Image — Museum of Decorative Arts and Design

The exhibition «Synergy. Contemporary Tendencies in Metal Art and Design» will be on view at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (MDAD) from December 15, 2017 to February 4, 2018.

Stories Editorial December 11, 2017

The exhibition traces the current trends in the field, the artists’ creative directions and endeavours in experimental and classical forms in jewellery art and design objects. Authors of the exhibition aim to highlight the authors’ synergy with the material, which can reveal itself in form, structure, rhythm, colour, light, visual, spatial and psychological perception of the object as well as the synthesis of various senses.

Metal art is an actively present phenomenon in Latvian cultural history with developed traditions — beginning from the goldsmiths’ guilds in Riga to forging and casts in the Soviet ideological climate and contemporary authors, who work in the context of art, fulfulling commercial orders as well as in the field of contemporary design and entrepreneurship.

The Department of Metal Design was established in 1961 at the Art Academy of Latvia, and most metal artists in Latvia have graduated from it (Māris Šustiņš, Valdis Brože, Armands Vecvanags, Uģis Traumanis, and others). There are also notable masters who have acquired education elsewhere, for example, at the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn (Tallinn Art Institute 1944–1989) — Juris Gagainis, Māris Auniņš, Andris Lauders, Guntis Lauders. Today’s opportunities to study abroad have to be taken into account as well, marking new artistic strategies in the work of the authors, especially of the younger generation. The exhibition is an attempt to detect a certain continuity, common and unique trends and to highlight the dominant directions in an expanded panorama.

The exhibition has a catalogue that not only introduces to the creative biographies of the artists and the exhibited works, but also offers an overview of the metal art and design tendencies in the recent past and today.

Participants of the show: Māris Auniņš, Jānis Brants, Valdis Brože, Vladislavs Čistjakovs, Arvīds Endziņš, Didzis Jurkovskis, Anna Fanigina, Juris Gagainis, Andris Lauders, Guntis Lauders, Aldis Lorencs, Monta Apsāne and Ieva Laube («Collar»), Mārtiņš Mālnieks, Una Mikuda, Kristīne Nuķe Panteļejeva, Rasma Pušpure, Lauris Rutkis, Anita Savicka, Andris Silapēters, Māris Skanis, Jelizaveta Suska, Modris Svilāns, Māris Šustiņš, Uģis Traumanis, Armands Vecvanags, Jēkabs Voļatovskis, Zane Vilka, Jānis Vilks, Maija Vītola–Zitmane.

The exhibition will be on view at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design in Riga, 10/20 Skārņu Street from December 15, 2017 to February 4, 2018.