Arsenāls Exhibition Hall |
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Arsenāla izstāžu zālēs regulāri norisinās plašas mākslas izstādes, starptautiskie projekti, kā arī dažādi mākslas un kultūras pasākumi. Bet LNMM Radošā darbnīca II stāvā konceptuāli iepazīstina sabiedrību ar laikmetīgās mākslas netradicionālām un interaktīvām formām Latvijā un pasaulē. |
Museum of Romans Suta and Aleksandra Beļcova |
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The display of the Museum of Romans Suta and Aleksandra Beļcova was set up as a narrative of three aspects of the two artists' life: their art, social activities and family. The display - a staged interior of the two artists' home - features a number of brilliant works of art by Romans Suta and Aleksandra Beļcova, mementos, characeristic photographs, informative documents. Visitors are welcome to browse selected copies of books illustriated by the artists, the "Ho-Ho" satirical magazine, studies of stage desings and porcelain paintings by Suta and other materials and watch footage from "Kaugrieši" feature film (1941, director Voldemārs Pūce) featuring Romans Suta and TV programmes on art, presented by Tatjana Suta, thus enhancing the sense of presence of the personalities. |
Museum of Decorative Arts and Design |
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Latvian Decorative Art From the End of the 19th to the 1960s |
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Latvian Decorative Art from 1970s to This Day |
The Art Museum Riga Bourse |
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Western painting gallery The display of paintings that is the face of every art museum is located in the finest rooms of the Riga Bourse – the Venice Hall and its adjoining Makart Hall. In previous times this was where balls were held, magnificent mirrors sparkled and music sounded from the balcony, rich banquets were laid, wine was drunk and life was celebrated. Although function of the rooms has changed completely, the magnificence and idea of enjoying life have been preserved. Now we enjoy art. The solid wood party walls and the ornate golden frames harmonise with the rich gilding of the walls. The effect is enhanced by ascetic medieval Italian sculpture rich with vital forms. This is pleasure provided by the sophisticated painting and sculpture of ancient centuries. With its artificial marble panels and gilded sculptural ornamentation, the historicism style interior takes an active part in forming the exhibition space by determining the selection of specific works. The museum has a rich collection and the possibilities for interpretation are wide. This was taken care of by previous generations of collectors who left a great variety of donations to the city. The display has been arranged by chronologically systemising 16th – 19th century works of greatest artistic merit according to national school and genre. The representation of national schools is approximately proportional to the number of works in the collection as a whole and, as in the collection, dominated by Dutch, Flemish and German art. The pride of the collection is 17th century painting from the Northern European School. |
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Western gallery The Western gallery is dedicated to the colourful collection of Western European porcelain from the 18th – 20th centuries and stories about the Riga collectors. The gallery has deliberately been given a 19th century mood because it was during this century that the building’s interior took shape and this was the time of enthusiastic collecting in Riga’s Germanic milieu. Heavy, polished showcases filled with beautiful things, Boulle furniture, clocks, dark green wallpaper printed on ancient machinery in Germany, parquet flooring, mirrors and gilded chandeliers – not only does all this fit in with the time of Riga’s growing prosperity, it also characterises the specifics of the museum collection precisely. It is a reconstruction of possible relationships long forgotten, perhaps never existing, a meeting place for things with various fates. The interplay between the building and the museum collection has been arranged so that the viewer will find it difficult to find the boundary.
In their day many art collectors whose treasures are now in the museum were associated with the Riga Stock Exchange – here they made their money and invested in art collections that were later partly bequeathed to the city of Riga and have now returned to the Riga Stock Exchange. The gallery’s pride of place goes to the collection of 18th century Meissen porcelain. |
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Silver cabinet The Silver cabinet, adjacent to the Western porcelain gallery, is comparatively small. One could even say it is more symbolic than factual. However, this display marks something of great importance – the time of the formation of the Latvian state. At the same time it is also the origin of this museum when part of artistically valuable works in the state’s gold collection found a home in the newly established State Museum of Art (1920). Several of these objects are donations to the state. Although most of the silver items were made in older centuries, as a whole the cabinet is dedicated to the time of growing national self-awareness at the beginning of the 30th century. |
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Eastern art gallery The Eastern gallery is home to a sizeable collection of Near and Far Eastern art. The former office space is light and cosy encouraging a personal dialogue with art. The rooms no longer preserve memories of their former arrangement; a light and neutral colouring was chosen for the walls allowing visitors to fantasise about their original appearance. In order to highlight the uniqueness and beauty of form of each artwork, the principle of neutrality has also been observed in the choice of materials for the glass showcases and backgrounds. The Eastern, especially Chinese and Japanese collections are dominated by the art of the 19th century. At the time collectors travelled to ever more distant places, trading networks grew wider and the Riga collection expanded with works from increasingly distant lands. This differs from Dutch or Portuguese collections where Eastern porcelain was intensively collected from as early as the 16th century. This is peculiar to Riga and specifically to Riga because the story is different in the neighbouring Duchy of Courland. |
