Beginning on June 15, 2019-2020 academic year’s graduate works of the Art Academy of Latvia (AAL) will be presented on a specially designed digital platform VirtuAAL.lma.lv. The opening of the exhibition and the new virtual gallery is to be held on June 15 at 19:00.

 “Fresh Meat for Critique 2020” continues the previous year’s tradition by exhibiting the graduation works of every Academy’s bachelor’s and master’s degree graduates to a wider audience. Altogether about 170 new and upcoming artists will introduce themselves, the results of their creative processes, and the environment in which they studied to the public. This is the second time the Art Academy of Latvia hosts an emerging artists’ exhibition of this scale. Last year the exhibition was well received by students, visitors and industry specialists. It was also nominated for the award “Kilogram of Culture” in the 2019 summer vote.

The Art Academy of Latvia is keeping up with the times and development of technologies; their visual art studies have long offered both classical arts, and modern, technology-oriented arts that prepare professional design, multi-media and visual communication artists. The next logical step at the moment is creating their own visual art gallery with the primary goal of exhibiting the works of upcoming artists – AAL students, and this gallery will supplement and coexist with the new AAL gallery in Riga Old Town.

The name of the gallery – VirtùAAL – is a combination of Niccolò Machiavelli’s philosophical theoretical term virtù, which encompasses all the necessary qualities for “the achievement of great things” (this is also used as a general term for an art object), and the abbreviation for the Art Academy of Latvia.

As an attempt to become more accessible to English-speaking world, Academy will encourage its departments to the use abbreviation AAL in their digital presence and printed materials.

“Fresh Meat for Critique 2020” will be the first, but not the only exhibition that will take place in the Virtual Art Academy environment – exhibitions of student works will be presented in unique AAL interiors, and will surprise the viewers with unexpected solutions, made possible only in the virtual world.

The visitors of AAL VR exhibitions will be able to not only view the works, but also learn more about the authors, ideas and creative processes behind the works in extensive descriptions.

At the opening of this exhibition all the represented artists will have already presented their bachelor’s and master’s graduation works, and it can be said that many of them will appear before the public as professional artists for the first time. The virtual exhibition will be complemented by several online discussions, and virtual meetings with the exhibition’s curators and the new artists.

The goal of the exhibition is to introduce the visitors with graduate works in different mediums – from painting to audiovisual installations – and begin a dialogue about the current events in art and culture, as well as to reach an international audience; that is an advantage of exhibiting virtually – the visitors aren’t restricted by the physical space.

“Fresh Meat for Critique 2020” will be open for visitors 24/7, beginning on June 15, at the site virtuAAL.lma.lv. 

Additional information:

Sandra Liepiņa
Curator of the Art Academy of Latvia graduate work exhibition
“Fresh Meat for Critique”
Tel. +371 26313393