Artists: Kaspars Groševs, Ieva Kraule, Daria Melnikova, Miks Mitrēvics & Kristīne Kursiša, Evita Vasiļjeva, Armands Zelčs

Venue: Art in General, 79 Walker Street, New York

 

Now I will tell you what happened at the Lily’s Pool. A welcome ceremony. It was on the verge of North and South. Yet everyone remembered a sunlight. Some say it was a perpetual flight, others claim the moon needed one half of a turn.

 

This is like a situation that makes up for lost time: Emigrant Ed Leedskalnin’s soul grieved for his unrequited teenage love far away – back in the peripheral homeland, East of everything; his perpetual sadness caused massive coral stones to be magnetized and by the force of antigravity the world’s only known modern megalith structure grew out of the humid soil of Florida’s Homestead. Decades later Billy Idol was performing nearby and visited this bastion. In dedication to the tale, he built his own tuneful monument – Sweet Sixteen.

Featuring the work of seven emerging Latvian artists, the group exhibition Lily’s Pool attempts to capture the presence of subtle, tangible, and poetic phenomena within a mediated post-Internet, “post-natural” culture. The participating artists utilize the varied mediums of drawing, painting, sculpture, textile, and performance to grapple with the personal and historical memory of materials in a contemporary society engrossed in the fleeting structure of the digital. The works in the exhibition create environments that are at once palpable and uncanny, examining how the physical and social body is affected by accelerated temporalities and the sensations of high-speed browsing and sharing in daily life.

 

Lily Pool’s subtle satire appears where the void-filled floating exhibition margins grab along several artworks on the way: from Armands Zelčs’s formal welcome sign titled Terra Vinca (read P-R-O-V-I-N-C-I-A), an exotisized and authentic gesture that offers an insight into location-based identity; to new horizons of flower arrangement as depicted in Darja Meļņikova’s painted collage piece inspired by an abstract person’s state of mind with an aura in the shade of dynamics, charisma and dreams; further on, the logic of the lily-pool is unrevealed and over-knitted until rhythmical threads appear through painterly and semi-wearable forms by Kaspars Groševs; misshaped and heavily scented tropical fruits find their way out of the pastoral garden of Arcadia as narrated in Ieva Kraule’s story; occupied with constructing and destroying, Evita Vasiļjeva populates space through casted forms – role models of sculpted confusion of the equally absent past and future; the tone of sentiment is rounded up with an array of crafted ready-mades by Miks Mitrēvics & Kristīne Kursiša, listed as framed color, casted palm and non-functional yet illusory engaging table play.

 

Kaspars Groševs (1983) graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia. Recent solo exhibitions include OAOA (Jūras griesti) (in collaboration with Oļa Vasiļjeva) at Jūras Vārti, Ventspils (2014); 00:10:00:00 at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2013); I/O. Without Enemies at Kim? Contemporary art centre, Riga (2011) and H at Kanepes Culture Centre, Riga (2012). Groševs’ work has been shown in group exhibitions such as Vortex at Project Space Garage, Moscow (2014) and Aspen-Kemmern at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2014). He has also collaborated with Vivienne Griffin and Cian McConn on various performances and contributed to Studija magazine. Groševs is a co-founder and curator of gallery 427 in Riga.

 

Ieva Kraule (1987) is currently a MA candidate in Visual Communication at the Art Academy of Latvia. Recent solo exhibitions include Nobody dances like that anymore at gallery 427, Riga (2014); …if all you told was turned to gold at Vita Kuben, Umeå (2014); Loneliness will be my greatest treasure at Kalnciema kvartāls gallery, Riga (2014); 11 out of 10 at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2013) and Long Awaited Holidays by the Abyss of Fictitious Memories at the gallery Bastejs, Riga (2012). Kraule is a co-founder and curator of gallery 427 in Riga.

 

Kristīne Kursiša (1979) attended Higher Courses of Film Writers and Directors Institute in Moscow and received her M.A. in Visual Communication at Art Academy of Latvia. Kursiša has been collaborating with artist Miks Mitrēvics since 2003. Recent solo exhibitions include April showers (with M. Mitrēvics) at P/////AKT, Amsterdam (2014); Let me google that for you (with M. Mitrēvics) at Netwerk, Contemporary Art Center in Aalst, Belgium  (2014) and Galerie VidalCuglietta in Brussels (2013) and Seven Thursdays (with M. Mitrēvics) at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, (2012). Kursiša’s work has been shown in group exhibitions such as Society Acts – The Moderna Exhibition 2014 at Moderna Museet Malmö, Sweden (2014) and Vortex at Project Space Garage, Moscow (2014).

 

Miks Mitrēvics (1980) received his Postgraduate (Laureate) at HISK – Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Belgium and his M.A. in Visual Communication at Art Academy of Latvia. Mitrēvics has been collaborating with artist Kristīne Kursiša since 2003. Recent solo exhibitions include April showers (with K. Kursiša) at P/////AKT, Amsterdam (2014); Let me google that for you (with K. Kursiša) at Netwerk, Contemporary Art Center in Aalst, Belgium  (2014) and Galerie VidalCuglietta in Brussels (2013) and Seven Thursdays (with K. Kursiša) at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2012). Mitrēvics’ work has been shown in group exhibitions such as Society Acts – The Moderna Exhibition 2014 at Moderna Museet Malmö, Sweden (2014) and Vortex at Project Space Garage, Moscow (2014). Mitrēvics represented Latvia in the 53^rd International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.

 

Daria Melnikova (1984) attended the Art Academy of Latvia, Department of Visual Communication. Recent exhibitions include Brewing Harmony at Gallery Vita Kuben, Umeå, Sweden (2014); A Green Silhouette of Grey at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2014) and Dashing Lines and Forming Heaps at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2011). Melnikova’s work has been shown in group exhibitions such as Literacy-Illiteracy at the 16th Tallinn Print Triennial, KUMU, Tallinn (2014); Present Tense at Kalmar konstmuseum, Kalmar (2014); Aspen­–Kemmern at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2014); Vortex at Project Space Garage, Moscow (2014); Sculpture Is Space at Hobusepea, Tallinn (2013) and 24 Spaces – Cacophony, Malmö Konsthall, Malmo (2013).

 

Evita Vasiļjeva (1985) attended the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and is currently a resident at De Ateliers, Amsterdam. Recent solo exhibitions include Parallel to Vertical at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2013). Vasiļjeva’s work has been shown in group exhibitions such as Aspen-Kemmern at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2014); Vortex at Project Space Garage, Moscow (2014); NF presents: from A to BE to SEE to D at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2014); Monograms at Gallery Vita Kuben, Umeå, Sweden (2014) and Indian Summer at Gallery Fons Welters, Amsterdam (2013).

 

Armands Zelčs (1978) attended the Art Academy of Latvia, Department of Visual Communication, and the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), Fine Arts Department. Recent solo exhibitions include Trails of Fading Landscapes (2013) and That is not which is. The name of that is known (2011) at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre in Riga. Zelčs’ work has been shown in group exhibitions such as 24 Spaces – Cacophony at Malmö Konsthall, Malmo (2013), Exchange at Gallery Stiftung akku Emmen, Lucerne, Switzerland (2012); A Smiling Lady on a Tiger at Städtische Galerie, Bremen, Germany (2010) and Qui Vive? at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2010).

 

Ed (Edward) Leedskalnin (Edvards Liedskalniņš) (1887-1951) – a Latvian sculptor, craftsman, who single-handedly and in secret carved and sculpted more than 1, 100 tons of coral rock, thus creating the Coral Castle in Florida, USA. Coral Castle was created as a monument for his lost love in Latvia, whom he called ‘Sweet Sixteen’. Author of several publications on magnetism, like Mineral, Vegetable and Animal life, Magnetic Current and A book in every home, he has inspired musicians and mystics. After he died, Coral Castle become a remarkable tourist attraction and in 1984 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the USA.