Contemporary Histories of Photography I
"Contemporary Histories of Photography I" launched a two-part exhibition series at the ISSP Gallery, which brought together several artists' perspectives and interpretations on the process of writing a local history of photography. How to simultaneously fill a vacuum of in-depth historiography while critically re-examining existing narratives? The new works engaged in dialogue with photographers and phenomena spanning various periods. In Enthusiasm in Times of Extreme Scarcity, Kristīne Krauze Slucka worked with the archive of Ina Stūre (1958-2006), a photographer active at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, but largely overlooked today. Krauze Slucka's work questions the "disappearance" of women from historical narratives and highlights Stūre's expressive, staged images against the backdrop of the modest living conditions and mundane domesticity of the turbulent time period. Both artists share an experimental approach, emphasizing the materiality of the image. Meanwhile, in Who Has Come Here? Agate Tūna, driven by personal and artistic interests, traces the threads of paranormal and illusionist photography in Latvia, pushing the conventional boundaries of the photographic medium and its relationship with reality. The act of writing history, including art history, is never neutral but is woven into a social and political context, shaped by both power dynamics and personal choices. The series of exhibitions highlighted the subjectivity inherent in each version of history and shed light on various lesser-known aspects of local photography.
The set design for the exhibition series and the public programme is by Liene Pavlovska. The objects displayed in the outdoor space of Bergs Bazaar form another layer of interpretation of work by various historical and contemporary photographers – from Strenči Photographic Workshop, Eduards Gaiķis and Vilis Rīdzenieks to Zenta Dzividzinska, Ilga Suna, Vika Eksta and others. The images have been reproduced in the historical cyanotype technique, again and again, without hiding mistakes. With the gesture of printing objects, the scenography refers to the insidious nature of the photographic medium as a revealer of reality. The scenography is a set of metaphorical-functional objects in which the images to be exhibited in the book "await its publication".
Partners and supporters of the exhibition: State Cultural Capital Foundation, Riga City Council, Society Integration Foundation, Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation, Mystero Museum, Artglass, Adverts, Valmiermuiža, Arterritory.com, Echo Gone Wrong, NOBA.
The curatorial concept of the exhibition was developed as part of the Art Academy of Latvia's Master's programme in Curatorial Studies, as well as the project "Landscapes of Identities: History, Culture and Environment" / IDEUM (Nr. VPP-LETONIKA-2021/1-0008) of the State Research Programme "Letonika for the Development of Latvian and European Societies" of the Latvian Research Council.
Exhibition dates: 10.05.2024.-27.06.2024.
Curator: Liāna Ivete Žilde