Kim? participates in the ESTHER III art fair in New York

12.5.2026 - 16.5.2026

Kim? Contemporary Art Centre is pleased to announce its participation in ESTHER III, taking place at the historic Estonian House in New York, presenting works by Latvian artists Agate Tūna and Karlīna Mežecka.

ESTHER III
Estonian House in New York
243 East 34th Street, Manhattan, New York

Preview: May 12
Dates: May 13–May 16

Reserve your free ticket here:
https://esther.ee

If you are interested in attending the preview on Tuesday, May 12, or would like to receive a PDF with the presented works, please contact evita.goze@kim.lv

Kim? participates in ESTHER for the third consecutive year, continuing its long-term commitment to supporting emerging and internationally active artistic practices from Latvia within broader international contexts. This year, Kim? presents works by Agate Tūna and Karlīna Mežecka. Both artists engage materially driven practices centred around perception, memory, embodiment, and constructed environments.

For its third edition, ESTHER gathers galleries from New York, Shanghai, London, Montreal, Budapest, Riga, Tartu, and beyond, presenting exhibitions, installations, performances, and collaborative projects across four floors of the building. Developed alongside the wider ecosystem of Frieze Week, ESTHER continues to position itself as a more intimate and fluid model for experiencing contemporary art in New York.

Founded by Olga Temnikova of Temnikova & Kasela and Margot Samel of the eponymous gallery in New York, ESTHER has established itself as one of the most distinctive alternative formats within New York Art Week. Taking place throughout the rooms, halls, and social spaces of the historic Estonian House, the fair brings together international galleries and artist-led projects in an environment prioritising collaboration, experimentation, and spatial dialogue over the conventions of the traditional art fair structure.

Karlīna Mežecka works across ceramics, glass, metal, and installation, developing sculptural narratives that explore emotional fragility, memory, and the body. Drawing inspiration from craft techniques such as raku and kintsugi, her practice foregrounds imperfection, vulnerability, and repair, treating material transformation as both physical process and emotional metaphor.

The works presented at ESTHER are created using a self-developed technique that the artist has been refining since 2022, in which glass is blown into hand-built ceramic sculptures. The ceramic forms act as a framework, allowing the glass to expand through and around their contours. The ongoing series explores both the physical limits of materiality and the poetic potential of the corporeal. Through intricate and fragile compositions of ceramics and glass, visceral associations intertwine with the otherworldly. The technique was further developed during the artist’s residency at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York in autumn 2025, in collaboration with the MIT Glass Lab. Working alongside doctoral students in materials science and the Glass Lab team enabled the artist not only to continue experimenting with the interaction between glass and ceramic forms, but also to test a wider range of glass textures and colours, expanding the technical possibilities of the process.

In Mežecka’s practice, ceramics and glass function as equal material counterparts. Intertwining with one another, they form hybrid objects that appear simultaneously intimate and corporeal, yet alien and astral. The works emphasise both the distinct qualities of glass and ceramics and their inseparability.

Karlīna Mežecka (b. 1995, Riga, Latvia) has been based in London since 2021. After completing a BA in Ceramics at the Art Academy of Latvia, she received an MA from the Royal College of Art, London. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Archive of Fragility at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2024); Security Patterns at Low Gallery, Riga (2022). Recent group exhibitions include RTRU* at KAJE, New York (2026); Dry Cleaning at Max Radford Gallery, London (2025); and Gradient Descent at Gossamer Fog, London (2024). Her works are held in the collections of Odunpazari Modern Museum (OMM), Eskişehir; VV Foundation, Riga; BTA Collection, Riga; and Roche Collection, Riga.

Agate Tūna’s practice explores the relationship between spirituality, technology, and personal history, focusing on how systems of belief shape knowledge, particularly in relation to women historically associated with unseen forces. Sisterhood becomes both method and framework, examining how care and belief move between acceptance, scepticism, and silenced truths.

Defined by a tactile and process-driven approach, Tūna employs chemigrams, film soups, and other experimental photographic techniques to create layered image-objects incorporating fabrics, handmade props, and constructed elements. Her works occasionally extend into scanned stop-motion videos and sound pieces developed from recorded material, blurring the boundaries between photographic document, fiction, and apparition.

Agate Tūna (b. 1996, Riga, Latvia) is a multidisciplinary artist working with analogue photography, experimental video, and sound. She holds a BA in Painting and an MA from the interdisciplinary POST programme at the Art Academy of Latvia and is a graduate of ISSP School. Recent solo exhibitions include Familiarat Gallery 427, Riga (2026), and group exhibitions include GenZ at Musée Photo Elysée, Lausanne (2025); Neurons Desperately Seek Each Other at Riga Photography Biennial (2025); and Under the Sun at TUR Art Space, Riga, in collaboration with 1646, The Hague (2025). In 2025, she participated in a residency at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. Tūna is a FUTURES Talent (2024) and a Plat(t)form participant at Fotomuseum Winterthur (2025). Her works are included in the VV Foundation collection and private collections across Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, the Netherlands, and France.

ESTHER III participants include Adams and Ollman, Portland (US); anonymous gallery, New York (US); Bank, Shanghai (CN); Bureau, New York (US); Galerina, London (UK); Gathering, London/Ibiza (UK/ES); Kate Werble Gallery, New York (US); Kerry Schuss Gallery, New York (US); Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (LV); King’s Leap, New York (US); Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York (US); Kogo Gallery, Tartu (EE); Laurel Gitlen, New York (US); Longtermhandstand, Budapest (HU); Management, New York (US); Margot Samel, New York (US); Off Paradise, New York (US); Pangée, Montréal (CA); Silke Lindner, New York (US); Tara Downs, New York (US); Temnikova & Kasela, Tallinn (EE); and Thomas Erben Gallery, New York (US).

Supported by The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, The Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA).