that has a beginning and leads to a conclusion. My passport photos chronologically extend into the present moment. They are translucent layers that overlap one another and show the future as if behind a veil. By revealing one fine layer after another, you can start to see the clear present becoming the past. The pages won’t turn; they want to merge and create a new image, deforming the visible, uncovering it differently every time. I met my grandmother, Vallija Vindberga (1929–2013), many times. Her beautiful perseverance, wisdom and confidence had a lot to do with shaping my childhood. We often looked at family archive photos together, which settled over my consciousness like sheer veils.
ALMA’s collaboration with Krista Dzudzilo began in 2017 at the “Blocker” exhibition with the first installment of the work “Vladislavs Goļikovs III”. In 2020, Krista and Reinis Dzudzilo held an exhibition called ALMA MATER. In 2021, Krista and Reinis Dzudzilo created the work “YOU HAVE MADE ME LIKE GLASS” for the exhibition “Galerija ALMA @ Padures muiža”, later exhibited in the Ice Palace Studios at NADA Miami 2022. Krista’s most recent solo exhibition, “I remember everything and then I forget everything”, was hosted by the ALMA in early 2023.
Krista Dzudzilo’s works are part of the collections of the Latvian National Museum of Art, the Latvian Museum of Contemporary Art, the VV Foundation, BTA ART, and the Luc Freché collection.
Curated by: Astrīda Riņķe
Exhibition dates: 30 March 2025 – 25 May 2025
