There are plenty of high-profile contemporary art events across Europe where galleries fling open their doors to both art insiders and curious newcomers, offering a diverse mix of exhibitions, performances, and artist talks. Think London Gallery Weekend, Amsterdam Art Week, and Berlin’s Gallery Weekend.
Now, there’s a fresh name joining the circuit: the inaugural Riga Art Week – RAW, as its punchy acronym suggests. While Riga’s contemporary art scene is more compact than its European counterparts, and RAW launched on a tighter budget, its debut was fun, easy to engage with and shone a vital spotlight on Riga’s artists and galleries.
Riga is a small, beautiful city, but most tourists stick to the cobblestoned old town and its pretty architecture. During RAW, more than 45 locations dotted the map – most within a walk or a short tram ride of the centre – making it perfectly navigable for someone like me who wants to see everything.
The city’s smaller number of galleries ensures a scene where everyone knows everyone. RAW played to this strength, as it felt like artists, curators, and gallerists had come together in a genuine spirit of collaboration – many spaces stayed open for the gallery lates on the Thursday and across the weekend.
This includes diverse spaces ranging from the white-walled ASNI gallery hosting the work of Agate Tuna, who examines the role of the quartz crystal as a mediator of spiritual energy and its use in technology, to the grittier, more industrial aesthetic of galleries such as Kim And Tur. The latter is where Bob Demper has created a replica of a server room in a wry reflection of the corporate aesthetic, with his subtle and often surreal interventions. He reflects on how the image of corporate life is just as informed by personal experience and how we see it represented in movies and films.
Some of the most memorable works appeared in delightfully unexpected settings. Meartrack’s installation invited visitors to sprawl across connected hammocks laced with chains and holes or climb onto old cars. A snake slides across a film by Emilija Skarnulite that plays in a fantastic bunker installation and Andris Eglitis’s landscape paintings, both massive and small-scale, had to be found by traversing the length of a spirits and wine shop.
The city’s big institutions were involved in the week, with two contemporary exhibitions at the National Gallery alongside its historical collection. Smaller ones were game, too, with the Museum of Pacific and Oceanic Arts giving over its main gallery to a group of emerging Latvian artists and curators, including the vibrant paintings of Polina Smirnova.
The events programme included an enjoyable insight into the practices of curator James Taylor-Foster and artistic duo Swedish Girls, and a charismatic performance by Kitty Florentine that ramped up from a solo performance into a dancefloor drawing in an initially reticent crowd. Both events were popular, and you had to peer over others, which was especially tricky given Latvians are one of the tallest nations in the world.
It may be the first year of RAW, but it’s already ticked many boxes you need for a successful art week. A handy map in all the galleries and a tote bag, tick. Getting you out of the centre and exploring spaces you wouldn’t normally venture to, tick. I tried to find a space and got lost before struggling to find the entrance, and then I wondered if this is a gallery after all, tick and something I’ve experienced in London and Venice.
Of course, there’s room for improvement. While all the talks and events were well attended, I didn’t see many locals or visitors to Riga wandering the streets, with a map in hand, seeking out galleries. However, fingers crossed, RAW will have a bigger marketing budget next year, which will help drive more visitors to the galleries. As the scene grows, I hope it attracts more diverse visitors and audiences. However, that also reflects Latvia’s population, which is not especially diverse but will hopefully change over time.
It’s essential to place RAW within the broader context of Riga’s art scene and some recent setbacks. The Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA) had two impressive editions, but the third was delayed twice and then cancelled because of its link to Russia. In other bad news, Riga’s planned contemporary art museum still hasn’t advanced ten years after the concept was announced, due to a key sponsor withdrawing after accusations of money laundering.
Despite these setbacks, the Riga art scene is still powering on. The Riga Contemporary Art Fair will follow RAW in July, and the scene is on the up.
I enjoyed my visit to the first Riga Art Week, and I look forward to visiting again next year as the week and Riga’s art scene go from strength to strength. Riga’s artists and galleries have a great mix of artistic voices, and RAW is a platform for them to showcase their work to Latvians and the wider world. It was new and raw, but it definitely didn’t feel undercooked, and I left feeling full of art and ideas.
Riga Art Week (RAW) ran from 26th May to 1st June in venues across Riga.
The lead image of Kitty Florentine’s performance is a photo by Dasa Trofimova. The second image of the gallery late. The third image is of Emilija Skarnulite’s film, photo by Ansis Starks. All photos are courtesy of Riga Art Week.
