Art Riga Fair 2014

In November 2014, while Riga wore the crown of European Capital of Culture, a producer group called Happy Art Museum tried something the city had never seen: a gallery-stand art fair, dealers and collectors under one roof, in a converted railway engine warehouse on the left bank of the Daugava. It was new to the city, and boldly ambitious. It became ART RIGA FAIR.

A fair for the Capital of Culture year

The invitation, sent out under the fair's own letterhead, read plainly:

Ladies and gentlemen! We invite you to the gala opening of the first international annual art fair Art Riga, at the Latvian Railway History Museum, on 24 November at 17:00. The Happy Art Museum production group announces that from 24 to 30 November 2014, an international fair of modern and contemporary art will take place in Riga for the first time. The tradition founded this year, under the sign of European Capital of Culture "RIGA 2014", opens the way to long term development. ART RIGA press release, artriga.com (2014)

The organizers stated the fair's purpose in four points, printed in both English and Latvian on the fair's own site:

The Fair's main purposes are: to receive international visibility and become an important annual meeting place for art professionals from Northern, Eastern and Western Europe; to enhance the prestige of Latvia's artists and art galleries; to receive a deeper understanding of the Baltic region's current events, find out more about the world's art trends and have a look at oneself in the European and world art market context; to practice an exhibition exchange with international art galleries, and get to know colleagues who organize art events all around the world. artriga.com, "About the Fair" (2014)

It was run by two companies: the exhibition hall Happy Art Museum, under board member Dags Vidulejs, and Ltd. Euroclub, described in the fair's own partner documents as working "in cooperation with the Moscow Institute of Art Management and Antiques." A later edition of the fair's own site would sum up the debut in one sentence:

ART RIGA was established in 2014 to mark Riga's status as European Capital of Culture, with transactions exceeding half a million euros. artriga.com, "About the Fair" (2019)

"A melting pot and a salad bowl": the ART RIGA Manifesto

Rather than ordinary marketing copy, the fair published a manifesto, an essay on Riga as a trading crossroads, written by Igors Vatoļins, the writer and Baltic-culture commentator who also chaired the fair's closing "Art & War" discussion. Translated from the original Russian:

Since ancient times the port city of Riga has stood at the crossing of trade routes, of goods, people, traditions, ideas, images and styles… a place where peoples, religions and languages mixed, a melting pot and a salad bowl at once. Igors Vatoļins, "ART Riga Manifesto", artriga.com (2014), translated from Russian

If Riga's potential in economics and geopolitics has been discussed and put to use many times over, the role of this queen of the Baltic in cultural, artistic and intellectual life still awaits its rediscovery. Until now there has been no Riga art festival. The initiative of ART Riga is meant to fill that gap. Igors Vatoļins, "ART Riga Manifesto", artriga.com (2014), translated from Russian

Become part of history! Take part in founding the tradition of an international fair! Igors Vatoļins, "ART Riga Manifesto", artriga.com (2014), translated from Russian

The fair's "about" page carried a companion piece for its "Art & War" strand, an essay by the philosopher and translator Arnis Rītups on opposites and boundaries, opening with Heraclitus:

"War is the father of all things," Heraclitus once cryptically wrote… In the light of this cry, something new may arise. Arnis Rītups, artriga.com "About" page (2014), translated from Latvian

Opening night: the theatre of a single painting

The programme for 24 November was billed, in its own words, as "the theatre of a single painting." It ran: 16:00 press briefing, 17:00 VIP preview, 18:00 opening.

At its centre stood Viktors Krotovs, the Moscow-born originator of romantic surrealism, working out of a studio in Paris. He brought two works to Riga: a round format painting in a Louvre style frame, and a monumental canvas roughly 5 by 3 metres, "Millennium". It was for "Millennium" that the composer Aleksandr Vladimirovich Tchaykovsky wrote "Presentiment of the End of the 20th Century", a symphony for two pianos and chamber ensemble, premiered that evening by Sinfonietta Rīga under conductor Andris Veismanis, with pianists Aleksejs Goribols and Polina Osetinska.

Galleries and artists, by country

The fair's pre-opening press release named confirmed participants from Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Russia, Indonesia, Georgia, Estonia, Mexico and Latvia. By the time doors opened, the fair's own site listed a longer, slightly different exhibitor roll, reproduced here by country:

Country	Galleries, artists and highlights
Latvia	Happy Art Museum's own stand (see below); publisher-gallery Neputns; Portretu galerija; Antonija (and N. Braslins); Pinakotēka; Muza; Agijas Sūnas galerija; Birkenfelds Gallery; Gallery Bastejs; Oforta Ģilde; Burtveidols; Allien Technology; the Rothko Centre, Daugavpils
Germany	Ira Kitzki Gallery; Frida Fine Arts Gallery, showing Czech photography classic Jan Saudek alongside Genia Chef (Shef), previewed in Riga ahead of a Venice Biennale showing
Switzerland	Modern Masters Gallery; IAR Art Resources, whose stand brought an original collection of Salvador Dalí sculptures
Italy	Bora Arte (Bologna), an Italian delegation curated by Enzo Rossi Roiss showing Giorgio de Chirico and Fabrizio Clerici alongside Latvian artist Ilze Jaunberga; Giordano Morganti, the Milanese photo artist who also joined the selection jury
Russia	Gallery Fine Art; Kultproekt; Everything Is Art Gallery, Moscow
Georgia	Baratashvili
Estonia	the Matti Milliuss Fund
Indonesia	Bali Art, showing around twenty contemporary Balinese paintings
Israel	Reuven Shezen / Outsider Art
United Kingdom	Anna Kolosova
Lithuania	a Klaipėda gallery exchange
China	John Ma
Kazakhstan	Art Ular
Mexico	Cozar

Photography classics Jan Saudek (Czech Republic), Ulvis Alberts (USA) and Antanas Sutkus (Lithuania) were shown as part of the wider programme, alongside the Dalí sculpture collection, the de Chirico and Clerici originals, and the Bali contingent, giving Riga, as the fair's own copy put it, "for the first time in Latvian history" the chance to compare dozens of exhibitions at once, each of which, in a state museum, would have counted as an event on its own.

Happy Art Museum filled its own stand with a rotating cast of about twenty artists it represented: Juris Dimiters, Sergejs Djomins, Artūrs Bērziņš, Dags Vidulejs, Zigmunds Bielis, Ilze Jaunberga, Vija Dzintare, Karina Rungenfelde, Gustavs Filipsons, Aigars Tavkins, Aleksandrs Makarenko, Jana Ņesteroviča, Viktorija Kosenko, Viktors Kosenko, Babkens Stepanjans, Ingrīda Irbe and Lauris Mīlbrets, alongside works from its permanent collection by Džemma Skulme, Helēna Heinrihsone, Laima Eglīte, Otto Zitmanis, Kārlis Vītols and Normunds Pucis.

A week of talks, discussions and after-parties

Beyond the opening concert, the museum's reconstructed railway carriages hosted a full week of panels: philosopher Alexey Romanov on anthropomorphic form and mimesis; a market-forces discussion with Artūrs Avotiņš; an "Artglass, invisible museum glass" session with glass maker Groglass (Latvia) and Vitrinen- und Glasbau Reier (Germany), alongside a presentation of the HugLock display system by Art Fair Service; an "Art Brut" discussion with the disabled persons' society Motus Vita (Latvia) and Outsider Art (Israel); an audiovisual vernissage, "Metapanks," by Artūrs Bērziņš; a round table on authenticity with British art critic Simon Hewitt; "Confession of an Art Curator," Marat Gelman in conversation with theoretician Alexander Rappaport, Jānis Borgs and Igors Vatoļins; and a closing discussion, "Art & War," with Rappaport, Vatoļins and Borgs. (See the Program tab for the full day by day schedule.)

Every night, once the museum closed, the fair's participants regrouped at the Happy Art Museum club on Dzirnavu 67, level 7, in the Galleria Riga shopping arcade, an art cafe with "100 chairs, 100 Portuguese wine varieties," for live music, films and discussion. A press centre at the same address ran through the week with free WiFi, presentation equipment and a web livestream for accredited foreign journalists.

The venue: an engine warehouse turned exhibition hall

The Latvian Railway History Museum, on Uzvaras bulvāris 2A on the left bank of the Daugava, was founded on 30 August 1994. Its building, an old engine warehouse, was renovated from 1999, with a new exhibition hall opening inside it in September 2000. The Large Hall, roughly 1,050 square metres of authentic brick walls under 6.5 metre ceilings, sits alongside a run of restored historic railway carriages, and seats up to 500 in theatre style or 300 for a banquet. The museum had previously hosted Latvia's annual "Rudens" (Autumn) art exhibition, giving it, in the fair's words, prior "experience transforming the building for an impressive art event."

Organizers, and the road here

Happy Art Museum was, by its own account, the successor to an earlier exhibition hall, Pinakotēka, on Ziedleju iela, where between 2009 and 2011 it had staged a run of large shows: "Rudens 2009. Laimīgās mākslas muzejs," "Rudens 2010," a loan exhibition of roughly fifty large-scale works from the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts collection, an anniversary show for the magazine "Rīgas Laiks," and exchange exhibitions with the Estonian Artists' Union and Lithuanian ceramicists. It had also mounted shows at Rietumu Banka, an express poster exhibition by Juris Dimiters at the old Spilve airport, and had taken part in Art Moscow 2013 and fairs in Germany and Belgium. To take part in ART RIGA FAIR itself, galleries paid a participation fee (around 500 EUR) plus stand rental, from 1,800 EUR per block in the White Hall up to 2,000 to 3,000 EUR by floor area in the Large Hall.

Legacy

Later reporting on the fair confirms 2014 as the true first edition of an unbroken annual run: TVNET described the November 2018 fair as taking place "for the fifth time," LSM called the 2019 edition the "sixth," and the Railway Museum's own listing for 2024 named it the "desmitā jubilejas reize", the tenth, jubilee edition. The programme page for that first year signed off, memorably, with its own send-off line:

Intellectuals cheer up, wonderful stories to share. artriga.com, ART RIGA FAIR 2014 programme page