Three exhibitions
dal 14/5/2011 al 18/6/2011
Segnalato da
14/5/2011
Three exhibitions
Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga
Reinis Hofmanis, whose work is often characterized by delicate balance between documental photo and staging, in the series LARP portrays his heroes outside the game context. Presenting his exhibition, Kaspars Grosevs writes: "When you get to learn something new, you can't really know if you hadn't already known it." Thinking about the show, Darja Melnikova writes: "Structures take shape while forming heaps. When breaking them others appear. It has to be settled this way."
Reinis Hofmanis
“LARP” (Live Action Role Playing)
From May 15 to June 19, 2011, at kim? exhibition by a photographer Reinis Hofmanis – “LARP” (Live Action Role Playing) – will be held. In his newest series the artist portrays different characters of live action role players.
Live action role playing games show the world that has been created under the impact of mass culture. Such elements of pop culture as film, book and computer game characters become someone’s new identity. Everyday life is changed into a parallel world – the world of fantasy, where future, past and present are not separated. Everything that does not seem possible in the real world is possible in a game. Office man, student, director of a hospital, nurse, militarist, jewelery trader, teacher becomes a sorcerer, ork, zombie, troll, elf, moss man or goblin. Dreams and desire to be a hero are realized and enacted.
The artist, whose work is often characterized by delicate balance between documental photo and staging, in the series “LARP” portrays his heroes outside the game context. Thus the space around them works as an interspace which creates a natural distance between these characters and the viewer. That is to be destroyed in the moment of eye contact.
The author, taking photographs and exploring live action role players, questions: Is a mask just a mask or is it a part of person’s identity – a side of identity which can not be realized otherwise? What makes an office worker to take a huge axe and move deep in the bush? Why someone chooses to be an ork not a knight or some elf? Is a fantasy world separable from the real world?
Reinis Hofmanis (1985) has graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia, Department of Visual Communication and has studied at Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts. Participates in exhibitions since 2003.
Support: Ministry of Culture, State Culture Capital Foundation, Riga City Council, airBaltic, a/s Kolonna, VKN, Latvian War Museum, Valmiermuižas alus, Radio Naba
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Kaspars Groševs
I/O. Without Enemies
From the author:
Few interesting things to know before consider going to the exhibition:
* Even though I can’t swim, sometimes I use to stand in the sea in a reasonable depth and then look in one direction and then in another.
* The exhibition has an entrance door, which also serves as an exit. Nothing will hide itself behind it and no one will try to take anything away from you.
* When you get to learn something new, you can’t really know if you hadn’t already known it. It happens that it is more difficult to forget a shadow than to remember a material or a colour. It also happens that it is much nicer to remember something previously unknown.
* When an artist and a culture theoretician Brandon LaBelle as an adolescent wrote a letter to a writer William S. Burroughs, as an answer he received a post card from Kansas, which expressed just one phrase, “Words are your enemy”.
* Also in art galleries there are emergency exits.
Kaspars Groševs (1983) has graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia, Department of Visual Communication. He participates in exhibitions in Latvia and abroad since 2005. Kaspars Groševs writes articles on sound art for the visual arts magazine Studija on regular basis, less regularly the artist is hosting a radio station Naba broadcast on independent music, The Visions, and rather occasionally is performing in concerts of experimental music.
Support: Ministry of Culture, State Culture Capital Foundation, Riga City Council, airBaltic, a/s Kolonna, VKN, Latvian War Museum, Valmiermuižas alus, Radio Naba
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Darja Meļņikova
Dashing Lines and Forming Heaps
From May 15 to June 19, 2011, at kim? - a solo exhibit by a Latvian artist Darja Meļņikova "Dashing Lines and Forming Heaps".
Thinking about the exhibition, Darja Meļņikova writes: “Also mess on a writing-table shows a certain order. They say, a creator of this disorder is able to orient himself/herself in it. For example, scissors always, it seems, are located under a pile of papers, but for keys one can look between dirty coffee cups, etc. A mug on its turn, if we overthrow it accidentally, also doesn’t break just like that – there has to be some kind of order in this process as well. I have to admit that in general I know about all this exactly as much as the great majority, which means – almost nothing. Structures take shape while forming heaps. When breaking them others appear. It has to be settled this way.”
Darja Meļņikova (1984) has graduated form the Art Academy of Latvia, Department of Visual Communication. Participates in exhibitions since 2005.
Support: Ministry of Culture, State Culture Capital Foundation, Riga City Council, airBaltic, a/s Kolonna, VKN, Latvian War Museum, Valmiermuižas alus, Radio Naba
On May 19 and 20, 2011, at 6 p.m. in the kim? library a seminar about the relation between art and history - “Art of Inexperience” - will be held. Lecturer - Simone Menegoi.
Image: Reinis Hofmanis. From the series "LARP". 2011
Katrīna Teivāne / Information Coordinator
katrina.teivane@kim.lv Mob.+ 371 22323267
Kim? Contemporary Art Centre
Maskavas Sreet 12/1, Riga, LV-1050 Latvia
Hours:
Monday, Tuesday: closed
Wednesday: 14:00 – 19:00
Thursday: 14:00 – 20:00
Friday: 14:00 – 19:00
Saturday, Sunday: 12:00 – 17:00