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Discussion between Evita Vasiljeva, Marietta Patricia Leis and Maija Rudovska

10.7.2019, 18:00

Photo: Evita Vasiļjeva, Marietta Patricia Leis, Maija Rudovska.

On July 10th at 6 pm Kim? is hosting a discussion between three women arts practitioners: Latvian artist Evita Vasiļjeva, as part of the current Kim? exhibition A Very Small Window , American artist Mariette Patricia Leis whose solo show Air is on view at Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre, in conversation with independent Latvian curator and art historian Maija Rudovska. The event will take place in English and is organized by the United States Embassy in Latvia and Kim?.

The discussion will focus on how the language of the two artists’ practices has been shaped by the various contexts which they come from and how it moves and changes in relation to the world around us. “Both artists work with abstraction in forms, shapes, colors, proportions, sometimes even text that become powerful communicators and indicators, leading to various discoveries – be they ideas, poetry or just relations between configurations in this world. How do both artists operate in the art world as women artists and how does being a woman artist echo in their practices?” asks Maija Rudovska, who is intrigued to pose this question seeing that artists work with such different materials, surfaces, and structures that include both subtleness and roughness.

The discussion will look at how material choices have formed each of them as artists: concrete, metal and building materials for Evita, and painting and sculpture for Marietta, and how they see their path in the future. The discussion will probe the motivations for representation, concepts, materiality, the differences and bridges in practice, and look at the broader context of women in the arts all the while considering the “artworld” macrocosm.

The event is free of charge.

Evita Vasiljeva is a Latvian artist, who lives and works in Amsterdam, she finished De Ateliers in Amsterdam in 2016. Though known as a sculptor, she is not limited to a single physical material. Her solo shows include Postcrete, Lower. Green, Norwich, UK (2019), Still Stands and Resilient Nows, Tallin City Gallery, Estonia (2018), Manhours in Headquarters, P/////AKT, Amsterdam (2017), Printhouse on the Gut Level, and many more. The current group-show A Very Small Window at Kim? presents a visual and spatial conversation, unfolding ways in which artists can collaborate beyond limitations of language.

Marietta Patricia Leis is a visual artist who lives and works in Albuquerque, New Mexico, US by route of New York City and Los Angeles. She works in several media including painting, photography, sculpture, poetry and video. Leis received a BA and MA in psychology and also an MA/MFA in studio art from the University of New Mexico. Travel informs her work regarding ‘sense of place’ and Leis has been awarded 14 artist residencies nationally and internationally. Leis’ work is currently exhibited at Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Center and European Cultural Centre at the Venice Biennale. Previous exhibition venues include Contemporary Art Museum, Ahvaz, Iran; Suwan Arts Center, South Korea; Museo Italo Americano, San Francisco; United States Embassy, Namibia, and many more. Leis’ art is concerned with planet earth—its resources and the dangers those resources face.

Maija Rudovska is an independent curator, researcher and art historian. She completed Curatorlab postgraduate studies at Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm and obtained an MA from the Art Academy of Latvia, she is a scholar of Soviet era architecture, and interested in contemporary art with a focus on space, hybridity and in-betweenness. Rudovska has been the curator and producer of several exhibitions and projects both in Latvia and abroad, for example, Active Art (2019), A Barbarian in Paris, Ricard Foundation, Paris (2018), Trauma and Revival, Bozar Art Center in Brussels, Kim? Contemporary Art Center, etc. (2017/2018), (IN)VISIBLE DREAMS AND STREAMS, exhibition for the 25th anniversary of the Nordic Council of Ministers in Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius and Helsinki (2016/2017), Society Acts, Moderna Museet, Malmö and Kim?, Riga (2014/2015); Inside and Out, Kim?, (2012/2013), etc. She is also the co-founder of BCC: Blind Carbon Copy, a gossip and research-based collaboration together with Juste Kostikovaite.

The Event is supported by the US Embassy in Latvia.