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 Egl tis (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 Egl tis himself), and Reverberations (critical writing: a philosophical essay by author and curator Jonatan Habib Engquist; an interview with artist Andris Egl tis by poet and performance artist Agnese Krivade; an essay contextualizing Egl tis art in contemporary art discourse by art historian Santa Hir a).

Seen by nearly 30,000 visitors, "Exhibition" was not only Egl tis 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 Egl tis 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 Savva a, a collective project founded six years ago in his open-air studio in Drusti. Since then, Savva a 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.