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Jānis Dzirnieks solo show Healthy Friends

Opening: April 4, 18:00

Curated by Kaspars Groševs

Kim? Contemporary Art Centre presents Jānis Dzirnieks’ second solo exhibition at the institution, following the artist’s two-month residency at ISCP, New York in the autumn of 2024, as the recipient of the Kim? Residency Award. In New York, small corner stores — bodegas — can be found on almost every block. One such store, called Healthy Friends, offers sandwiches and fast food that are far from anything actually healthy. Yet the names of these establishments often include words like healthy, natural, organic, and other slogans praising naturalness — phrases that serve no purpose beyond drawing attention to a product range oversaturated with chemicals. The works in the exhibition include scanned scribbles and watercolor drawings, later digitally enhanced, printed, and then physically modified. These drawings depict various creatures in stages of decay and decomposition, merged with illustrations of refrigeration system optimizations. In a way, the process of decay can be seen as a form of optimization — much like the creation of these works could be viewed as a kind of self-reprocessing. Optimization, as such, is inevitable in both living and non-living organisms, as well as in economics, politics, sociology, and beyond. The prevailing high level of distrust in bodegas — from overpriced trivialities to the tastiest snacks — serves as a fitting metaphor for Dzirnieks’ reflections on themes of technological efficiency and environmental degradation, which are explored within the exhibition through elements of spatial installation and other objects created specifically for the show.

Jānis Dzirnieks’ (1992) work cuts through the facade of technological efficiency, revealing the unsettling and often sinister forms that emerge from our relentless drive for optimization. By repurposing industrial remnants into thought-provoking installations, Dzirnieks prompts viewers to confront the ecological and societal costs of progress. Solo exhibitions include: Tiled River at Gallery 427, Riga; Flat Tire at Robert Fruinstraat 56, Rotterdam; Gaidot nākamo minūti at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga; and Sharp Horizon at Nemo, Eckernförde. Duo exhibitions include: Snowlake Blockbuster (with Alise Anna Dzirniece) at Extra City, Antwerp. Group exhibitions: Soap Opera at City Surfer Office, Prague; Agents of Perception at Kai Art Center, Tallinn; Midnight Sunburn at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam; and others. He is the recipient of the 2024 Kim? Contemporary Art Centre Residency Award and undertook a residency at ISCP, New York.

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Nelly Agassi solo show Aftermath

Opening: April 4, 18:00

Curated by Tīna Pētrsone

“We live in a time when the past seems more unpredictable than the future,” wrote the British historian Eric Hobsbawm—a sentiment that feels ever more prescient as headlines offer reinterpretations of history with increasing frequency. History has never been a fixed entity—it has always been rewritten, reexamined, and reinterpreted. Yet today, these processes have reached an unprecedented intensity: historical understanding is entangled in ideological battles, muddled by the ​oversaturation of digital media, and increasingly weaponized as a tool in political discourse. When narratives compete, overlap, and shift in form, how can we orient ourselves among the versions of history they propose?

This exhibition unfolds in a time of deep instability—amid wars, shifts in power, and ideological rupture. Its central motif is rooted in the notion of “aftermath” as a layered, nonlinear, and continuously evolving process. The word aftermath first appeared in 16th-century Middle English, when farmers used it to describe grass that regrew after mowing. Over time, it acquired a broader metaphorical meaning—referring to the consequences of an event, especially in the wake of disaster, war, or major societal upheaval. Thus, the term encompasses both devastation and the potential for renewal—a cyclical process in which the past never truly disappears but transforms and returns in altered form. This notion of cyclical return forms the conceptual axis of Nelly Agassi’s first solo exhibition in the Baltic region.

At the heart of Agassi’s practice lies the idea of a “biography of site”—an approach that treats a site’s context as both a source of inquiry and a material in itself. During a week-long visit in Riga last November, Agassi visited local museums and wandered through the city, collecting visual impressions and engaging with traces of historical presence. These impressions reappear in her installations as fragments, gestures, and materials imbued with symbolic charge. Aftermath becomes both a meditation on what has been and an inquiry into a future (or a history?) still taking shape—still possible.

Nelly Agassi (b.1973, Israel) is a Chicago-based multi-disciplinary artist whose practice encompasses performance, installation, video, animation, textile, and works on paper. Her site-specific works explore the intersection of personal and architectural narratives, revealing fragments of spatial biography through the lens of her own lived experience. Working primarily with materials, body, and space, Agassi creates intimate dialogues between public spaces and their inherent histories. Agassi received her MFA from Chelsea College and BFA from Central St. Martins, London. Her work has been shown internationally at prestigious institutions including Tate Modern, The Israel Museum, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, La Triennale di Milano, and Zacheta Warsaw. In Chicago, her work has been exhibited at The Graham Foundation, Chicago Cultural Center, The Arts Club of Chicago, Hyde Park Art Center, and Poor Farm. Her work was recently acquired by The Art Institute of Chicago. Other notable presentations include the ORD T5 commission project at O’Hare International Terminal, WHOISPOLA Warsaw, Viennacontemporary art fair, and Fujiyoshida textile week (all in 2023). Agassi is currently an SAIC Residential Research Fellow at the Art Institute of Chicago Research Center. She is represented by Dvir Gallery and WHOISPOLA.

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EDEN: Coming of Age  

Kim? Contemporary Art Centre’s annual festival

Dates: 7 June–3 August 2025

Opening: 6 June

Exhibition participants: Daniel Chew and Michaela Durand (US), GolfClayderman (Aksels 

Bruks (LV/CH) and Margrieta Griestiņa (LV)), Daiga Grantiņa (FR/LV), Ella Kruglyanskaya and Alan Reid (US), Maija Kurševa (LV), Josh Kline (US), Miķelis Mūrnieks (NL/LV), Aura Rosenberg (DE/US)

Opening performances on 6 June: Miho Hatori (US/JP), GolfClayderman and others

Lecture on June 10: We Don’t Need No Education: Curating within and beyond the School by Alaina Claire Feldman (US)

Finnisage performance on 1 August: Deividas Vytautas Aukščiūnas (LT), Jette Loona Hermanis (EE/LV), and Gloria Viktoria Regotz (CH)

Festival curators: Alaina Claire Feldman (US) and Zane Onckule (LV)

Courtyard/Garden Intervention: Students of the Interior Design Department of Art Academy of Latvia, led by Charly Blödel (DE/NL) and Edgars Jane (LV/NL) as part of Interior Design Summer School 2025

Festival team:

Festival director: Evita Goze 

Communication: Žanete Liekīte 

Project management: Katrīna Jauģiete 

Festival design: Krišs Salmanis

EDEN: Coming of Age  

Kim? Contemporary Art Centre is proud to announce the theme, participants and curators of the second Kim? Contemporary Art Festival. Titled Eden: Coming of Age, the festival and celebration marks the 16th anniversary (“sweet sixteen”) of the venerable arts organisation, which has played a pivotal role in supporting local and international contemporary art in Riga. 

Founded in 2009, Kim? has worked with both emerging and renowned artists, theoreticians, curators, philosophers, translators and thinkers, aiming to provide a responsive context to their work and to make critical practices accessible to a wider audience. In this pivotal moment for the institution, EDEN: Coming of Age asks artists and audiences what it means to transition from youth to adulthood, from amateur to expert, from idealism to realism, and to embrace all the angst that comes with that.

Following the inaugural festival, EDEN: New Address, in 2024, the upcoming EDEN: Coming of Age returns to the same address at 22 Hanzas Street, the future site of a new, larger venue for Kim?. In this moment of transition for the institution, artists are invited to propose temporary installations that reference the festival’s theme and are inspired by the history of the building, which once housed several schools, including the Riga Technical College of Economics, the Riga Technical College of Food Industry Mechanics and Technology, and Riga Business College. 

This history of education and knowledge accumulation as it relates to who gets to teach and what gets taught will play a formative role in these artistic interventions. Critical pedagogy and a rethinking of rigid fields of knowledge will be redefined through the lens of conviviality – through building relationships with people willing to  participate in the creation of new social relations. In an era overdetermined by hyper-professionalisation and late-capitalist market demands, the festival’s playful programme supports interdisciplinary artworks, collaborative performances, and public programmes guiding the way towards a future adulthood that breaks moulds rather than casting them.

EDEN: Coming of Age gathers together a group of international and inter-generational artists who work in a wide range of media. The festival includes both new commissions and existing work that has never been shown in Riga. The exhibition will be accompanied with a rich series of public programmes including artist talks and expansive festival opening and closing events with performances, DJ sets, and live concerts. 

Nestled inside the exhibition’s venue, the “Bootleg Library” will display unauthorised versions of books, zines, and YouTube links selected by artists and other festival participants that highly influenced their own coming-of-age. The festival will also be the site for the Summer School of the Interior Design Department at Art Academy of Latvia, resulting in a built intervention of an urban bar/stage activating Eden’s inner courtyard-garden as a social space.

At the same time as this year’s festival, the venue will also host the first Kim? Summer Residency recipients on the upper floor.

EDEN: Coming of Age is co-curated by Alaina Claire Feldman, chief curator of the University of California Irvine Langson Institute and Museum of California Art and Kim? programme director and curator Zane Onckule.

Full festival programme and further information about the exhibition to follow.

Supporters:

Ministry of Culture, State Culture Capital Foundation, Riga City Council, Baltic-American Freedom Foundation, Absolut, Valmiermuiža

Media Support:

Arterritory, Echo Gone Wrong, Radio SWH

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Kim? is pleased to announce the inaugural Riga Contemporary art fair. The event will make its debut at Hanzas Perons in Riga, Latvia, with the public welcome to attend from 10 July to 13 July 2025.

Founded by Kim? Contemporary Art Centre – Riga’s first institution to have a continuous ongoing programme of contemporary art exhibitions – Riga Contemporary art fair will feature presentations from more than 35 international galleries. Set within Hanzas Perons, a historic railway warehouse now transformed into a striking cultural venue, the event will provide a platform for contemporary art, showcasing both emerging and established artists and institutions from the region and around the globe. The invitation-only fair will feature galleries from the Baltics, the Nordic countries, the USA, Japan and beyond, presenting a diverse and global perspective on the regional contemporary art landscape. 

“We are very excited to announce a new contemporary art fair in Riga, aimed at giving visibility to the region’s art scene, with a focus on the Baltic countries and galleries from Northern and Eastern Europe. At the same time, by bringing renowned galleries from around the world into the mix, we hope to foster new ideas and connections while creating a vibrant art event that appeals to both local and international audiences. By making the participation fee as accessible as possible, we aim to redefine the concept of an art fair as a more community-oriented, collaborative, experimental and knowledge-sharing experience,” comments the executive director of Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Evita Goze. 

As part of Riga Contemporary, a programme of talks and performances will bring together artists, representatives from international galleries, art advisors, Baltic collectors, and other creative industry professionals, fostering meaningful discussions and engagement within the contemporary art scene. The event takes place in close dialogue with international industry professionals, including Jeffrey Rosen, co-president of NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance) and director of the Misako Rosen gallery in Tokyo.

Jeffrey Rosen elaborated on the significance of Riga Contemporary, stating: “Riga Contemporary stands to serve as a much-needed, positively subversive contribution to the glut genre of the art fair. As power within the art world has become increasingly concentrated in long-standing centers and a profit-driven market logic has nearly subsumed any cultural prerogative within the field of contemporary art, this fair aims to reorient focus towards cooperation and collaboration amongst an international peer group in support of a a vibrant art community situated in a region on the periphery of the global art market. In keeping with the spirit of similar models such as the Milwaukee International (2008), Paramount Ranch (Malibu, 2014-2016), Onsen Daisakusen / Onsen Confidential (Atami, Tokyo, 2022, 2024)  and the ongoing Villa Projects (Warsaw, Reykjavik, Tokyo, Toronto and, most recently, NADA Villa Warsaw), Riga Contemporary is built upon a strong foundation established by a locally based, internationally active experimental institution  – in this case, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre; the event will highlight contemporary art activity in Latvia and fellow Baltic State communities of Lithuania and Estonia situated within a wider region and contextualized further by an international group of participants – both commercial and non-profit. Riga Contemporary will contribute to a growing movement. 

Since 2021, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre has actively participated in international art fairs, including NADA Miami (2022), Paris Internationale (2023), Onsen Confidential (Tokyo, 2022 and 2024), Esther (2024, New York), Warsaw Gallery Weekend (2024), among others. Through these engagements, Kim? has provided a unique platform for Latvian and Latvian-born artists to gain international visibility in various contexts. In 2022, Kim? organised a small-scale art fair, Riga Confidential, featuring nine Baltic and international galleries. 

Riga Contemporary art fair is created in collaboration with Riga City Council, and it is organized by Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, a member of the NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance) art institutions network.