Riga Porcelain Museum concludes Latvia's Centenary year with the exhibition "Idea Collections", a concept proposed by artist Valda Podkalne. The exhibition consists of two series of works - a collection of design cups created in 1993 and porcelain blocks created in 2017/2018 especially for this exhibition. Common to both series of works is that their forms have been designed by Valda, but painting and other kinds of artistic manipulation have been done by other artists, personally selected and invited by her. This sort of collaboration is routine in industrial design, but much rarer in contemporary art. The exhibition bridges not only two different time spans, but also museum's permanent exposition and contemporary art. Valda Podkalne's social project joins the centuries and involves 34 notable Latvian artists in total. The catalogue  “BLOG.KS”, an artwork in itself, is a remarkable permanent record of it. 

 

Valda Podkalne is one of the most original Latvian artists, working with ceramics as well as photography and conceptual installations. She has been recognized in Latvian and European contemporary art worlds. Her porcelain works are included in the collections of several museums in Europe, and she has received many accolades at biennials and international exhibitions, both in Latvia and other European countries. She graduated from the Department of Industrial Design of the Art Academy of Latvia, and was lecturer at its Department of Visual Communication, working at the Art Academy of Latvia for 27 years in total. Today, Valda is a freelance artist, organizing regular solo exhibitions. In various materials she reflects on subjects such as memories, life's turning points and people encountered on her path.

 

COLLECTION

In 1993, Valda Podkalne invited a number of Latvian artists to paint the cups designed by her for the exhibition “For Collectors” organized in art gallery “Bastejs”. The list included Inese Brants, Romis Bēms, Anatolijs Borodkins, Andris Breže, Indulis Gailāns, Helēna Heinrihsone, Ivars Heinrihsons, Pēteris Martinsons, Sarmīte Māliņa, Anita Meldere, Andra Neiburga, Juris Putrāms, Maruta Raude, Māris Subačs, Ingrīda Zābere and Vilnis Zābers.

“From today’s standpoint, this exhibition and its featured works is about more than just unique design objects. It is a vivid documentation of the processes and personalities of Latvian art at the time,” Daiga Rudzāte writes in catalogue “BLOG.KS“.

 

BLOG.KS

Twenty-five years later, a new generation of artists has emerged, and Valda has repeated the project with 17 young artists. The artists involved in making the porcelain blocks are collective “GolfClayderman”, Katrīna Čemme, Kaspars Groševs, Haralds Jegodzienskis, Jānis Krauklis, Ieva Kraule-Kūna, Maija Kurševa, Andrejs Lavrinovičs, Anete Melece, Katrīna Neiburga, Ojārs Pētersons, Beate Poikāne, Krišs Salmanis, Evita Vasiļjeva, Evelīna Vida, Lote Vilma Vītiņa and Amanda Ziemele.

 

Valda Podkalne has created also her own interpretations of the cup and the block, thus taking up the dual role as the initiator of the project and one of the artists among her contemporaries.

"The block is a result, a product, arising from the energy and trust accumulated in this narrow and specific body of relationships," writes Helmuts Caune. But one of the project's participants Haralds Jegodzienskis says about Valda Podkalne's work: "As a project "BLOG.KS" pushes us to rethink and find common roots under seemingly insurmountable walls: each block from the whole ensemble suddenly bursts open into vivid blooms of individual creativity and passion."

 

To further quote from Helmuts Caune's introduction to “BLOG.KS” catalogue: “The results of artists’ work and the texts with which they supplement these works are historical evidence of a place and time and the consciousness of its inhabitants. Through the simultaneously mixed and capricious medium of porcelain, Valda allowed us to register something which seemed important to someone, and now this significant thing is also accessible to our own – everyone else's - consciousness.”

 

This art project, dubbed "social artwork" by Haralds Jegodzienskis, and defined as "social product" by Helmuts Caune, is now on display in Riga Porcelain Museum as part of exhibition "Idea Collections", and in the catalogue “BLOG.KS” it will be preserved not just for this but also for the next generation of artists and culture lovers.

 

Curator Ieva Nagliņa.