Publications

UNTITLED

“Untitled”
There are several titles I could use for this exhibition – “Eastern European Decorative Art and Industrial Architecture in Olaine 1960-1979” or “Some Motifs in Eastern European Decorative Art and Industrial Architecture in Olaine 1960-1979”.
Even more precise would be “Eastern European Decorative Art and Industrial Architecture in Olaine in the Minds of Some Residents of Olaine 1960-1979”. Or “Naive Works”, or “Eastern Europeanness”.
However, the exhibition is untitled...

The selected images show things and situations that couldn’t be reflected upon verbally, or there isn’t anything meaningful that could be said about them. To some extent, it might be said that these images show the futility of what is happening in the world; some kind of nonsense. Wittgenstein wrote that the pictures show themselves; this, in parallel with the previous thesis, probably corresponds most closely to the selected images.
The sun is an image that distinguishes a specific period and region from other periods and regions. I have compiled, systematized and typologized more than 300 images depicting sun in Eastern European art and design from the 1960s and 1970s.
The exhibition features 29 suns, 27 buildings, 32 - 40 variations on trademarks, 1 fabric design sample, 2 stylized trees, 1 - 2 faces, 1 landscape.
In the creation of these works I used various methods, that were typical for Eastern European graphic design works throughout 1960-1979.”Arturs Berzins, 2020.

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Likenotlikeability

There is consensus that the soul exists. And there is also a consensus about its invisibility.
The subject of the exhibition is the soul. It has been described in various ways. These descriptions have been taken as images, as suggestions for studies, as suggestions for thoughts. The question in the focus was – how the soul has been able to appear to different people.
The works are about the soul as an inner feeling. About the soul’s divisibility or indivisibility. About its best image. About it as fine, tiny pieces. About its levels. About it as a breath. About the way how the soul explores the world. About the hidden art in its depths. About its three abilities. About its obstacles and stimulus, or likes and dislikes, or contentment and sufferings.
Relative copies of artworks by Bruno Vasilevskis and Georges Seurat are included in the works.                                                                                                  Arturs Berzins, 2018.

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Purvītis Prize 2017. –
Exhibition Catalogue (the Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga / Latvia). – Riga: Mākslas platforma Association,
2017. – 12.–15., 48. p.