“The exhibition The Bureaucrat Who Secretly Reads Poems looks towards the bureaucratic and administrative processes involved in art. Although these practices existed even before conceptual art, it was in the 1960s that artists began functioning as “managers” and “clerks”. Those in the field of visual art were among the first to entrust the production of their work to others – not in order to completely erase or dematerialise the art object, as is sometimes believed, but rather to engage in such activities as registering, documentation, archiving, listing and indexing. In art history, these practices are sometimes related to the concept of institutional criticism. Yet it is also possible to see them in another light, stressing the often-ignored absurd, poetic, psychological and sometimes even pleasurable aspects of these procedures. The aim of the exhibition is to study and present the aesthetics of bureaucratic and administrative processes in a contemporary context.
The Pilot Gallery is located on the ground floor of an office building, providing an opportunity to reach out not only to the gallery’s visitors but perhaps also to its neighbours.”
The exhibition is part of Riga Photography Biennial – NEXT 2025
Curator: Roberta Atraste (LV)
Participants: John Huntington (SE), Arta Kauliņa (LV), Sara Krøgholt Trier (DK), Katariin Mudist (EE), Evija Pintāne (LV)
Scenographer: Krišjānis Beļavskis (LV)
April 25 – June 6
Experimental Art Space “Pilot” of the Art Academy of Latvia, Vāgnera Street 3, Rīga.
Opening hours: Tuesday-Saturday 12:00-18:00. Free entrance.