This year the Andrejsala-based Latvian Museum of Naïve Art, administered by the Culture and Arts Project NOASS, will celebrate its fifth anniversary. Supported by SIA Jaunrīgas attīstības uzņemums, the company in charge of Andrejsala’s development, the museum will open its fifth season on May 15 as part of the international Museum Night.
The fifth season will start with an exhibition of works by Mitki, a Saint-Petersburg (Russia) based group of artists, and a very special solo exhibition of paintings by the notable Latvian naïvist Filips Šalajevs.
The 2010 programme of the museum was discussed and confirmed by its council in January. Alongside a basic exposition which now includes even more impressive artwork than before, the museum will display solo exhibitions of paintings by Rīga’s naïve artists Rahmails Jakrins and Filips Šalajevs.
In September 2009, Andrejsala hosted a successful plein air organised by Cinobrs, a Popular Fine Arts Association, which resulted in a subsequent two-week exhibition at the museum. This year, the organisers are planning to return to Andrejsala with their project in spring and autumn. According to the museum’s programme, as a natural follow-up to the exhibition of works by Taisiya Shvetsova, a naïve artist/teacher from the Pskov region in Northwestern Russia, a group exhibition of Russian artists can be expected in 2010. Owing to the developing relationship with Russian intellectuals, the Museum of Naïve Art are planning to include its collection in the Fest-Naïve, a travelling exhibition that will take place in Moscow next November.
The museum’s collection consists of contributed or purchased artworks and private collections. Its basic collection comprises 179 masterpieces of naïve art that make up a part of the Latvian National Art Collection. The museum has also an auxiliary collection of more than 900 artworks and photographic reproductions.
To preserve the heritage of Latvia’s naïve art as part of its cultural history for next generations and educational work, the key objective of the Museum of Naïve Art is to collect, maintain, study and promote works of naïve artists from the 18th century to present day. The museum pays a special attention to developing its basic collection by studying and preserving artworks by contemporary representatives of Latvian naïve art (painters, sculptors, etc.). The museum also carries out a vast educational programme which is based on the collected materials and the respective studies.
At the end of 2009, the Latvian Museum of Naïve Art was awarded the Live Rīga certificate issued by the City’s Tourism Development Bureau. In 2007, the Latvian Museum of Naïve Art became the first state-accredited private museum.
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