Art Riga Fair 2017

In November 2017, for the fourth year running, foreign galleries packed into the old locomotive halls of the Latvian Railway History Museum for ART RIGA FAIR. By its own account the fair had, since its founding in 2014 to mark Riga's year as European Capital of Culture, already moved transactions "exceeding half a million euros." The fourth edition arrived with an expanded talks programme, a returning Salvador Dalí exhibitor, and a guest list that, once the doors opened, turned out to be longer than the one printed on the poster.

"ART RIGA 2017. Foreign galleries gather to the fourth edition of annual international Baltic region contemporary art show." artriga.com, official fair website (2017)

A fourth edition finds its dates

The fair's own site fixed the 2017 run at 7 to 13 November, with a VIP Private Banking and Media Opening Day on 8 November reserved for "art dealers, gallery owners, critics" before the public days began. That was not the date first announced: ART RIGA FAIR 2017 had originally been billed for 20 to 25 November before the organisers, Dags Vidulejs of Ltd. Happy Art Museum and Gaļina Maksimova of Ltd. Euroclub, moved it forward into the earlier week. The application deadline for exhibitors, 30 September 2017, was set against the original planning window; the fair's participation terms describe the selection commission ruling on applications within three weeks of receipt, and full payment falling due by 1 November regardless of which week the doors finally opened.

Dalí, for a second year

Among the galleries listed on the fair's own 2017 index sat an entry simply titled "Dali Universe," a link straight through to thedaliuniverse.com. It was IAR Art Resources Ltd of Switzerland returning for a second consecutive year with authenticated works by Salvador Dalí, the exhibitor who had anchored the 2016 edition and now did the same for 2017. Elsewhere on the same index, a stranger echo of the Spaniard surfaced under the title "Hitshok-Dali, Termenvokss," pairing his name with the Latvian word for theremin, a hint that a Dalí-themed sound performance was also on the week's bill.

Thirteen countries, and then some

The fair's promotional copy named its 2017 roster as galleries and artists "from as far afield as Mexico and Indonesia," alongside Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Poland and host nation Latvia:

The fair's gallery index for 2017 puts most of that list to names:

Country	Galleries and artists on the 2017 index
France	Karavan Gallery, a Paris collective built around Šalva Hahanašvili, Karim Borjas, Belka Lassare and Jacques Crenn; also Paquita Escofet Miró and Olivier de Rycke
Switzerland	Dali Universe (IAR Art Resources Ltd.); Sergey Dubroff; Modern Masters Gallery
Kazakhstan	Assol Sas
Uzbekistan	Academy of Arts of Uzbekistan
Russia	Everything Is Art Gallery, Krokin Gallery, Mitki (Dmitry Shagin), Gallery Kultproekt, Gallery Fine Art, Millenium (Viktor Krotov, Moscow), Sveta Repina (Moscow), SPBART.com (St Petersburg), Pskov Museum (Dmitrijs Kondratjevs), and a Russian 19th-century classic art collection
Belarus	DK Gallery
Poland	Van Golik Gallery
Mexico	named in the fair's promotional copy for the edition
Indonesia	Bali Art
Germany	Genia Chef; Ira Kitzki Gallery Frankfurt; Frida Fine Arts Gallery
Italy	Bora Arte
Georgia	Baratashvili; the gallerist Šalva Hahanašvili was separately described by LSM.lv as working between France and Georgia
Latvia	the host nation's own list ran to dozens: Happy Art Museum, Euroclub, Art Embassy, Tifana, Antonia Gallery, Jēkabs Gallery, Art Gallery 19, Oforta Ģilde, Rita Pranca Art, Inner Light (Jūrmala), the Mosaic Art Studio of Vadim Eglītis, Gallery Tornis (Sigulda), Skulme Generation, Pinakotēka, Gallery Burtveidols, Portretu Galerija, the Mark Rothko Centre's Arts Studio, Birkenfelds Gallery, Art V International, Elīna Maligina, AGNI, Galina Duļķina's porcelain, Egons Persevičs (Liepāja), Braslinš, Alesja Meļentjeva, Neputns publishing house, Vladislavs Lakše and Gocha Huskhivadze's workshop among them

Two Latvian auction houses, Art Embassy and Jēkabs, and the gallery Antonija were named by LSM.lv as taking part, alongside a smaller human story the broadcaster picked out on opening day: Karolīna Gonsovska exhibiting paintings by her own mother, Ilona Gonsovska.

The edition's roster reached beyond the thirteen headline countries: Úlfur (Iceland), David Datuna (USA), Art Assistant (Belgium), Art Ego Gallery (Ukraine), Reuven Shezen (Israel), Karim Borjas (listed with both France and Venezuela), and the Czech photographer Jan Saudek. LSM.lv's opening-day report also named Brazil among the countries represented, through video artist Lucas Gervilla.

Programme: Genius Loci Europe

The fair described its own social mission as being "to provoke viewers on art conversation," building the week around a conference cycle it billed as Genius Loci Europe. Its own participation notes put the ambition plainly: "International art fair 'ART RIGA' is intended as an annual long-term project involving art professionals from all over the world: the best art galleries, art critics, specialized cultural magazine publishers." The 2017 line-up, drawn from the fair's program and catalogue, included:

• 8 November, VIP Private Banking and Media Opening Day, with a performance by Anna Kolosova.
• 9 November, the conference "ArtTravel. Wonders of the World."
• A discussion billed as "Documento Futurae" (also listed on the fair's own site as "Future Documents," with Andris Teikmanis attached), tied to the Art Academy of Latvia's Centenary Art Future project.
• 11 November, a roundtable on "Art in the Urban Environment," with architecture theorist Aleksandrs Rapaports and journalist Igors Vatoliņš.
• A "Slow-Mover" side programme, pairing an Indi Piano Fest, under the stated patronage of Dmitry Shostakovich Jr., with a video-art strand called "Familia": Lucas Gervilla (Brazil), Dima Goryachkin (Russia) and Dasha Delone, shown alongside experimental films by Dmitry Plavinsky, Jannis Kounellis and others.
• 12 November, a Social Programme installation titled "100" / "Latvijai 100": 100 pairs of Latvian folk mittens, made by the Pensionāru Iespēju Centrs, dedicated to Latvia's approaching 2018 centenary.
• A cluster of hands-on workshops sat alongside the galleries on the fair's own index: an etching and mobile graphic-printing workshop, a water-drawing workshop, and an art-therapy session titled "Motus Vita."
• A returning "Tadeusz Lapinsky memorial exhibition," the tribute to the Mark Rothko contemporary introduced the previous year.

Beyond the halls, Euroclub, the co-organiser and a five-years-running weekly forum for "intelectual discussions, films, guests" out of its home at Dzirnavu 67, hosted "Art & War," a philosophical dialogue between architecture theorist Aleksandrs Rapaports and philosopher Aleksejs Romanovs, moderated by journalist Igors Vatoliņš.

Parallel exhibition at Rietumu

An old locomotive workshop

The fair's own site described its venue in some detail: "The Latvian Railway history museum in Riga is situated on the left bank of the Daugava River at Uzvaras Boulevard in an old engine warehouse. The 19th century locomotive workshop can be used for conferences, meetings, banquets and other events (500 seats). Large Hall, with authentic brick walls, 6.5 m high ceilings and railway exponents that create special and unique atmosphere." Visitors were promised 500 chairs, audio and video systems, WiFi, a wine café and a new art bookselling counter, plus a night afterparty club at Happy Art Museum's own premises and a multilingual press centre broadcasting live over the web throughout the week.

"Latvians buy Latvians"

Asked by LSM.lv about the state of the market on opening day, organiser Gaļina Maksimova described it as stable, with local buyers overwhelmingly favouring Latvian artists and works from the 1920s to the 1950s in the strongest demand, a preference for the settled and historical over the speculative that the broadcaster's report suggested was typical of the Riga art crowd the fair depended on.