Some Instances of Encounters Between Imagination and Matter

The book “Some Instances of Encounters between Imagination and Matter” is a case study of Exhibition — a show by Andris Eglītis (b. 1981) presented at the Latvian National Museum of Art in autumn 2024.

It collects “Traces” (documentation of the Exhibition by photographer Reinis Hofmanis and photos of the creative process by Eglītis himself), and “Reverberations” (critical writing: a philosophical essay by author and curator Jonatan Habib Engquist; an interview with artist Andris Eglītis by poet and performance artist Agnese Krivade; an essay contextualizing Eglītis’ art in contemporary art discourse by art historian Santa Hirša).

Seen by nearly 30,000 visitors, the Exhibition was not only Eglītis’ largest solo exhibition to date but also an attempt to bend, disturb, and rewrite what a museum and an exhibition can be. It reached outward — from the solitary figure of “the artist” toward a chorus of other voices, beings, and materials.

Shaped by Eglītis’ recent practice — primarily painting, but also building, sculpture, installation, and set design — Exhibition unfolded in dialogue with works by friends and collaborators, many linked to Savvaļa, a collective project founded six years ago in his open-air studio in Drusti. Since then, Savvaļa has actively influenced the contemporary art landscape of the Baltics.

Exhibition reimagined the post-socialist in dialogue with the post-humanist — a radical form of landscape painting where the landscape itself becomes the painter, and companionship becomes an artistic method.