Spectrum: artist’s signature | Meer

The Spectrum programme presents Latvian jewelry art as a dynamic, multilayered and contemporary form of creative expression that resonates with actual cultural and design processes. Over the course of the year, four pop-up exhibitions will take place at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design – namely, Artist’s signature, Beautiful nature, Architecture of lines, and Noise – integrating harmoniously into the museum’s permanent 3rd-floor exhibition Design Process.

The first exhibition of the series, Artist’s Signature, is like a general collective statement introducing the whole programme. Bringing together all participants, it offers insight into the work of Māris Auniņš, Ildze Bogana, Jānis Brants, Valdis Brože, Vladislav Chistyakov, Anna Fanigina, Ginta Grūbe, Aleksandra Federika Krastiņa, Andris Lauders, Guntis Lauders, Una Mikuda, Rasma Pušpure, Mārīte Rudzāte, Anita Savicka, Laura Selecka, Gints Strēlis, Jelizaveta Suska, Daria Svirel, Māris Šustiņš, Paula Treimane, Jānis Vilks, Zane Vilka, and Maija Vītola-Zitmane, highlighting each master’s individual style and creative approach to jewelry-making through diverse materials and original techniques.

The second exhibition, Beautiful nature, will open ahead of the summer solstice and will explore themes of nature – fluid forms, rhythms of life and bio principles (from the Greek βίος, meaning life). It will feature works that reflect organic structures, solar symbols, plant motifs, and the authors’ personal connection with nature.

The programme will continue with exhibition Architecture of lines focusing on construction, abstraction and geometry – structural thinking, sense of proportion and spatial composition.

The series will conclude with Noise which will reflect on experimentation in both themes and technical execution. The artists will focuse on the following question: how can jewelry art challenge tradition and respond to current global events? The exposition will present conceptual and personally invoked works, unconventional materials and striking formal solutions.

The creative team of the Spectrum pop-up exhibition series includes the Latvian Jewelry Art Association, Zane Vilka, Jānis Brants, Ginta Grūbe, and the first-year master’s students of the Department of Metal Design at the Art Academy of Latvia. The author of visual identity of the project is artist Eltons Kūns.