Creative group Orbīta. Comments
August 7 – 29, 2010

The exhibition present new work by artists Roman Korovin, Vladimir Leibgam, Anna Volkova, Alexander Zapol, Jelena Glazova selected by the curator of the exhibition, photographer Vladimir Svetlov. The unifying motif of the exhibition: the notion of a comment as the key to understanding the artist’s idea.
The exhibition is based on a discussion of the stereotypes of perception and it uses the interaction between images and text as a means of artistic expression. “Comments” draws attention to the problem of artworks and their interpretation, the antagonism of verbal and visual communication. The question of the artwork and its interplay or collision with its commentary has become particularly acute in contemporary art and the artists of the creative group Orbīta offer their reply to it.
Activities of Orbīta are associated with interdisciplinary activities, and the interaction of text and image has been dealt with in several previous projects, for example, poetry readings accompanied by photo and video projections and music.

www.orbita.lv

Roman Korovin. Bathing and Sunbathing. 2010
© Roman Korovin

Raimo Lielbriedis. Black-and-White Stop
July 2 – August 1, 2010

 “In order to be able to move forward sometimes a stop is needed. Especially if the movement trajectory starts to resemble a circle. I’m not planning to have a career change; however, it is time to choose the catalysts of movement necessary for development, to find sources of new energy. My accomplishments in the field of black and white photography grants me the possibility – all I need to do is pause and think it through,” says photographer and pedagogue Raimo Lielbriedis. All the exhibited works have been digitally printed (giclée print) from traditionally made black and white negatives using a choice of high quality materials. The development of digital print technologies allows endowing completely new qualities to an existing image material preserving the attitude towards the stability of the original both technically and visually.
The exhibition will present works of highest technical standards, purity of style and refined black and white aesthetics intrinsic to all Raimo Lielbriedis’ works. Works are mostly in the landscape genre. Art historian Aira Dzalbe, commenting on Raimo Lielbriedis works, says, “The artist’s principle is to leave enough space for the viewer’s perception, nevertheless, to his mind, a landscape can be also purely decorative (if photographs, for example, adorn walls). In his landscapes, there are no stories, concepts, no notion of the epoch (that photodocumentalists pay particular attention to). They are documentary only in the sense that they allow recognizing the actual places that are also decoded in the laconic titles of the works. The collection rests upon proportions found in nature, i.e., formal things, it does not rest upon revelations of character of a place or nature’s mood, for example. (..) The things he sees and the things that evoke his photographic interest are planar constructions, rhythms. To him a place holds no significance; however, the feeling does – slightly contemplative, nostalgic in Tarkovskyian sense.” (Dzalbe, A.  Meistars starp cilvēkiem ar fotokamerām (Master Among People and Cameras). Foto Kvartāls, Nr. 3(23), 2010, 60.lpp.)
Raimo Lielbriedis (1962) is a photographer and photography teacher at Janis Rozentāls Riga Art School (JRRMV). He is an authority on black and white analogue photo-technologies, the author of the popular book “How to Photograph?” (Neputns, 2008). He has published numerous articles on esthetical and technological aspects of black and white photography in art periodicals.

www.raimolielbriedis.com

Raimo Lielbriedis. Paris, France. 2008/2009.
Giclee print on Innova Soft White Cotton base, 24x24 cm.
© Raimo Lielbriedis

Iveta Vaivode un Aleksandrs Gronskis. Terminus
May 15 – June 6, 2010

Exhibition  “Terminus” by photographers Iveta Vaivode (1979) and Alexander Gronsky (1980) looks into the outskirts of a city – the marginal territory which is neither city, nor country. The photographs exhibited at “Terminus” reveal the rich visual texture of this boarderworld and researches the place and the role of a human being there.
Two years ago two artists independently of each other began work on a series of photographs – Iveta Vaivode in Riga and Alexander Gronsky in Moscow. When they met, it became clear that the idea is in the “air” and both artists had been working on very similar themes. In her series “Terminus Riga“, Iveta Vaivode begins her research of the city at Riga tram termini. While photographing the outskirts, the artist met the local people and heard their stories, and thus slowly the envisaged topographical research turned into a rather personal contemplation on her native city.
Series “Pastoral“ by Alexander Gronsky states his attitude towards the possibility of modern idyllic landscapes. Alluding to the traditional motif in painting, the artist says, “My aim is to find the symbols of contemporary idyll.” The photographs were taken at the outskirts of Moscow – places where city boarders with chaotic wilderness. Places where concrete buildings and modern infrastructure exist alongside unrestrained fields of tare.
Taking the advantage of colour photography works by both artists make a harmonious, at times even poetic impression. At the same time the narrative of the series creates certain tension. Works in exhibition “Terminus” depict the boarder of the urban and the rural revealing it to be an expressive environment – it is as uncertain, indefinable and unsafe and as fragile and doubtful, as is the soul of a modern human being.
Iveta Vaivode and Alexander Gronsky live and work between Moscow and Riga. Iveta Vaivode has graduated from the arts institute at Bournemouth receiving BA in Photography. She has participated in Is the Medium the Message? (Riga, 2008), Freshfaced and Wildeyed (London, 2008), the festival Kaunas Photo ‘07 (Kaunas, 2007) etc. Alexander Gronsky collaborates with photo agency Photographer.ru. In 2008, he was nominated for the prestigious Kandinsky Prize. He has participated in various international exhibitions PhotoWeek (Washington, 2009), Minus Ideology (Moscow, 2009) and others. Works by Alexander Gronsky have been well received at various competitions (in 2009 Linhof Young Photographer Award 1st place and  Aperture Portfolio Prize winner, and others).

Iveta Vaivode thanks the State Culture Capital Foundation for the support in making of this exhibition.

www.ivetavaivode.com
www.alexandergronsky.com

Aaron Schuman (USA). Once Upon a Time in the West
April 16 – May 9, 2010

Once Upon a Time in the West was photographed on the eroding sets and locations of Sergio Leone’s celebrated 1960’s ‘spaghetti Westerns’, deep in the Almerian deserts of southern Spain.  For several years I have pursued work concerned with the propagation of American myths abroad.  I recently became fascinated by the notion that a fundamental American archetype – the Wild West, and its associations with freedom, independence, rebelliousness, brutality, morality, honour and so on – had been transposed by an Italian film director onto the landscape of Franco’s Spain, and subsequently came to define this ‘quintessentially American’ genre in itself.  Furthermore, I was particularly interested discovering what these remnants – flimsy, worn and weathered, but still standing forty years on – might insinuate about the state of contemporary America, along with its ideals, reputation, ambitions, visions and illusions today.
Aaron Schuman is an American photographer, editor, writer and curator based in the United Kingdom.  He received a B.F.A. in Photography and History of Art from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1999, and an M.A. in Humanities and Cultural Studies, from the University of London’s London Consortium in 2003.  He has exhibited his photographic work internationally, and has contributed photography, articles, essays and interviews to publications such as s Aperture, ArtReview, Modern Painters, Foam, HotShoe International, Photoworks, The British Journal of Photography, Creative Review, The Guardian, The Observer and The Sunday Times.  Schuman is currently a Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer at the Arts University College at Bournemouth, a Lecturer at the University of Brighton, and is also the founder and editor of the online photography journal, SeeSaw Magazine.
The exhibition is supported by the Embassy of the US in Latvia in cooperation with ISSP. The exhibition takes place within the framework of “Made in the USA: Month of American Culture.April 2010”.

www.aaronschuman.com

Alnis Stakle. L.S.D. Living Space Daugavpils
March 19 – April 11, 2010

With the solo exhibition “L.S.D. Living Space Daugavpils” of Latvian photographer Alnis Stakle (1975) a series of contemporary photography exhibitions begins at the FK Gallery – the latest addition to kim? galleries. The FK Gallery which has been established in collaboration with the magazine "Foto Kvartāls” will showcase contemporary photography, as well as organize lectures and discussions on photography.
Exhibition "L.S.D. Living Space Daugavpils” shows a selection of photographs from the voluminous series Alnis Stakle worked on from 2001 till 2008. In this series, Alnis Stakle has turned to his local environment researching cityscape and its visual and social paradoxes. "Important to me was the possibility of going out and photographing, looking and seeing the surreal, the absurd and the true in simple things, in the world of unimportant everyday events," says the photographer.
Photographs from the series “L.S.D. Living Space Daugavpils” are mostly urban and suburban landscapes where colour acts as means of artistic expression – the author conveys his message with the help of colour scheme and colour accents.  “Underneath the routine life and the commonplace, underneath the seeming stillness of the atmosphere, a hard to observe ‘secret’ life exists, rich and full of texture. His photographs attest to the phenomenon with eloquence while being at the same time minimal, away from dramatization and theatricality,” writes Hercules Papaioannou, curator of the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, Greece.
Alnis Stakle, photographer, pedagogue and PhD student at the University of Daugavpils lives and works in Daugavpils. He has had solo shows both in Latvia and abroad, e.g., during the photography festival Transphotographiques, Lille (2009), at the Gallery.Photographer.ru, Moscow (2008). He has participated in international contemporary photography and art exhibitions, e.g., photography festival Fotoweek, Washington (2009), exhibition Second Cities, Łódź and Graz (2009), exhibition of Latvian contemporary art From M to ZZZ, Prague (2008), as well as in exhibition Private. Contemporary Photographic Art in Latvia,  Moscow (2008) and Riga (2009). In 2009, publishing house “Neputns” published a book “Alnis Stakle” by Alise Tīfentāle.
The solo show by Alnis Stakle is generously supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation.

www.alnisstakle.com