Māra Vaičunas. Beyond
From 5 September 2026 to 14 March 2027, as part of The Generation cycle, the exhibition Māra Vaičunas. Beyond is on view in the right wing galleries on the 2nd floor of the main building of the Latvian National Museum of Art in Riga (Jaņa Rozentāla laukums 1).
What do we know about Māra Vaičunas? Almost nothing. She exists outside places of gathering, outside the crowd. Is it an intentional defence of her creative freedom? Quite possibly. This is the first larger exhibition of Māra Vaičunas’ oeuvre at the Latvian National Museum of Art.
Māra Vaičunas speaks about things that are easier to paint than to tell someone or confide in them. This muteness and seclusion was a way of living her life, keeping tightly to herself, in her lovely days (a title of Māra’s work), painting.
In the art scene which Māra Vaičunas entered, especially in painting, where conceptual weight and figuration was the highest, fullest expression of an idea, her works did not find a place. Her forms, having overcome gravity, were at that point where the body no longer had the experience, and that already was a conversation beyond the official vocabulary.
If we only look at her still lifes of vessels and flowers, and her few landscapes, we remain on the surface – an exterior that is, in itself, well worth examining. The canvas or the wooden panel is the starting point for a painterly problem and the stage for a commentary on life. Forms, colours, lines are a combination of a clear idea and potentiality, shoving objects around, bringing movement, chasing away nature’s static silence from her paintings. Forms are often transparent, almost without weight, without volume. If they are filled, then densely, monochromatically, on a plane. There is even harshness. Nothing mixes or overlaps, but remains opaque. Simplicity and clarity reach as far as the field of abstraction or draw from the Cubists in their obliteration of the wholeness of forms, yet Māra accomplishes this effortlessly, without stress.
What objects are these and do they have a function? Not really. Where would they belong – in a space that is pleasant to be in, outside of everything, where it is necessary to be, where one must be. Perhaps this freedom was what, during Māra’s time, was not acknowledged by the shapers of artistic life, who only recognised the decorative qualities, since the familiar course of thinking related to the execution of socially engaged, significant themes was not to be found here. Māra’s works remain as though outside the active bustle of art, beyond what is deemed mandatory. Yet it cannot be seen as a mistake or Māra Vaičuna’s failure as an artist – it was her conscious choice.
Featuring works by Felicita Pauļuka (1925–2014), Līvija Endzelīna (1927–2008), Baiba Vegere (1948), Antonija Lutere (1946), Inga Meldere (1979), Amanda Ziemele (1990), and Georgs Šenbergs (1915–1989), the exhibition presents creative peers and kindred spirits who broaden the conversation with and about Māra Vaičunas. By placing the artist within this context instead of leaving her isolated, her painted works find their fitting environment, where it is good to be, outside the crowd.
Māra Vaičunas (1949–2019) graduated from the Department of Ceramics at the Art Academy of Latvia in 1976 with her diploma work – a ceramic wall panel for the Valmiera Dairy Plant. Having completed her studies, she no longer worked in ceramics, since her original goal had been painting. The artist took part in exhibitions since 1977.
Text by Ilze Putniņa
About the exhibition cycle The Generation
Each generation belongs to an era. The Latvian National Museum of Art’s (LNMA) exhibition cycle The Generation began in 2016, focusing on art of the second half of the 20th century. The cycle’s programme is realised in the 4th Floor Exhibition Halls and since 2021 also in the right wing exposition halls on the 2nd floor of the main building of LNMA. The exhibitions devoted to many important figures in Latvian art have been held, such as Boriss Bērziņš, Felicita Pauļuka, Daina Riņķe, Henrijs Klēbahs, Līvija Endzelīna, Hilda Vīka, Gunārs Krollis, Džemma Skulme, Romualds Geikins, Daina Dagnija, Jānis Pauļuks, Māra Kažociņa, Inta Celmiņa, Auseklis Baušķenieks, Gunārs Cīlītis, Jānis Aivars Karlovs, Biruta Baumane, Lea Dāvidova-Medene, Imants Vecozols, Rūsiņš Rozīte, Biruta Delle, Aija Jurjāne, Rolands Kaņeps, Gunārs Binde, Līga Purmale, Māra Vaičunas.
