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RIBOCA2 EXHIBITION OF CONTEMPORARY ART IN RIGA

24 September 2020

MIR Travel Company focuses not only on Moscow and Saint-Petersburg but in Baltic countries as well. That is why today we have some news from Latvia and its capital – beautiful Riga. RIBOCA2 exhibition of contemporary art opened in Riga, the largest art event in all of Europe in 2020, when all festivals and exhibitions fell victim to pandemic restrictions. Coronavirus reality has reduced the duration of the Riga International Biennale from five months to three weeks, but it could not affect the scale of the event. The exposition is spread over the vast territory of Andrejsala - in the former industrial port, striking with its industrial landscapes, with abandoned and closed territories. The concept of the Biennale was "a new enchantment", and the title of the exposition was a line from a poem by the Latvian poetess Mara Zalite "... and suddenly everything blossomed." Rebirth is the leading idea of the exhibition: it is still difficult to foresee what exactly and in what color will blossom, but it is already clear that we all bear a collective responsibility for this. The artists have reassessed their values ​​and offer their own vision of building a new world.

The Riga Biennale has something to be proud of - the curatorship of the Frenchwoman Rebecca Lamarche-Wadel became a success. In Paris, she runs the Lafayette Anticipations Foundation and previously worked as a curator at the renowned Tokyo Palace Museum. Among the exhibitors there are also enough famous names: the pioneer of Latvian kinetic art Valdis Celms (represented by the sculptures "Positron" and "Rhythms of Life"), Argentine Thomas Saraceno, who works at the intersection of art and science. The artist has long been concerned with the problems of the planet's ecology. He presented at the Biennale absolutely safe for the environment aerosolar balloon "Aerocene". It flies using the energy of the sun and air currents without fuel. It was originally planned that the Saraceno balloon would be launched into the sky in Berlin and travel 843 kilometers across the sky to Riga, marking the beginning of a new era in air transport. But due to pandemic restrictions, this spectacular idea had to be abandoned - as a result, visitors to RIBOCA2 can see a portable flight kit in the form of an aerosolar sculpture.