News Archive

27.08. - 22.09.2015 Glebs Pantelejevs "LATGALE' RHAPSODY"

27.08. - 22.09.2015

Galerija "Māksla XO"

Elizabetes iela 14, Rīga, LV 1010

"Glacier" 2011-2015, bronze, wood, 86x132,5x57

GLEBS PANTELEJEVS "Latgale' Rhapsody"

„All of the most interesting and important things in the future happen in marginalia – at a frontier, physical or spiritual. Latgale is our frontier in a geographic and in a spiritual sense.

Rhapsody wasn’t chosen unintentionally – this format of music perfectly corresponds with the form and the essence of my conception.

Rhapsody is quintessential exchange of different types of episodes based on a folksy vocal material,” Glebs Pantelejevs, 2015


Glebs Pantelejevs has shown himself as a strong representative of 21st century intellectual post-modernism. Not only is his “God given” perfection of material and form admirable, but also his willingness to risk by creating extremely multi-layered characters, ironically playing with significant historical symbols, and overstepping traditional boundaries of sculptural taboos. [...] Glebs Pantelejevs plays and links supposedly incompatible materials with the same seriousness as he turns our views about the ideals of society and cultural and historical canon upside down; he takes the liberty to glorify clichés and bring elements of kitsch into the “temple of art”. In the end, this is a search for balance with the artist’s own ego. (Inese Baranovska)


Glebs Pantelejevs (1965) lives and works in Riga. He graduated from the Department of Sculpture at the Art Academy of Latvia in 1991 and is currently an associate professor in sculpture at the Academy. He has participated in exhibitions since 1991, including 13 solo exhibitions in Latvia, Russian, Norway and Canada. He has participated in and won many environmental art competitions - Glebs Pantelejevs’ most significant public projects include the memorial to Krisjanis Valdemars in Riga (1997), the Pictograms of Zemgale (2001) groups sculptures by the Lielupe River bridge in Jelgava, Black Threshold (2003) by the former KGB building on Stabu iela in Riga, the monument to Colonel Oskars Kalpaks in Riga (2006), the Bridge and Eternity (2007) memorial in Jurmala, and Thumbtack (2012) at the Katzow Sculpture Park in Germany.