WunderKombinat II continues the path to its goal started last year – to become a non-academic, critically analytical and interdisciplinary platform dedicated to the exchange of ideas, which views the developments and problematic issues of Latvian visual art in connection with other contemporary cultural and socio-political events. The task of the yearbook is always to stimulate local art research and regular exchange of ideas, theories and visions, as well as to document the current processes of its time.
The time of publication, 2023, was marked by division and fragmentation. Realizing how fragile the world order has become, it seems that over the past two years, society has begun to accept the internal state of emergency as the new norm. In order not to lose focus on the Russian war in Ukraine, this time the publication includes articles by two Ukrainian researchers – Svitlana Biedarjeva and Katerina Botanova, including about the perspective usurped by the West in the interpretations of this war. The Latvian authors included in the publication have focused on the problems of the internal organization and infrastructure of art, the intersections of contemporary art and other disciplines, and the idea of focusing on an author’s work or a specific work, analyzing it in the discourse of current theory, has also been preserved. The coexistence of divisions and contradictions is also pointed out by the creator of the visual essay of the publication, Latvian digital artist Santa France, whose work contrasts magical and catastrophic thinking, playing with the human desire for control over one’s destiny.
Articles by Svitlana Biedarjeva, Katerina Botanova, Liana Iveta Žilde, Žaneta Liekīte, Iliana Weinberga, Rasa Jansones and Stella Pelše, as well as a visual essay by Santa Frances, have been published in the yearbook.
Edition WunderKombinat II. Latvian Art Yearbook 2023 published by the society miracle combine, editors – Laura Brokāne and Elīna Ķempele. The editors of the first edition, Santa Hirša and Shelda Puķīte, also participated in the creation of the publication. The design of the yearbook was created by Aleksej Murashko, the edition is printed Jelgava printing house.
The yearbook will be available for sale after December 15. It will be available for purchase at the launch event for the first time.
The publication was introduced by the program of public events – the personal exhibition of Santa Frances I’m in this picture and I don’t like itwhich can be viewed at the ISSP Gallery until March 7, 2024, an international panel discussion East Not Least, lecture and creative workshop by Belgian curator, independent publisher and teacher Ana Paenhuysen, as well as audio and video conversations with the authors of the publication, created in collaboration with the magazine Point.
The project is organized by a cultural organization Miracle Combine (WK), which brings together several Latvian curators, researchers and producers. WK’s focus is on the art environment of Latvia – its research, support and popularization on a local and international scale, looking for broader connections in the context of Eastern Europe and the Nordic region, as well as highlighting and promoting socially critical artistic practices.
Project cooperation partners: ISSP Gallery, literary and cultural magazine Point and the Latvian Academy of Arts.
2023-12-06 09:24:13
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