Armands Andže: Bailes no ainavas / Fear of the Landscape


Opening: 6.02. 2025

Exhibition dates: 7.02 - 18.04.2025

Curators: Iveta Gabaliņa, Kamilla Kūna

The exhibition is supported by the State Cultural Capital Foundation

The exhibition explores unfinished architectural narratives in urban spaces, revealing a liminal state between presence and oblivion. Skeletons of unfinished buildings and monumental elitist high-rises become artefacts of the urban spectacle – testimonies that transcend public imagination and reflect the voices of ignored communities. Andže employs early analogue photographic techniques such as daguerreotype and dry glass plate methods to highlight the exhibition’s themes. Developed in the early 19th century, the daguerreotype is one of the earliest photographic processes, using a silver-plated sheet of copper to produce a singular image characterized by high detail and a mirror-like surface. Through these techniques, Andže emphasizes the transient nature of landscapes and the tangible presence of the photographic image, in which past and future collide. Each image displayed in the exhibition is unique, existing as a single, irreplaceable artefact.  

The aesthetics of the urban environment are shaped not only by its visual appearance but also by the emotions it evokes as we observe the everyday landscapes that surround us. While aesthetic value is subjective, it nevertheless impacts each passerby. Fear of the Landscape is Andže’s exploration of this experience, rooted in both individual and collective memory. The exhibition focuses on the philosophical dimensions of fear, emphasizing the emotional and psychological responses triggered by the interaction between the urban environment and its aesthetic expressions. Landscapes, especially unfinished urban structures or monumentalized objects, can create tension between feelings of connection and isolation. In this context, urban landscapes serve both as visual elements and as spaces where society’s collective fears, memories and relationships with a changing environment are laid bare.