Arturs Virtmanis “Against the Tragic Wall”

M E N

This event has ended.

On behalf of M E N, Gallery Molly Krom presents Against the Tragic Wall, featuring work by Arturs Virtmanis at M E N Gallery.

In his artistic practice, Virtmanis creates visually and metaphorically dense drawing environments that combine relics of sentimental imagery from past eras, cryptic texts in the form of obsessive, undecipherable calligraphy, collections of found objects, architectural scale models, and the residue that is accumulated in the process of creation. For his first solo exhibition at M E N, Virtmanis turns to Nietzsche’s interpretation of the origins and functions of the Greek Tragic Chorus. He specifically focuses on the chorus´s role as a barrier, a “tragic wall”, between the true and unbearable emotions described, and the spectators who are pulled into the abyss of human suffering by the performers, while also being protected from it by the ideal poetic form of the performance. Arturs Virtmanis turns his drawings and sculptures into that “living wall”, the Tragic Chorus.

“I am attempting to create an entropic “spectacle” that consists of very unstable and short lived conglomerates of images that assume their temporary stability only in the context of walls of an exhibition space inadvertently pointing towards the fragile and fleeting nature of existence”
ARTURS VIRTMANIS was born in Riga, Latvia and is currently based in New York. He studied design in Riga Applied Arts Collage and at The Academy of Fine Arts where he received BA in sculpture. His installations have been exhibited at The Drawing Center in New York, Blue Star Contemporary Art museum in San Antonio Texas, ExitArt NY, PS 122 NY, Morris Museum, New Jersey, Jersey City Museum, Poor Farm Experiment in Wisconsin, Riga Art Space in Latvia, Baltic Arts Center in Helsinki, Planthouse Gallery NY, Cynthia Broan Gallery NY, Fishtank Gallery NY, Denis Bibro Gallery NY, Gallery X in NY, Marsha Child Contemporary NJ, Chamot Gallery NJ, Mimi Ferzt Gallery NY, Alma Gallery Riga, M6 Gallery Riga Latvia, Biennale Art Gend in Kopenhagen Denmark. His solo exhibition 10 000 Melancholy Folds at the Kunsthalle Riga Art Space was nominated for the Purvitis Award (highest award in arts in Latvia) as the best show of the year (2013). In 2014-2015 Arturs participated in Open Sessions, a research/exhibition program at The Drawing Center, New York. In 2015 he created a large scale environmental installation Resurrection Blues for the Cesis Arts Festival in Latvia. In 2016 created a life size shipwreck object ” To Perish in Fantasy” for the arts festival Survival Kit 8 in Riga, Latvia. In 2017 created a large scale site specific drawing installation Meta-Scrawl in Beijing’s legendary arts District 798 at the Xin Dong Space for Contemporary Art. In 2018 the installation Fucking Times! was nominated for the Diena (largest daily newspaper in Latvia) Event of The Year in Culture Award. Arturs work has also been exhibited at the exhibition American Century at The Whitney Museum of American Art and at the Venice Bienalle of Architecture (in collaboration with visionary set designer George Tsypin). He has designed objects for the Spiderman - Turn Off The Dark, a musical production in New York City; Sea Glass, a futuristic carousel in Lower Manhattan NY; created site specific installations for an immersive theater project “Queen Of The Night” at Paramount Hotel in New York City; designed giant inflatable scenic objects for the Sochi Olympics Opening Ceremony. Together with George Tsypin he has designed a set for the opera The Gospel According to the Other Mary at English National Opera.