Jānis Avotiņš. Distances
Distances, a solo exhibition of Jānis Avotiņš, is on view at the Art Museum RIGA BOURSE in Riga (Doma laukums 6) from 30 May to 23 August 2026.
The concept of Jānis Avotiņš’ exhibition has developed in response to the architectural aesthetics of the Art Museum RIGA BOURSE. The museum’s Great Exhibition Hall, with its fully uncovered windows flooded with daylight and views onto the various perspectives of Old Riga, evokes the most magnificent Western European metro and railway stations built in eclectic and neoclassical styles. This has prompted the artist to continue investigating, in painting, the figure–space relationships characteristic of his work, concentrating the tensions of time, history and politics within the charged, intimate surface of the canvas.
In this exhibition, Jānis Avotiņš opts to work with the core of the fundamental idea that has shaped his practice to date: the recognisable historical connotations of one- or two-person figures in his paintings. The source is a photograph taken in Latvia before the Second World War, in the 1920s. From a bird’s-eye perspective, it shows several hundred people gathered in a broad open-air square around a large empty rectangle, at the centre of which, a ceremony, possibly military in nature, is taking place, although it is more likely an awards ceremony for Girl Guides or Scouts. The ceremony protagonists are so tiny that only their outlines and choreographic constellation allow us to sense what is happening. In much closer proximity to the viewer, only backs, silhouettes and figures are visible... Photography is not part of the exhibition. Textual elaboration of philosophical metaphors is not part of the exhibition concept.
The exposition presents new works only and forms part of the Art Museum RIGA BOURSE exhibition series in which representatives of contemporary art engage with the museum’s historical heritage.
About the artist
Jānis Avotiņš received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Art Academy of Latvia and completed a traineeship at the University of Manchester. Since 2004, he has regularly held solo exhibitions internationally, collaborating with IBID Gallery in London and Los Angeles, Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle in Munich, Vera Munro Gallery in Hamburg, and AKINCI Gallery in Amsterdam, while also participating in numerous international group exhibitions.
Jānis Avotiņš’ works are in the collection of the Latvian National Museum of Art as well as in significant private collections across Europe, the United States and Japan, including those of prominent collectors François Pinault, Charles Saatchi, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, and the Rubell Family Collection. The artist has received several awards, among them the Jean-François Prat Art Prize in Paris.
