Vija Celmins. Double Reality (Dubultā realitāte), Art Museum Riga Bourse, April 11 – June 22
Latvian-American artist Vija Celmins has enjoyed a long and successful career, with favourable exhibition reviews in American daily newspapers and art magazines, and with artworks that have sold for considerable sums of money. Her oeuvres have been shown in many prominent places across the world and now, those living in her native country of Latvia will also get a rare opportunity to see her art.
The works for this exhibition in Riga have been borrowed from a number of collections, including those of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the US embassy in Latvia, the McKee Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt am Main, and the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris.
Vija Celmins' paintings, drawings and works of graphic art are created in photo-realism style, with great attention paid to their surface and luminosity. Although it can take several months for her to complete a single work, Celmins refuses to entrust any part of the production process to others. "The artist puts his or her own perception and feelings into the artwork. In essence, the work is the sum of all the tiny decisions that can be taken only by that person alone," says Celmins.
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