Daria Melnikova “Palette. Three-legged Evidence”, Salon du Salon, Marseille, 2020, photo: Philippe Munda

 

 

I am the table!

 

I am! I am! I am! I am!

 

I am!

 

(from the song The View by Metallica/Lou Reed)

 

 

Ainārs Kamoliņš’s book The Philosophy of Furniture will be presented as part of Daria Melnikova’s Palette. Three-legged Evidence in December in Riga, created in collaboration with Kim? Contemporary Art Centre and the project Roots to Routes. Palette is a journeying platform with a focus on the process and exchange of experiences and ideas. As a continuing platform, lately exhibited in Marseille at the gallery Salon du Salon, in Riga it will manifest as a stage that will host the presentation and readings of The Philosophy of Furniture. The point of departure for the book has been Edgar Allan Poe’s essay with the same title The Philosophy of Furniture (published 1840). As Kamoliņš puts it: “Furniture can allegorically describe the subject’s inner world – after all, furniture, like one’s consciousness, stores thoughts, and holds history”.

 

 

The Philosophy of Furniture will be performed (broadcasted online) two times during December – first on December 5, at 7pm it will be read in English by journalist Kārlis Streips.

 

 

The link to the broacast will be provided closer to the date.

 

 

Ainārs Kamoliņš is a philosopher from Riga. He has obtained an MA in philosophy from the University of Latvia. Kamoliņš’s main academic interests concern the questions raised by the early modern philosophers, including how biology, natural and exact sciences are linked to philosophical theories. His best known book is Diaries: Spinoza’s Poetics (2014, published by Kim? Contemporary Art Center). In 2016 he wrote a dramatisation of Kierkegaard’s The Seducer’s Diary that was staged in the Latvian National Theatre.

 

Daria Melnikova is a Riga-based artist, who works with installations and objects. Her work results from a meditative study of daily routine, clichés, architectural details and mere casual moments. She has recently exhibited in Salon du Salon, Marseille; Gallery Vartai, Vilnius; Karlin Studios, Prague; PLATO, Ostrava; Kulturfolger, Zurich; Kim? Contemporary Art Center, Riga, etc.

 

Kārlis Streips was born and raised in the United States and has lived in Latvia since 1991. He is a broadcast journalist and an instructor at the University of Latvia.

 

Roots to Routes is a collaboration between artists, curators and non-profit organisations from the city of Marseille and the Baltic countries, curated by Merilin Talumaa, Maija Rudovska and Justė Kostikovaitė. The project took place in Marseille as part of Manifesta 13 Biennial programme Les Parallèles du Sud from August 28 to October 25 and is continuing in Riga, as well as in other cities throughout 2021. The project invites strangers to encounter the unknown and unfamiliar within the urban environment, while exploring and challenging concepts of ‘homebase’, ‘belonging’ and ‘identity’.

 

 

Supported by Latvian Culture Capital Foundation