The Purvītis Prize 2025
The NINTH Purvītis Prize exhibition is on view in the Great Hall of the main building of the Latvian National Museum of Art in Riga (Jaņa Rozentāla laukums 1) from 12 April to 8 June 2025.
The exhibition comprises a spectacular display of paintings, graphics, sculptures, objects, and installations created by eight artists and groups of authors shortlisted by a panel of independent experts for the ninth Purvītis Prize for outstanding achievement in visual art of Latvia in 2023 and 2024. The candidates are Indriķis Ģelzis, Romāns Korovins, Ieva Kraule-Kūna, Inga Meldere and Luīze Nežberte, Luīze Rukšāne, Krišs Salmanis, Elza Sīle, Paula Zvane. The exhibition is curated by Daiga Rudzāte.
In all, 24 artists / collectives of artists, whose works have been recognised as important events within Latvia’s visual art scene during the period from 1 January 2023 until 31 December 2024, were nominated for the final competition of the Purvītis Prize 2025.
Head of the panel of experts Arta Vārpa comments: “The following tendencies become obvious considering both the quarterly nominations and the shortlisted eight artists. First, alongside well-established authors, artists representing the younger generation are convincingly making a name for themselves on the Latvian art scene – equipped with international art education and embarking on an international career yet also clearly looking for opportunities to show in Latvia, although frequently unable to access the required resources and art infrastructure for that. Second, there is an increasing tendency for mutual collaboration. Artists (and curators, as well as people representing other areas) create joint projects, interact nonhierarchically and form dialogues with the art of previous generations. The finalists’ exhibitions stand out with their intense messages, tying their art to acute global issues. Several of the projects are permeated with a sense of global and individual threat; artists also offer strategies for overcoming hard times and apocalyptic scenarios.”
The Purvītis Prize 2025 candidates
Indriķis Ģelzis
has been nominated for the Watery Day’s Eye solo exhibition at the Kim? Contemporary Art Centre (25.08.–08.10.2023).
Justification of the nomination: “Indriķis Ģelzis’ ‘weary daisies’ are an identity hashtag not merely for the image of Latvia but also the whole of Europe. It is an identity of endless crises and self-crush that goes on relentlessly analysing, analysing and analysing while never stopping having fun, having fun, having fun. The exhibition is like an epically surreal endgame, the result of which we never witness. And yet the existential presence of the superheroes (the exhibited works) in the neurotically rhythmic melancholy produced by colours, lights and sounds triggers anxiety. A formally outstanding fusion of chaste modernist expression and Baudrillardesque consumerist passions – as far as I am concerned, the two most significant contemporary art codes,” says Inga Šteimane, art critic and curator, the Head of the Dubulti Art Station.
Romāns Korovins
has been nominated for the Let’s Die Together solo exhibition at the Rothko Museum in Daugavpils (01.03.–19.05.2024).
Justification of the nomination: “In his Let’s Die Together exhibition, Romāns Korovins addresses controlling another person as the stupidest thing to engage in and the most pointless one to rely on in a relationship. Be it in love, in hate, in our dreams or in the mundane details of our life, we are all first ‘married’ to the never-ending story about the world continuously told by the self to the self, and only then to one another. What one of us has, the other one does not. Moreover, it is all about nuances, accents, commas that can transform the meaning. And yet it is the details that constitute the largest contact surface, and Korovins’ pairs of landscapes with their visual micro-discrepancies show this very substantial difference. The form of Korovins’ paintings lends itself to the purpose most excellently – the small size, more typical for observational sketches; the ‘washed’ brush strokes reminiscent of shorthand writing; the seemingly non-articulated chalky colour scheme that wraps the green, the pale blue, the brown and the barely-there rosy in a greyish-white noise. The exhibition is refreshing with its minimalist scenography where a towel slipped off the dryer, the sound of a solitary song and empty nails in the wall instil more optimism than the calls for making the world better we tend to hear elsewhere,” art critic Inga Šteimane explains the panel’s choice.
Ieva Kraule-Kūna
has been nominated for the Glutton solo exhibition at the 427 Gallery (27.09.–03.11.2024).
Justification of the nomination: “There are different kinds of gluttons. There are some who absolutely must try out all the latest things, obtain the best, the most expensive, the shiniest stuff. In others, the gluttony overlaps with the ‘practical Latvian character’ calling for yet another summer squash, yet another sack of potatoes as described by Ieva Kraule-Kūna in her accompanying text for the exhibition. Interestingly, in the context of this region, both types of gluttony can be explained if viewed through the lens of Soviet-era destitution and uniformity. On the one hand, it is about the desire to escape it through total integration into the wheel of capitalism; on the other, there is this tendency to stick with the spirit of prudence, frugality and informal economy. The endless desire and a feeling that we are devouring ourselves through this gluttony are both present in the space created by the artist, populated mostly by ceramic objects fired in her own furnace. They are, however, also soothed by the thought that perhaps there is a midway to be found after all: perhaps there is a way of living in the country while not cutting all ties with the city, buying the things that we need while not consuming the planet,” comments Inga Lāce, Central and Eastern Europe Fellow at MoMA (New York), curator at the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art.
Inga Meldere and Luīze Nežberte
have been nominated for the Sunpoles duo exhibition at the Kim? Contemporary Art Centre (21.09.–01.11.2024).
Justification of the nomination: “The exhibition Sunpoles is a successful attempt to combine historical research with contemporary art by presenting a unique vision of the Latvian architectural heritage. Inga Meldere and Luīze Nežberte have created a spatial installation that serves as a dialogue between various art forms and generations while addressing the issues of identity, authenticity and sustainability of cultural values. The exhibition stands out with its use of novel materials, natural pigments and an ecologically grounded approach. Its multilayered message reveals ways of reinventing traditional forms and making them come alive again in contemporary art. Sunpoles combines high artistic skill with sensitive and profoundly thought-through content, presenting an outstanding example of merging historical and contemporary art to achieve a new level of quality,” emphasizes Katrīna Jaunupe, board member of Mākslai vajag telpu [Art Needs Space] Foundation.
Luīze Rukšāne
has been nominated for the Folding Lines solo exhibition at the art space TUR_telpa (19.01.–17.02.2024).
Justification of the nomination: “A very empathetic and empathy-evoking exhibition. What has been folded into Folding Lines by Luīze Rukšāne is something deeply personal yet also universal: the generational ties of the female line of a family. (..) The show reveals inquisitive relationships filled with care and love, told in an authentic art language. Not least, the textile installation created by stitching together pieces of fabric saved up by the older generation (thrifty because closely acquainted with need and shortage), revealing various ‘folding lines’, is so powerful that it makes me believe: this patchwork of bedsheets and linen towels can indeed build a bridge across any generation gap, bringing both sides closer to each other,” says Arta Vārpa, Curator of the Latvian Sculpture Collection at the Latvian National Museum of Art.
Krišs Salmanis
has been nominated for the Bitter solo exhibition at the Kim? Contemporary Art Centre (05.05.–11.06.2023).
Justification of the nomination: “With its shudderingly accurate, laconic objects, akin to readymades yet commodious, the exhibition reveals the lasting impact of the Soviet occupational regime on the Latvian cultural space and mentality. The artist compares the Soviet legacy to life in the symbolic realm, and the symbols are bitter and scary. An installation worthy of special mention is a set of vatniks a.k.a. telogreikas – cotton-wool padded jackets – attributed to an expensive Western clothing brand and featuring extremely long – and even longer – sleeves and price labels reading ‘2014’ and ‘2022’, pointing to the danger posed by the imperial ambitions currently casting a shadow not just over Ukraine but also the rest of Europe. This is an exhibition about the unresolved and the tragic consequences left in its wake,” considers Arta Vārpa, art historian.
Elza Sīle
has been nominated for the Bunny’s Banya / Fear & Trembling solo exhibition at the exhibition hall Riga Contemporary Art Space (07.09.–27.10.2024).
Justification of the nomination: “The underground exhibition space invites us to enter a labyrinth; however, there are no walls or barriers of a physical location: the zigzags created by Elza are experienced mentally, empathetically and on the level of bodily sensation. To date, the modular models of the world created by the artist have been at a 1:1 scale, seeing the visitor encounter human-made nature and the decline of the Anthropocene dominant. It feels somewhat chilly and hopeful here and it is also quite easy to lose your way: this is no longer the realm of things, a diktat of commerce or a curfew following an unknown panic consuming the world. The intuitive clues laid out by Elza Sīle do not impose any restrictions on following various scenarios of further developments: everybody is offered a choice of veering toward utopia or dystopia; a skilful labyrinth weaver, the artist has created the right environment that equips everybody on this journey of finding their way with tools for creating the world anew,” says Antra Priede, curator, art historian and Vice-Rector in Study Work at the Art Academy of Latvia.
Paula Zvane
has been nominated for the Invisible solo exhibition at the LOOK! Gallery (02.–24.02.2024).
Justification of the nomination: “It may appear that Paula Zvane is closer to the modernist autonomous approach to materials and techniques: she is more interested in dreaming up and creating new materials than using the collectively much-overused readymades. And yet there is room for collectively developed contemporary political viewpoints in Zvane’s oeuvre. Her art is figuratively focussed, and yet it is not a human figure that holds the centre spot. A mole, a hairy star, a plant or materialised energy may be equally important. It seems that sensation-based aesthetic judgments are one of Zvane’s main formal criteria: the artist gravitates toward atypical undeclared beauty,” tells Inga Šteimane, art critic and curator.
The Purvītis Prize 2025
The winner of the Purvītis Prize 2025 will be named by an international jury of seven art professionals after assessing the performance of each nominee at the joint exhibition. Members of the jury are: Māra Lāce, Director of the Latvian National Museum of Art; Jānis Zuzāns, patron of the Purvītis Prize, Chairman of the Board of SIA Alfor; René Block, one of Germany’s leading art world figures, curator for numerous international biennials and exhibitions, the founder of Kunsthal 44 Møen in Denmark, where he held the post of Artistic Director through 2024; Nicolas Bourrieaud, curator for numerous international biennials and exhibitions, art theoretician and writer, until 2021, he held the position of Director of Montpellier Contemporain (MoCo) in France; Rhea Dall, the Director of the Overgaden experimental art institution in Copenhagen; Marina Fokidis, independent curator, writer and educator based in Athens, Greece, founder of the Kunsthalle Athena centre for arts (2010–2015) and the South as a State of Mind magazine, co-curator of SPARK Art Fair 2024; Vita Liberte, a lawyer, art collector and patron of the arts, the founder of VV Foundation, a charitable foundation supporting emerging creatives, and Pāvilosta Artists’ Residency (PaiR).
The laureate of the Purvītis Prize 2025 will be announced on 23 May.
The Purvītis Prize
The Purvītis Prize is the most prestigious and the most substantial visual art award in Latvia. Founded in January 2008, the Purvītis Prize was launched to amass regular and systematic information about the latest visual arts events in Latvia, promote development of new projects and original ideas, acknowledge the best achievements in Latvian professional visual arts and popularise the success of Latvian artists both in Latvia and abroad.
The award is named after the Old Master of Latvian painting Vilhelms Purvītis (1872–1945). He was an outstanding artist and art professor who won critical acclaim both at home and internationally. A wise and farsighted culture politician, Vilhelms Purvītis was an active supporter of the young artists of the time and discovered a number of talented painters who later played important roles on the Latvian art scene. The name of Vilhelms Purvītis has become a sign of national identity, both in the history of Latvian art and in the eyes of the general public.
The Purvītis Prize is awarded biannually to an artist or a group of artists representing Latvia with outstanding work, which is deemed to be deeply connected to the developments of the era and forming a bridge between contemporary life, spiritual ideals and intrinsic values. The artist rated highest by a panel of experts and a specially established international jury is selected as the winner. The Prize is 28 500 EUR (including taxes).
The first Purvītis Prize was awarded in 2009 to Katrīna Neiburga for her video work Solitude. Artist Kristaps Ģelzis became the second winner of the Purvītis Prize in 2011 for his solo exhibition Varbūt (Maybe). The third Purvītis Prize in 2013 has won Andris Eglītis for his one-man show Zemes darbi (Soil Works). The fourth winner of the Purvītis Prize in 2015 was Miķelis Fišers for his personal exhibition Netaisnība (Disgrace). The Purvītis Prize 2017 went to a group of artists – Krišs Salmanis, Anna Salmane and Kristaps Pētersons – for their exhibition Dziesma (Song). The sixth Purvītis Prize was awarded in 2019 to artist Ieva Epnere for her personal exhibition Sea of Living Memories. Artist Amanda Ziemele became the seventh winner of the Purvītis Prize in 2021 for her solo exhibition Quantum Hair Implants. The Purvītis Prize 2023 went to Ance Eikena for her solo exhibition Our Heavenly Father.
The Purvītis Prize competition in visual arts is organised by the Latvian National Museum of Art in co-operation with SIA Alfor and SIA Culture Project Agency ‘INDIE’ (Kultūras projektu aģentūra “INDIE”). Along with the presentation of the 9th Purvītis Prize, SIA Alfor and Jānis Zuzāns conclude collaboration with the Purvītis Prize institution.
The project is supported by SIA Alfor.
Project idea and implementation:
The event is included in the "Riga Art Week" (RAW),which takes place from May 26 to June 1.
We invite you to familiarize yourself with the event program.
