PHOTO: opens the solo exhibition of the artist Artūrs Bērziņš “A new day for Latvia’s ears”

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The artist explains his idea and the name of the exhibition as follows: The expression “a new day for us” is quite common in Latvian culture. One of the last examples is the 2019 New Year’s address of the then Prime Minister of the Republic of Latvia, Maris Kuchinska. Therefore, in a slightly modified version, it became the name of my exhibition. Given the several meanings of the word “in the ears” – depending on whether we perceive it as a verb or a noun – the name plays playful dramatic parallels with the epic “Lāčplēsis”, whose author Andrejs Pumpurs has a gallery in the streets and my exhibition. In the epic for the embodiment of Latvian power to the hero Lāčplēsis, a foreign invader robs the source of power – the ear. In my interpretation, this severed ear – an integral part of the whole – to some extent symbolizes the trauma of the Latvian people, which cannot be overcome. One of the main motives of the exhibition is the problem of the modern western world – an attempt to turn against the concept of the individual as an indivisible, one-piece subject, replacing it with a two-subject constructor, which can be broken down into components – or remembering the events of the poem. The method of transposition became very appropriate for the creation of works. ”

In his latest cycle of works, Artūrs Bēziņš makes a bold move or transposition of widespread ideas, situations and elements in order to further study various aspects of both individual and collective, especially national identity. He has created peculiar visual puns, which include images of ancient Greek myths, important historical figures of Latvia, popular cult figures of the modern West and even information about the most current achievements in conquering the universe combined with Latvian ornamentation and self-created elements of computer games.