Latvian National Museum of Art has made a unique purchase of 300 works of art, receiving funding in the amount of 550,000 Eur from the state budget, which has been directed to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the cultural sector.
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The Latvian National Museum of Art received funding in the amount of 550,000 Eur from the state budget program “Contingency Funds” with the aim to “reduce the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the cultural sector, support currently active artists affected by the crisis and at the same time add at least 110 artistically high – quality contemporary visual works created by Latvian artists during the last 30 years “.
LNMM is pleased to announce that within the framework of the procurement program, its collection has been supplemented with approximately 300 works of art created by more than 100 authors and associations of authors. The Museum will publish more information about the purchased works of art on its website after the cataloging of works of art and scientific inventory in the collection.
In order to ensure the highest quality and transparent selection process of works of art, LNMM established an Expert Commission, which brought together five museum specialists and five invited experts.
No LNMM:
• Māra Lāce, LNMM director, member of the Visual Arts Council of the Ministry of Culture;
• Dr. art. Elita Ansone, Head of the LNMM Collections and Research Department “Arsenals” (2nd half of the 20th century – 21st century), Chairman of the VKKF Visual Arts Expert Commission;
• Daina Auziņa, Head of the Collection of the Latvian Visual Arts Department of the Latvian Academy of Arts;
• Līna Birzaka-Priekule, curator of LNMM exhibitions, head of the Purvītis Prize expert working group, member of the Visual Arts Council of the Ministry of Culture;
• Iveta Derkusova, LNMM Deputy Director for Collection, Chairwoman of the LNMM Collection Commission.
Invited experts:
• Māris Čačka, Head of Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Center, Member of the Visual Arts Council of the Ministry of Culture;
• Santa Hirsch, art critic, member of the Visual Arts Council of the Ministry of Culture;
• Solvita Krese, Director of the Association “Latvian Center for Contemporary Art”, Chairwoman of the Visual Arts Council of the Ministry of Culture;
• Zane Onckule, “Kim?” program director, member of the Visual Arts Council of the Ministry of Culture;
• Vilnis Vējš, art critic, member of the Visual Arts Council of the Ministry of Culture.
The collection of the Latvian National Museum of Art is supplemented with works by currently active artists of all generations, representing a wide range of visual arts – painting, sculpture and objects, photography, video, as well as mixed media installations, interdisciplinary projects and design works of art.
Most of the authors of the purchased works of art belong to the generation that entered art at the beginning of the 21st century and have formed a diverse overview of contemporary Latvian art. A quarter of the purchases are from the middle and older generation of authors who determined the development of visual arts in the dynamic last decades of the 20th century and convincingly continue their professional activity. However, about a third of the authors have not been represented in the museum’s collection so far. Several of them were born in the 1990s and are representatives of the first generation that grew up in independent Latvia, whose entry into art takes place in a geopolitical space fully open to both art education and international professional contacts. There is a similar representation of both sexes in the choice of authors. Of the 107 authors, 49 are women. The average purchase amount from one author was about 5000 Eur, while the average payment for one work of art was about 1840 Eur.
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