Explosition (Exhibition and Performance)

The "Explosition" organized by kuš! in the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art was announced as 

"A non-international drawing exhibition by 11 contemporary Latvian artists. This exhibition is a collective piece of work that avoids a subjective interpretation of the current epoch, instead offering a range of diverse studies, various opinions as well as memories based on different experiences. The exhibition was created over a rather long period of time and the energy that went into making it happen can be measured not only in the number of drawings and artists but also in the informative density of materials and interpretations. A place in a larger mosaic for Latvian art of drawing is possible by creating our own overview of the processes that would allow contextualizing it in order to comprehend the proportions of connections and singularities and the relations between them."

However, what really happened? Just two hours before the opening the artists met in the empty office gallery and created their "monumental" work. Some of these artists even meeting for the first time.

5 minutes before the opening the freshly "over a long period of time" (ca. 90 min) collectively created piece was in a golden frame put in place.

Then the first visitors arrived in the almost empty gallery and could enjoy a glass of wine, while the DJ was reading kuš! and the presenter of the show was standing in front of the art work, not really giving the visitors a chance to take a deeper look at it.

After about half an hour the opening speech started, praising the artist and the Latvian drawing history in general. Let me tell you, it was a very long and very boring speech. Even though half of the speech was 2 times repeated, nobody seemed to notice. Well who cares, as long as there is wine and snacks...

All the artists got flowers and some also took the opportunity to tell something themselves to the art visiting crowd.

The speech seemed to endlessly continue and the visitors got more and more bored by this ordeal. When all of the sudden an explosion struck the room. At this moment life came into the gallery...

... and also more art. The artists have hidden their works and after the explosion struck the speech by the Director of the contemporary Art Centre, Solvita Krese, they hung up their works. Those works they created in explosive short manner only some days before the opening and everyone just used up to 9 pages of normal A4 office paper and black and red pens.

Not only thanks to nice music provided by the DJ the art event became very lively and interesting. But also that has an end after some time and the party was continued in MiiT.

The explosition can now still be seen until October 29th in the Centre for Contemporary Art, every working day from 12:00 - 19:00. More pictures can be seen here.

Participants: Andrejs Lavrinovičs, Kristians Brekte, Rūta Briede, Raids Kalniņš, Velta Ķešāne, Ernests Kļaviņš, Maija Kurševa, Ingrīda Pičukāne, Bulats Ratkevičs, Arnolds Soms, Mārtiņš Zutis. Curator: Dāvids Šilters. Exhibition logo by Markus Haefliger (CH).