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 commercial-format art fair, dealers and collectors under one roof. It was new to the city, and boldly ambitious. It became ART RIGA FAIR.

A fair for the Capital of Culture year

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 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. artriga.com, "About the Fair" (2014)

A few fragments from the ART RIGA FAIR manifesto

written by Igors Vatoļins, a cultural historian who also chaired the fair's closing "Art & War" discussion:

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.

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)

The fair's 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)

The opening event's programme included a musical performance, the theatre of a single painting. At its centre stood the artist Viktors Krotovs, the Moscow-born originator of romantic surrealism, who worked 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 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.

ART RIGA FAIR 2014 participants: publisher-gallery Neputns, Oforta Ģilde, Pinakotēka, Burtveidols, Portretu galerija, Birkenfelds Gallery: Ulvis Alberts, Antanas Sutkus; Antonija gallery, the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre, Ira Kitzki Gallery (Germany), Modern Masters Gallery (Switzerland), IAR Art Resources (Switzerland), Stefano Pesce, Frida Fine Arts Gallery, Daniele Brandani, the Matti Milliuss Fund (Estonia), Anna Kolosova (United Kingdom), Marat Gelman, Alexander Rappaport, architect John Ma, architect Uģis Šenbergs, Normunds Brasliņš, Kristaps Zariņš, Augusts Zariņš, Vladislavs Lakše, Bora Arte (Bologna); an Italian delegation curated by Enzo Rossi Roiss showing Giorgio de Chirico and Fabrizio Clerici alongside Latvian artist Ilze Jaunberga; photo artist Giordano Morganti, Gallery Fine Art; Kultproekt; Everything Is Art Gallery (Russia, Moscow), Georgs Baratashvili (Georgia), Bali Art (Indonesia), showing around twenty contemporary Balinese paintings, Reuven Shezen / Outsider Art, Frida Shezen (Israel), Cozar (Mexico).

Happy Art Museum: Dimiters, Sergejs Djomins, Artūrs Bērziņš, Dags Vidulejs, Zigmunds Bielis, Ilze Jaunberga, Vija Dzintare, Gustavs Filipsons, Aigars Tavkins, Aleksandrs Makarenko, Jana Ņesteroviča, Viktorija Kosenko, Viktors Kosenko, Babkens Stepanjans, Ingrīda Irbe, Lauris Mīlbrets, Džemma Skulme, Helēna Heinrihsone, Laima Eglīte, Otto Zitmanis, Kārlis Vītols, 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 Alexander Rappaport, Igors Vatoļins, Jānis Borgs and Marat Gelman. (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, for live music, films and discussion.

The venue

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. 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."

The Happy Art Museum gallery

The Happy Art Museum gallery was founded in 2010 and is the successor to the exhibition hall Pinakotēka on Ziedleju iela, where between 2009 and 2011 a run of large exhibitions and events took place: the exhibitions "Rudens 2009. Laimīgās mākslas muzejs," "Rudens 2010," an exhibition from the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts collection, an anniversary exhibition for the magazine "Rīgas Laiks," as well as exchange exhibitions with the Estonian Artists' Union and Lithuanian ceramicists, and Designers' Union exhibitions. The gallery's name came about by accident, an ironic reworking of the title of its first exhibition, "Laimīgās mākslas muzejs" (Museum of Happy Art). The exhibition curators Normunds Pucis and Inga Brūvere realized: if a few letters were to disappear from the name of a non-existent "Laikmetīgās mākslas muzejs" (Museum of Contemporary Art), "Laikmetīgās" (contemporary) would turn into "Laimīgās" (happy). The Happy Art Museum gallery took part in several international exhibitions: ART HELSINKI, ART VILNIUS, ASIA CONTEMPORARY ART HONG KONG. For more than ten years the gallery operated in the Galleria Riga shopping and entertainment centre, where more than a hundred exhibitions were held, along with a whole series of socially significant events, regular improv theatre performances and literary and philosophical events.

The gallery now operates in the mc2 interior and delicatessen centre at Krasta iela 68, Riga.