Art Riga Fair 2016

In November 2016 the Latvian Railway History Museum hosted Art Riga Fair for a third year running, a "first small anniversary" for a project barely three years old. Inside the same brick walled engine shed the fair had used since 2014, galleries from seventeen countries, a memorial exhibition for a painter and contemporary of Mark Rothko, and a travelling collection of authenticated Salvador Dalí works all shared a single autumn week.

A first small anniversary

Founded in 2014 by Dags Vidulejs and Gaļina Maksimova to mark Riga's year as European Capital of Culture, the fair returned to the Latvian Railway History Museum at Uzvaras bulvāris 2A for its third edition, running 21 to 27 November 2016 with a VIP and media preview on the opening day. The organisers, trading as SIA Happy Art Museum, described 2016 in their own promotional material as the fair's "first small anniversary, three years" since the founding. Their own program page put the fair's short history plainly: "ART RIGA was established in 2014 to mark Riga's status as European Capital of Culture, with transactions exceeding half a million euros." A producers' group of about twenty names stood behind the 2016 edition, per the fair's own contacts page, led by Vidulejs and Maksimova and including Igors Vatoļins, Anita Šiklova, Krišs Ēlerts and Juris Dimiters among others.

Salvador Dalí under the railway roof

Among the exhibitors that November was Dali Universe, a touring collection of authenticated Salvador Dalí works held by IAR Art Resources Ltd of Switzerland. The fair's own 2017 program copy later described Dali Universe as returning "for a second year," which places its Art Riga debut at this 2016 edition. It shared the hall with more homegrown surrealism: artist Viktor Krotov presented his "Millenium" project, linked to Moscow, and sculptor Gocha Huskhivadze exhibited a workshop of bronze rhinos, part of the roughly 1,000 artworks the fair advertised on show that year.

A memorial for Tadeusz Lapinski

The 2016 edition also carried a memorial exhibition for painter Tadeusz Lapinski (1928–2016), born in Daugavpils and a contemporary of Mark Rothko, who went on to teach art at the University of Maryland, whose faculty page for him the fair linked from its own galleries listing. Fittingly, the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre itself exhibited at the same fair that year. Russian-language press coverage of the opening reported that the day after, 22 November, was informally dubbed "Lapinski Day".

Genius Loci Europa

The fair's talks programme ran that year under the banner "Genius Loci Europa", promising, in the organisers' own words, "an expanded programme of talks and events, playing host to international art professionals, institutions, galleries, publishers, media, collectors and art-lovers." Its centrepiece discussion, staged at the Euroclub venue on 22 November, brought architecture theorist Alexander Rappaport together with Dmitry Shagin, founder of St Petersburg's "Mitki" art group, Shalva Khakhanashvili of Paris' Karavan Gallery and Dmitry Goryachkin of Moscow's Everything Is Art Gallery, to discuss art in the urban environment (see the Program tab for the full Euroclub talks series). Writing for Novaya Gazeta Baltia, journalist Andrei Shavrey described Shagin leading an impromptu singalong under one of the museum's locomotives after the panel, a scene which matches the fair's own description of a hall wired for "audio, video systems, WiFi" and "live broadcasting on the Web," with a string quartet and singer Stella Viridis providing the more formal music that week.

Seventeen countries, one railway shed

The fair's own program copy promised galleries "from as far afield as Mexico and Indonesia... alongside galleries from Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, Russia, Georgia, Estonia and host nation Latvia." Between the official site and the press that covered it, seventeen countries are named as represented in 2016.

A city with more than one art event that week

Art Riga was not the only art event in Riga that November. Andrei Shavrey's review of the opening for Novaya Gazeta Baltia noted a separate exhibition of French and Russian contemporary artists running concurrently at Rietumu Bank's own gallery through 30 November, distinct from Art Riga but a sign of how much art was competing for attention in the city that autumn.

"Small and eccentric" but, "pioneered with such zeal by Dags Vidulejs and Gaļina Maksimova, defy the odds to run for a third consecutive year this November." Simon Hewitt, "Eastern Eden?", arterritory.com (2016)

Hewitt's assessment caught Art Riga at three years old: eccentric, self funded, and still standing. The fourth edition followed in November 2017, when Dali Universe returned "for a second year."