Other events in Baltic States

Annual international contest exhibition of MuseumLV gallery and cultural centre Grata JJ "GRATA BALVA" opens its doors to visitors and artists for the third time. Back in the spring, despite all the difficulties of the situation, more than 150 artists received an invitation from the gallery to prepare their works for the contest on theme “#artefact#fifthcivilization”. Professional artists from Latvia, France, Estonia, Lithuania, Russia, Belarus, China and England expressed their wish to take part in the project. Unfortunately, due to the current situation, the works of foreign authors could not arrive, therefore this year more than two hundred works of Latvian artists were supplemented by works of foreign colleagues from the fund of previous exhibitions of GRATA BALVA, reports  MuseumLV in its press release.

The GRATA prize is actually two prizes from the MuseumLV gallery fund, 500 Euros each. Representatives of the MuseumLV gallery choose their nominee based on the principle of a long-term, fruitful relationship between the gallery and the author and present the GRATA prize at the opening ceremony of the contest exhibition. Friends and colleagues of the Grata JJ cultural center, who have expressed their wish to support any of the participants in the competition, also award their prizes. The fate of the second GRATA prize is determined by the visitors of the exhibition, who can vote for their favorite works or art objects during the entire duration of the exhibition. The "Audience Choice Award" is awarded to the winner after summing up the results at the opening ceremony of the next exhibition at the gallery. In order to preserve the format of a fair vote, all paintings and art objects are presented with numbers without mentioning the names of the authors. Each spectator has the opportunity to award his vote to the work he chooses by indicating the number of the work on his ticket directly in the gallery, or online, by marking a photo of the work on the web page of MuseumLV and Grata JJ in the section "Blog - Grata Balva 2020 - works". Authors’ works in other techniques and materials will also find their place in the exhibition, and moreover, each participant can exhibit one or two more thematically relevant works in order to enrich the personal context. A complete catalog of works is available at the MuseumLV web page, and all works are available for purchase. The sponsor of the GRATA award is company Grata Eco House, manufacturer of ecological houses. This year all the involved artists have been provided with canvases - either square - 40x40 cm or round - 40 cm in diameter. These are the artworks that will be judged. “#artefact#fifthcivilization” is the name and theme of the contest exhibition of the 2020. 

The swift synergy of fundamental and applied sciences gives rise to various theories regarding the origin of the Universe, the formation of the planet Earth, the emergence and development of intelligent life and the possible civilizations that have existed before ours. How can we know if we are the first reflective creatures that live in this remote place – on the Planet Earth, which is situated in the Solar system, in the Orion sleeve of Milky Way galaxy, part of our Local galaxy group within the Virgo cluster, which is part of Laniakea superclaster within the Pisces-Whale supercluster complex, all that being a part of the Perseus-Pegasus Galactic Filament... Will we have the chance to find the answer to this question about our birthright within our lifetime? Or perhaps we are on a threshold of the next stage of our development, where completely different tasks will present themselves? We can not know the history of tomorrow, nor can we know what role we may assume within the next 24 hours. Only today is obvious, and only today we have the possibility to create an artefact to prove our existence in the history of our home and to leave it to our future selves, be it an identification mark, a sign of presence, a vivid stroke or a watercolor image. We define the day we live in and thus we proceed to the day called tomorrow, and claim our right to have another happy day on this planet. According to Marx Wartofsky, “an artefact is for the evolution of culture what a gene is for the biological evolution”.

We are grateful to friends and colleagues of the MuseumLV gallery and Grata JJ cultural center: sporting goods store chain «Sportland» and art supplies stores – Galerija «M6», «Radošo Darbu Galerija», «Vilhelms» and «Vilori», who expressed a desire to support the participants of the competition with their prizes.

The exposition is located on both floors of the MuseumLV gallery. The entrance ticket costs 5 euros, the reduced admission is 2 euros.