An exhibition about the relationship between Soviet eroticism and plastic surgery in the photographic art of Jānis Gleizdas is coming up at the Museum of Medical History

The exhibition explores the work of photographer Jānis Gleizdas in the 1970s and 1980s, highlighting the long-term collaboration between the artist and the doctors of the Traumatology and Orthopedics Research Institute. At a time when the official art environment had to conform to the dictates of the Soviet state, Gleizds, the institute’s “untrained in art” photo lab technician, and the most creative doctors in their experiments developed aesthetic principles to let erotic. fantasy to provide the sexual characteristics of a Soviet citizen surrounded by an aura of light with innovative technological solutions.

In Soviet society, which pushed people with “disability” out of sight, the case of a young Latgalian who came to Riga for prosthetics and became a celebrity was an exception. After losing both hands at the age of 24, Jānis Gleizds came to the Research Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics as a patient, but after an operation that allowed him to learn the profession of a photographer, he got a job as a photo lab technician, working at the institute for 40 years. In addition to his basic work, he is a passionate member of a photography club Riga member, and his photographic art has won prizes in many international competitions. Such success is ensured by Gleizda’s special photomontage method, which was combined with the experiments he saw in the operating room of the Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics.

The institute was famous “in popular parlance”, although many of the surgical procedures performed there were officially known only to a limited circle of people – the first sex reassignment operation in the Soviet Union , prosthetic services for impotence, breast transformation for women. Myths circulated around the patients who received plastic surgery “by chance”, increasing faith in the infinite possibilities of medicine. On the other hand, Gleizda’s elegant photo collage ignited a fantasy that moved the new body from the down-to-earth reality of the Soviet Union to the sensual gardens of paradise.

Looking back at Gleizda’s work shows the changes Latvian society has seen regarding the body and sexuality, paying more and more attention to the relationship between natural and artificial.

The curators of the exhibition are Anna Volkova and Vladimir Svetlov. The exhibition will be on display at the Museum of the History of Medicine at 1 Independence Street of Ukraine until March 30, 2025.

As part of the program accompanying the exhibition, on November 28 at 17.30 the Museum of the History of Medicine will hold a lecture on the interaction of technological support, the body and identity. There will be a British artist, a prosthetist and a project The Alternative Limb Project founded by Sofia de Oliveira Barata (Sophie de Oliveira Barata)para-hockey player and orthopedist Dina Grīnberga and philosopher Māra Grīnfelde.