Boundary partitions on both sides. The exhibition of the Latvian National Art Museum offers a change of perspective / Diena

“The dramaturgy of the exhibition follows the deconstruction of the male gaze, inviting us to celebrate the long-ignored diversity of lust in female and queer erotic art,” emphasize the creators of the exhibition. Among them are art scholar Līna Birzak-Priekule, LNMM exhibition curator Laura Brokāne and philosopher Igors Gubenko.

Cabinet of admiration

The entrance to this exhibition is down the stairs, which have usually served as the exit of other expositions. “We are going against the current,” says Lina Birzak-Priekule. It starts with installation Cabinet of admiration, which plays out the nexus of collecting, visual pleasure, and gender inequality in erotic art theory. “This is a reference to the cabinet of wonders, which is the genealogical predecessor of public museums. Here we have collected an eclectic and visually pleasing selection from the LNMM’s sculpture collection. These are all works created by men, through their gaze creating the female body as a desirable object, not at all interested in her thoughts and feelings,” says Igor Gubenko.

The next room is dedicated to the media that have shaped people’s perception of lust throughout the ages. Works created for wider social consumption, but at the same time maintaining a connection with the art world, are exhibited here – from Sigismund Vidberg’s works to Gunnar Windedge’s erotic alphabet series. There is also a showcase with magazines – including a local edition Lantern with a photo shoot by Ralfs Vulis. “It’s a story that is popular among the museum employees themselves – in the mid-nineties, an erotic photo session was held at the Museum of Foreign Art (now the Riga Stock Exchange Art Museum) near the ancient and renaissance sculpture casts, which cost the then head of the Museum of Foreign Art her job,” reveals L. Birzak-Priekule.

At the crossroads of topics

The exhibition in the large hall is introduced by doctor Jānis Zālīš’s essay on sexual education In love on behalf of sketches of the illustrations included in the second edition, created by the artist Edgars Ozoliņš. Because of these pictures, as well as “intimate details and detailed descriptions”, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Latvia once decided to destroy this litter. “The book in this exhibition fulfills the function of a dividing line – on the one hand, it became a victim of censorship due to the too explicit representation of lust, on the other hand, this book itself was an instrument that censored the variety of lust that we show in this exhibition,” emphasizes I. Gubenko .

In the section Change of view is continued at last year’s exhibition Just don’t cry! Feminist views in Latvian art criticism of the marginalization of women’s art in the recent history of LNMM. The common denominator of the exhibited works is “emphasis on women’s agency in contrast to the role of passive objects of desire in the tradition of the male gaze”, describe the creators of the exhibition. In their works, women symbolically recover and recreate the nude genre, tenderly take care of those close to them, reflect on oppressive beauty standards, share difficult experiences and engage in emancipating sexual practices.

The work of Rasmas Bruzīte can be seen here in the sauna, which echoes the award-winning documentary by Estonian director Anna Hints Sisterhood of the Black BathAnna Dzerve’s photo Katrina, which expresses resistance to suddenly resurfaced memories of some past pain, the work of transwoman Ksenia Tarasova Satan which reflects on the experience of sexual violence, Ingrīda Picukāne’s video I am beautifulwhich deconstructs the ideas of what a woman should be, etc. New work The forbidden fruit created for this exhibition by a duo of female artists Needle Braden, which creates a dialogue not only with the previous provocative chandelier Hindsight is 20/20, but also with the whole exhibition and placed at the crossroads between all the themes it deals with.

An integral part

At the exhibition In the name of lust its curators have also focused on the self-portrait genre in the section Self love. “In this era of selfies and social networks, we found it interesting to return to the artistic self-portrait and reveal the artist’s relationship with his image, which offers a wide range of emotions – from passionate attachment to alienation and self-aggression,” says I. Gubenko. Likewise, the diversity of lust trajectories is revealed in the exhibition, confirming the universal importance of such apparently marginal phenomena as narcissism, masochism and fetishism and encouraging reflection on the imagined abnormal as an integral part of the norm.

For the first time in the history of LNMM, a wide collection of Baltic LGBT+ art is also presented in the section I long for in which queer artists of different generations reflect on their identity and manifest their long time in a heteronormative post-socialist society. “Also, we, as curators, invite visitors to the exhibition to see queer lust in the works of Soviet-era artists – to discover the homoerotic dimension, which was not visible to their authors and the original audience, but which cannot be overlooked with today’s eyes,” urges I. Gubenko.

The exhibition ends with a video by Dace Jeriņa Liberation, which was one of the first works selected for this exhibition, adds L. Birzaka-Priekule. More information: Lnmm.lv.