Art is a way of communication where the means of expression can be anything that transfers message. A stage, a painting, a silver cup or a poem – everything that can excite, fascinate or make one re-estimate his life and its values, can be considered as eminent manifestation of art. Surely, all works do not carry traits of ideological value. We can enjoy also quite esthetical delight from the piece of art. However, I am more fascinated by the emotional and spiritual sphere of a subject that reveals one’s frailties and tragedies. I am satisfied when I success at expressing my relevances in silver. And even more, if my work has delighted the audience. The spiritual welfare of a nation depends on artists. They are the first to sense threats to society and through their works they are able to keep people to be aware of them. Skills of observation, analysis and systematization, as well as high sense of responsibility are the most characteristic features in the portrait of a true artist.
With my works I would like to influence people to reconsider and re-eestimatee their perception of life, nature and their mutual relations.
Olegs Auzers

Olegs Auzers was born in Riga in 1950. At the age of twenty Olegs Auzers started mastering jeweler’s skills at the Riga Jewelry Factory. After receiving a diploma after a two-year study course, he started working for the jewelry shop where he gained valuable experience and supplemented his knowledge, being a good apprentice of his teachers. Then, Olegs Auzers studied in Moscow at the Institute of Applied Arts. During his studies Auzers attended lectures of Eastern medicine and philosophy. Through mastering this intercultural experience, the artist developed his scale of artistic values, drawing a conclusion that the best teacher for an artist is his environment abundant of everything – colors and shades, compositions and proportions.
In 1970 – 1980, Olegs Auzers was in charge for the first children jewelry studio in Riga Pioneer House. Working for the company Dailrade as a senior artist, he formed a group of modelers to merge artistic values with industrial production. In the 80-ies, the artist ran the jewelry art studio Rotkalis and during the same time founded another art studio Auda in the fishing farm 9th of May. In 1991, Olegs Auzers established the Auzers Jewelry Art College.

The artist’s contribution to the culture can be evaluated not only regarding his students, but also valuable gifts to the House of Blackheads, Riga Museum of History and Shipping, Limbazi Museum and Swiss National Museum in Zurich. In 2001, a 128 cm- high fruit bowl weighing 20 kg was the first item of the renewed silver collection of the House of Blackheads. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the Ex President of Latvia, highly estimated the artworks by Olegs Auzers, by selecting his works for representation of the Latvian State during her presidency.


Info:
www.auzers.lv

The exhibition offers the opportunity to get acquainted with one of the most prominent masterpieces at the scope of the art history – the graphic series Los Caprichos by the brilliant Spanish artist Francisco Goya (1746-1828). The set of 80 prints, created and published in 1799 by artist himself, entitled Los Caprichos (The Caprices) spread quickly after it was published first and were soon known of outside Spain. They became the symbol of the Goyaesque style, and demonstrated a new way of representing reality - a way that is more expressive, fresher; a way that was to find its echo amongst the artists of the 19th century. The end of the cold, artificial prints of neo-Classicism had come.
There have been lots of researches carried out to find reasons that served as sources of inspiration for the series. Scholars have pointed out numerous theoretical and artistic influences, but the artist himself would have been loath to admit that – beyond a few quotations from well-known poets such as Jovellanos, and despite parallels in the dramas of his friend, Moratín the Younger – any person or work had played a part in the evolution of these remarkable prints. Under the protection of the Osuna family, the Duchess of Alba, government ministers and talented writers, he continued to attract commissions which allowed him to display his brutal, often turbulent vision. Before Los Caprichos the artist created lots of sketches and drawings that helped him at appointing subjects attracting his artistic scope. Particular interest should be addressed to the Madrid Album or, more precisely, the Madrid series, which unfortunately has come to us only partially. The Madrid Album comprises a large series of sketches showing subjects from contemporary life, and especially the plight of women. For instance, these drawings first introduce Celestina, a personality borrowed from traditional Spanish literature, and who becomes a particular symbol in Goya’s art. He shows her lurking in corners, reminding youth and beauty that they too must fade and wither. Like Celestina, the prostitute personifies many of the ills of society, and this dovetailing of reality and fantasy forms the original creative source of Goya’s new vision. The subject of witchcraft also was become crucial to his new serious style, the most explicitly expressed in Los Caprichos.
Some scenes of Los Caprichos look as if they are part of a play, a parade of eccentric figures. Mostly they are deeply pessimistic and cynical. Spain becomes a place akin to the medieval vision of Dante’s Inferno, rife with evils of all kinds: hypocrisy, mendacity, cruelty and moral corruption. The influence of 30 years of life as a professional artist are all examined: Church, state, the court, the law, the medical profession, the arts and sciences, the streets of Madrid, rural life, contemporary poetry and philosophy, theories about the poor, the rich, the diseased, the young, the old; a whole vast synthesis is brought to bear on a welter of vice, immortality and vanity.
As a confirmation of how the artist stamped his own personality on the Caprichos, the first plate shows a profile self-portrait. This portrait is highly fashionable, with this one image Goya restates his self-identification with modernity, and his glance slants sideways in the finished prints.
The method Goya used here were complicated and up-to-date. Traditional etching formed the basic technique, but Goya combined this with the comparatively recent invention of aquatint. The clean lines bitten out by acid on the surface4 of a small plate are complemented by pale tones, like wash, composed of tiny dots obtained by dusting the plate with particles of resin. Equally important to these plates was the addition of very fine grooves scratched straight on the surface of the plate with a sharp tool. Such drypoint scratches in areas such as the profound blackness of the background or the muted shadows and deep lines around eyes and hands were graphic equivalents to the atmospheric brushstrokes on paintings.
The sequence of prints which follows is devoted to deception in various forms. People pretending to be something they are not, people deceiving each other; playing cruel tricks on the young and vulnerable, and men as well as women play their part in designs. Celestina and prostitutes appear in numerous prints and occasionally demonic or supernatural activities replace their dishonorable professional dealing. Young girls and aged women become fatalistic and sinister figures whose powers extend to interfering in the affairs of mortals.
The critics and reformers of religion in Goya’s days were eager to circulate new tales and often unverifiable statistics which exposed the Holy Office as major instrument of tyranny in Spain. Nevertheless, as Spain declined as major European power during the 17th and 18th centuries, so the mythology of Spanish Inquisitional terror acquired even greater credence in popular belief. Goya’s Inquisition designs mirror the opinion of his enlightened patrons, particularly the sympathy felt for victims of the Inquisition’s power. The etchings devoted to the Inquisition are resumed at one of the central images of the eighty prints is plate 43 “The dream of reason produces monsters”. Here Goya speaks of himself as an author, but he also a dreamer. The dream was a traditional device, used by artists and writers in Spain as well as in other European countries to introduce subjects of a fantastic, philosophical or obscure nature, and Goya initially considered calling these prints Sueños (Dreams) instead Caprichos.
The last section of the Caprichos is devoted to the bleak and threatening world of dark forces and supernatural phenomena. Witches, magicians and beings whose physical deformities reflect their inner corruption sustain a bitterly satirical narrative. Here Goya carves meaning into the substance of the figures themselves: limbs, eyes, heads, hands and feat are tailored, like clothes, the express the nature of their symbolic functions.
Undoubtedly, Los Caprichos can be also seen at the light of the Great French Revolution as a subtle political caricature, in which the new “Sublime” tastes for violence and scatological detail entered the vocabulary of the satirical broadsheet. These aspects atrreacted even the contemporaries of Goya. The Osuna family bought 4 copies of the complete work and were said to have held private charades in their country house where the king and queen and Manuel Godoy were played out as figures from Goya’s prints. Many contemporary admires of the Caprichos shared the Osuna’s belief that these prints caricatured many famous persons, but Goya himself goes to state that his work is entirely free from the demands of caricature.
In February 6, 1799 Goya advertised the prints in the the Madrid Daily newspaper and put them on sale in a shop beneath his own Madrid apartment, where luxury items such as scent and liqueurs were sold. Few sets were sold and Goya was left with some 240 on his hands, most of first edition. In 1803 he donated these, together with the copper plates, to the Royal Printworks, in exchange for pension for his son. The Museum of Foreign Art owns the second edition of Los Caprichos in its collection. The series is now first in Latvia exhibited fully. The exhibition exposes 78 sheets of Los Caprichos, as the collection of the Museum of Foreign Art lacks two sheets: no.25 (He still smashed the jug) and no.69 (Draught). The works are annotated by the comments made by Goya himself as well as by art historians, and by explanations with regard to the personalities and events in Spain at the end of the 18th century.

Only for five days - from October 8 till October 12 - the Museum of Foreign Art offers a unique possibility to visit an exhibition of rugs made by outstanding and internationally recognized designers. The exhibition Moonlight Caravan. A captivating journey through rug art - from Teheran to Berlin. is going to be one of the most precious pearls of the Days of Design this year.The exhibition is organized by the Museum of Foreign Art and the designed rug salon Krassky Arabesca.

The exhibition is arranged in four museum rooms, each presenting works by another artist, made in different techniques and design patterns. As the exhibition is going to last only for five days, we suggest you not hesitating with your visit.

The exhibition will present works by such prominent design artists as Jurgen Dahlmanns, Roya Sahrai, Michaela Schleypen and Jan Kath.

You can read more about the exhibition and the artists on the blog by Aigars Zelmenis, the author of the idea and the curator of the exhibition at www.menessgaismaskaravana.lv.

You are welcomed to watch the unique wayang theatre performance that have come to Riga from Indonesia only for one evening at the Museum of Foreign Art. We offer you two sessions of wayang performance combined with authentical Hindu dances and the traditional Indonesian gamelan music.

The only two wayang performances will take place in the evening of October 5 at 7.30 PM and at 9.00 PM.

Wayang is a traditional puppet shadow theatre form in Indonesia. The first record of a wayang performance is from an inscription dated 930 CE, and wayang today is the most ancient form of puppet theatre in the world that still has great popularity. The best known of the Indonesian wayang are wayang kulit, shadow puppets prevalent in Java and Bali in Indonesia. They are chiselled from buffalo’s skin at a very complicated process: they start from master models (typically on paper) which are traced out onto kulit or skin, then the details are worked through and finally, the movable parts are mounted on the body. The stories are usually drawn from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, however, nowadays more contemporary sources are used as well. The performance is accompanied by gamelan music. The puppeteer – dalang – performs creative, social and sacral functions, and art of puppetry was traditionally handed down within families. All the puppets are managed by only one dalang with an assistant.
However, the abundant wayang performances in the Foreign Art Museum will engage more than 25 participants from Indonesia who are going to supply the show.


Additional information:
Phone: +371 67226467, e-mail: arzemju.mm@inbox.lv

The first objects to be used as money by the people of China were natural seashells. This marked the beginning of a transition from the old system whereby goods were traded and bartered to a new age of monetary symbols. Then came the Bronze Age, during which the Chinese used their skills and wisdom to create a resplendent bronze culture. Bronze coins replaced shells as the currency of the age, and were supplemented by the circulation of precious metals such as gold and silver. With the emergence, growth and increase of marketplace trading, all kinds of money appeared and went into broad circulation. Following the historical developments of modern civilization, they gradually developed into the perfectly integrated credit and currency systems in place today. The history of money in China goes back more than 4000 years, and the types of money that have been used are many and varied, including ancient forms of money, gold and silver currency, copper coins, and paper money. The emergence of money gave people more freedom of movement and association. During every historical period or phase, the different materials and methods used in coining reflected not only political strength, but also the state of the economy and the level of technological development. Money has always been closely linked to the development of society. The changes and replacements of currencies tell a vivid story of the vicissitudes of nations, the rise and fall of dynasties, but also amply reflect the skill and imagination of the coiners who have made money into a rich, unique and exquisite art form. We sincerely hope that visitors to this exhibition will be able to further their knowledge and understanding of Chinese history and culture through an appreciation of the long history of Chinese money.

The exhibition presents the applied art of the far and exotic Orient: India, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam and Indonesia in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The manifold and abundant of traditions applied art of India is represented by woodcuts, bone and horn carvings, textiles, bijouterie, metal ware and varnished items. The filigree ivory figurines cut by explicit artistry are adorned with fine ornaments that resemble feathery lace. In the mellow black handicrafts made in the bidri technique the silver line glints as a approval of the mastery of the metal artists in India. Jewels and semiprecious stones, gold, silver, ivory have always been popular in India and even nowadays serve for the multitude of bijouterie that adorn the garment of women.
The applied art of the lands of the Indo-Chinese peninsula: Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam is represented by varnished metalware with inlaid pearl. The artistic style, decoration and design proclaim that handicraft art of these countries is tightly bounded to the art of other South-East Asian countries.
The small handicraft art collection of the island country Indonesia is a newcomer, mainly consisting of the items that were gifted to the Museum in 2009. It encloses the famous Indonesian batiks and Wayang puppet theatre with colourful openwork puppets that reflect upon the well-known story of the epic poem Ramayana . The high skillfulness of the Indonesian handicraft masters can be approved by the bronze vase with the fine engraving or the filigree silver carriage which has been devoted to the Museum of Foreign Art by Her Majesty Queen Hema Hamengku Buwono.

The Oriental art collection of the Musuem of Foreign Art is the only one in Latvia. The permanent exposition presents the art of China in 16th- 20th centuries.

On Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at 17.00 the Museum of Foreign Art will open the exhibition UNDISCOURAGED. LATVIAN TEXTILE ART, organized by Association of Latvian Textile Art will.

The exhibition represents the best works done by Latvian Textile Art Association during the last five years. More than 30 artists of different generations exhibited their works .Among them there are well-known and famous names such as Aija Baumane, Edite Pauls-Vignere, Daina Dagnija and others, including young authors.

The Association of Latvian Textile Art was founded in 1994 and at present there are around 100 professional artists. The aim of Association is to exchange information, to promote creative process in textile art and to involve young artists in the exhibitions.

Association regularly organizes exhibitions both in Latvia and abroad. The Latvian Textile Art has been shown in many states – in Estonia, Czech, Norway, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Spain, Poland, Lithuania, Belorussia, Australia and others, always receiving the highest appreciation for their outstanding artistic performance. The artists take part in international competitions and exhibitions in different countries winning high prizes. Every year Association of Textile Art arranges one common exhibition.

The artists use different kinds of materials for their creative works: natural and synthetics fibers, metal, wood, plastic and other traditional and nontraditional raw materials.

What is the most important at the exhibition that artists are looking for and find new ways of expressing themselves and technical solution, for instance, digital weaving, using magnetic surface, silk screening, photo printing and so on. We can also admire the exquisite classical tapestry, felt technique, textile mosaic, batik works and their different experiments with raw material.

The choice of material and technique is determined by each artist’s individual necessity and the theme of the of the art work. The range of the themes is extremely wide: from social theme to symbolical revelation; from philosophical perception to nature motive representation in variety of colors and forms. The visitor will be presented with wide range of artists interpretations in the art and each one will find something that pleases his eye and touches his soul.

Aija Baumane
President of Latvian Textile Art Association

The exhibition is situated in the Vault hall of the Museum – in the same place where the Latvian medal triennial tradition had its beginning 36 years ago, with the first exhibition in June, 1973. An important role at organizing this first exhibition belonged to the sculptress Valentīna Zeile.

At this triennial there are presented 122 new works by 31 author, and the range of the used materials is very wide – from metal (bronze, brass, copper, silver, aluminium, iron) to terracotta, porcelain, glass, marble and other stones. There are also medals made of combined materials.

Twelve participants of the exhibiton are members of FIDEM – The International Art Medal Federation, that was founded in Paris in 1937. Two of them live abroad: Uga Drava and Valentīna Zeile, the others work in Latvia: Andris Bērziņš, Ģirts Burvis, Roberts Diners, Ligita Franckeviča, Māra Mickeviča, Inese Nātriņa, Bruno Strautiņš, Jānis Strupulis, Antra Urtāne and Gunta Zemīte.

There are also eight debutants at the triennial. Four of them are already well-known medal artists: Maija Baltiņa, Arta Dumpe, Anita Jansone-Zirnīte and Inita Vilks; another four are novices at the medal art: Ilze Burkovska, Esmira Daurešova, Edgars Ošs and Egons Peršēvics.

Medals are eternal. Buildings turn to ruins, paper, fabric and wood burns and tatters, colours fade out, ceramics and marble gets cracked, but coins and medals can be found underground even after thousands of years.

Jānis Strupulis,
President of the Medal Art Association of Latvia, Representative of Latvia in FIDEM

The textile artists\\\\\\\' group was founded in 2001 in Germany\\\\\\\'s Rhine Main area. The group currently includes 14 textile artists showing their individual artistic style. Basic materials like paper, plastic, non wovens, metallics as well as hand-dyed, hand-printed or painted fabrics are used.
TEX 21 members are represented in prestigious juried national and international shows. Art quilts by group members are to be found in privately and publicly owned collections worldwide.
For this thematic exhibition - TEXTILE IMPRESSIONS - new multiple pieces were created. Possible interpretations such as: relationship, combination, convergence, contact, mutuality, dependence, contrast, etc. allowed varying approaches.

From May 16 till May 23 The Museum of Foreign Art in Riga organizes The Days of Indonesian Culture and Handicraft. The inhabitants and guests of Riga are welcomed to explore the sumptuous traditional culture of Indonesia.

The emphasis of the Indonesian art exhibition will be set on the famous batiks of Yogyakarta and Solo. The batik process will be revealed by one of the most prominent batik artists of the Sleman Regency (Java). Furthermore, dancers from the Prambanana temple are coming to Riga with their ritual Hindu dance performances that will be performed every day during the exhibition at repeated shows.
Alongside with the exhibition, films about the culture and nature of Indonesia will be projected; there will be available photographs about the temples, sultanats and casual life of Indonesia, the lectures about Indonesia will be held by Prof.Taivans (The University of Latvia), and Ingmārs Līdaka, Daiga Upeniece and Vita Ozoliņa will reveal their travel impressions of Indonesia.

For this unique opportunity to manage this project that for the first time is gives an embracing insight into the rich art and culture of Indonesia, we thank our supporters RIETUMU BANKA and participation of the Museum of Foreign Art at the exchange program for the education and culture of the Asian / European Foundation ASEF, that is arranged by ASEMUS - an organization that joins the Asian and European museums.

For more information please check the website of The Museum of Foreign Art at www.amm.lv or call +371 6776467.

The travelling exhibition „Dreams on Wheels” is devoted to the Danish cycling culture. It is an interactive artspace which reflects upon bicycles in the urban environment that suggests other cities and their inhabitants appreciating the freedom and charm of free moving on a bicycle and merges a cyclocentric approach and a model of continuously developing urban space. The author of the concept and the curator of the exhibition is Thomas Ermacora, founder of the Etikstudio. The initiative of the exhibition was first realized in 2002 in Paris, and up to now the exhibition the exhibition has travelled around the Europe and visited Australia. Latvia has the opportunity to have this exhibition thanks to support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Denmark and the Danish Cultural Institute. The exhibition is one of numerous events at the dialogue about the role of the bicycle in the urban environment and the transport flow of the city.
Together with the exhibition, in collaboration with the Royal Danish Embassy and the Cultural Institute of Denmark, a conference devoted to bicycle as an important means in urban planning will be taking place in April 16, and the school of safe cycling “Zaļā velospāre” for children will be taking place in April 25.

The exhibition “Dreams on Wheels” continues the dialogue with managers of the Riga City development plan in which cyclists shall become equivalent partners at the traffic flow. During the exhibition its visitors will be stimulated not only to get acquainted with the Danish experience, but also to suggest their ideas that would help Riga at becoming a friendly environment for bicycle drivers by answering to a questionnaire. All the respondents will participate in a lottery and win a bicycle. Besides that, during the exhibition the unique book “From Leitner till Ehrenpreis.100 Years of Bicycle Manufacturing in Latvia” by Jānis Seregins and Edvīns Liepiņš will be on sale in the Museum.

The exhibition is supplemented by the bicycles manufactured in Latvia in 1920’s and 30’s supported by the Riga Motor Museum, the antique bicycle from late 19th century supported by the Riga History and navigation Museum and original bikes supported by the Riga freakbike drivers “Apocalypse Drivers” who create their bike models using details of old bicycles and scrap metal, mostly concentrating on weird outlook of the vehicle and uniqueness of the creative idea.

“Dreams on Wheels” applies to all inhabitants of Riga and Latvia, who want to think green, whose everyday transport is bicycle, and also claims to others to join the cycling culture. It will be promoted by help of the special gift to the cyclists – visitors are invited to arrive at the opening ceremony on their bikes, and during all the exhibition there will be remarkable discounts for those who will come to the museum on their bicycles.

Flora Metamorphicae is an artistic exploration project where flower-like ceramic objects interact with different spaces, from the seashore to different galleries.

Six ceramists: Kari Aasen, Lippa Dalén, Siri Haaskjold, Bjørg Hougen, Audhild Rypdal and Eli Veim – all of whom have backgrounds from Bergen National Academy of the Arts – have been working on the project during the past four years. Each of the artists work individually with shaping the ceramic flowers. The artistic idea is to have a large amount of flowers with a diverse expression, as elements in different installations, both outdoors and indoors.

The artist group Flora Metamorphicae has chosen a descriptive name. They are working with flowers and transformation. Not only a thematic transformation of flowers as a theme, but also an exceeding, esthetic transformation of the conventional framework of ceramics. The first is about form and the use of symbols. The other is about a transformation of well-established forms of expressions. Both implicate testing of different forms of exhibition and exhibition environments. This testing is done both inside and outside of the traditional art gallery.
Both in motive and material Flora Metamorphicae's ceramic flowers are charged with a traditional symbolism connected to nature's cyclic rhythm - from conception and birth to death and decay. People started quite early to decorate jars and vessels with simple flower motives, but it was not until the epoch-making production of porcelain and faience in the 15th century that flower decorated ceramics started playing a prominent part in Western art and design history. In this context we may interpret Flora Metamorphicae's project as a challenge to tradition. They hold on to the basic elements - clay, flowers and their inherent symbolism - but they also let the individual components undergo a transformation. The flowers don't only appear as painted decor while the clay - or the vessel - plays the part as canvas. The flowers themselves are the motives, both as form and content, picture and sculpture.
It is a common view that the most complete conceptual art experience is connected to the vague passage between representation and reality. The artist and theoretic Joseph Kosuth (b. 1945) wished to reveal the characteristics of the chair as a chair - its so called "chairness" - with his work of art One and Three Chairs (1965). By exhibiting an ordinary chair, a photo of a chair and a copy of the lexical definition of the word "chair" he wanted to express the idea chair as the real work of art. Through Kosuth's move from the concrete to the abstract, from reality to conceptions, the viewer was involved in the work of art in an unreserved and direct way, but he had to find meaning in the underlying structures himself. Similar mechanisms are triggered when Flora Metamorphicae lavish their ceramic flowers. By placing one or several flowers in strange environments they both explore the complex relations between nature and culture and the mutual dependence between site, work of art and viewer. The unexpected meetings trigger social processes and an entirely new consciousness of the sites' backgrounds and symbolic values.
With the project "Flora i fjæra" ("Flora at ebb and flow") Flora Metamorphicae's explorations found its most expressive form. Under the land art exhibition "Spor i landskap" on Tyssøy (2005) several hundred ceramic flowers were placed on a small beach. The site was chosen with great care in regard to the ebb and flow. The purpose of this installation was to show how the impression of the flowers changed with the tides, the weather and the light. At high tide the sea water covered the flowers completely, and at low tide the flowers dried among stones, shells and seaweeds. Between these extremes the water played around the petals. The viewer continually could se new, procedural elements in this work of arts that was constantly changeable.
Flora Metamorphicae's interest in different environments have evident precursor in the 1970s’ land of art. The sculptor Robert Smithson (1938-73) was an initiator here. He created objects of art at outlying places and incorporated geological and physical processes in the works of art so it became part of an even greater process; nature itself, dependent on erosion, destruction and entropy. Smithson made a point of operating at almost inaccessible places - or sites - but he didn't quite succeed in emancipating himself from the fixed framework of the galleries. By means of so-called non-sites, photo documentation, film and other means of expression, he brought the site specific works of art back into the traditional gallery. Here the viewer could reconstruct the works of art conceptually, something that placed the art in a new and challenging position; somewhere between physical presence and actual absence.
We see similar outlines in Flora Metamorphicae's project. As Smithson presumed on the dialectics between sites and non-sites Flora Metamorphicae presume on the flowers' return to the gallery. When Krypten at Hordaland Kunstsenter are filled with a flora of colorful ceramics, the flowers bring with them rust and grains of sand on their petals. The flowers have been roaming, and now they return to the well-known sphere of the gallery. The inconstant is manifested. The viewer experiences both the present and the past. Flora Metamorphicae themselves prove to be changeable and to have changeable intentions - in the service of flowers and art.

The subject of the exhibition includes numerous love affairs of Prince Genji, depicted in the 19th century novel Nise Murasaki Inaka Genji ( The False Murasaki and Rustic Genji ) by Ryutei Tanehiko. The novel follows the story-line of the original novel Genji monogatari ( The Tale of Genji ) by Lady Murasaki Shikibu ( 978 – 1014 ).
The novel became a series that were published from 1827 till 1841 and due to its large popularity became the first Japanese bestseller. Its publicity was promoted by picturesque illustrations that were made by Kunisada ( Utagawa Toyokuni III, the artistic leader of the Utagawa School since 1844 ) after Tanehiko’s sketches. The result was that Toyokuni III and his students became the official designers pf Genji prints. After Ryutei Tanehiko’s death Toyokuni III continued working on Genji theme, often producing his own plot. These Genji illustrations set background for a new Genji-e genre in the traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock printing art which concentrated on reflecting upon contemporary plots and casual life. Nise Murasaki Inaka Genji incarnates 19th century bourgeois concept about la vita bella, and the works of this genre stand out for their colourfulness and adornment. As the novel’s fame spread century after century to an ever wider public, some of its scenes became set-pieces for artists working in a variety of different forms ranging from huge, twelve-fold screens down to tiny netsuke.
Not only are the achievements of Ukiyo-e exploited in Genji-e but also all the palettes of themes from Japanese classic art of the previous centuries, like genre scenes widespread in triptychs or the accentuated glorification of the beauty of nature’s seasonal changes. These changes in nature shape the Japanese people who live constantly in their midst, from the everyday experience to their view on human existence.

The exhibition comprises works by various artists of the Utagawa School in order to make acquainted with different artistic manners of the same school. The exposition consists of 25 triptychs and 11 separate pages. Accordingly to the seasonal theme of the Japanese art, the works are arranged upon their reference to a particular time of the year.

The exhibition is supported by the Embassy of Japan in Riga.

The exhibition introduces an obscure field of the culture of our country, - iconography in Latvia. The tradition of iconography in Latvia has history of several centuries, however, this tradition fully flourished only in the 20th century, when such prominent artists as Gavriil Frolov, Pimen Sofronov, Sergiy Leonov, Yevgeny Ivanov, Maxim Belogrudov a.o. lived and created their works in Latvia. Orthodox believers and old-believers – these artists made admirable works while the tradition of iconography in Russia experienced hard times. Their surprisingly beautiful icons now adorn Orthodox and Old-believers churches in Latvia and also the houses of the faithful. Nevertheless, there is very little information about their creative work, and no exhibitions of their works have been arranged in Riga until now. Therefore this exhibition calls in everybody who appreciates and wants to explore Orthodox sacral art. It is evidence that the tradition of iconography in Latvia has survived the long period of atheist oppression. The tradition is now carried on by our contemporaries – iconography artists whose works now form the present exhibition.
The earliest of the ca. 80 icons of the exhibition dates back to the 19th century, and the newest belong to the 21st century. Still the most part of the works are made in the 20th century. The icons are created by 37 artists who have lived and worked in Latvia. All the icons are made by the ancient Russian icon painting tradition that has been running continuously until now, always appreciated by the Church and the faithful. The organizers of the exhibition – The Orthodox Church of Latvia and The Old-Believers Church of Latvia in Pomora, together with the Museum of Foreign Art, hope that the exhibition will become an outstanding event in the cultural life of Latvia and that it will speak to everyone’s heart.