Happy Art Museum

The HAPPY ART MUSEUM production group announces the international contemporary art fair exhibition Art Riga that will take place on November 24-29 2015 in Riga. The new tradition set up in 2014 with Riga being the European Capital opened opportunities for a longterm future development.

The Art Riga international art fair is meant to be an annual meeting place for art professionals - art galleries, institutions, printing houses, experts, cultural media representatives, collectors as well as art lovers from all over the world. Professional Latvian art galleries are invited to take part in the fair. International art galleries and institutions will participate on a competitive base. This year galleries from Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Russia, Indonesia, Georgia, Estonia, Mexico and Latvia have confirmed their participation.

The Fair's main purposes are:

- Receive international visibility and become an important annual meeting place for art professionals from Northern, Eastern and Western Europe.

−Enhance the prestige of Latvia's artists and art galleries;

−Receive a deeper understanding of the Baltic region's current events, find out more about the world's art trends and have a look at oneself in the European and world art market context.

−Practice an exhibition exchange with international art galleries, get to know colleagues who organize art events all around the world.

It is a collective exhibition of art galleries and art institutions where each participant makes his exposition on a separate stand. This format popular in the rest of the world will be applied to the Latvian context for the second time. The Art Riga festival welcomes everyone to have an art experience as well as have a look at the exhibition's favorite pieces from a commercial viewpoint.

Every year the best world art galleries come together, and, like the Olympics teams, fight for the love of the audience. Gallery owners, artists and art experts exchange ideas, make friends and discuss exchange exhibitions and activities.

The fair's meeting place is the Latvian Railroad History Museum. It was chosen for its cultural and historical background, its capacity and easy-to-find location. Other big projects, like the annual art exhibition “Rudens” took place in the museum, so it has been many times transformed into a major art event. Each participant will have a separate block with a stand, all blocks are planned to be of an equal size, but that can be changed if needed.

Besides the traditional and interdisciplinary art expositions broad analytical discussions will take place during the fair. The conference program includes talks by MARATS GELMANS (Kiev) “Mass media and totalitarianism”, SIMON HEWITT (Oxford) ”Investigation in originals”. Alexey Romanov “Can art be pornographic?”, ALEXANDER RAPPAPORT, Igors Vatoļins “ART&WAR”, etc. In cooperation with the new Library building that is located near the Railroad museum a presentation will be organized on 26.11 showing new exhibition equipment production technologies: museum glass, cases, stand and frames to the participant of the conference. It is the first opportunity in Latvia's history to visit more than ten art exhibitions at once, each of which in any Latvian museum would be an event. To give an example, an exhibition of an original collection of Salvador Dali's sculptures, exhibitions of a photography classic Janis Saudek (Check republic), Ulvis Alberts (USA), Antanas Sutkusa (Lithuania).

Exhibition of Genia Shef (Germany) in Riga before the Venezia Biennale, a classic Kiriko and Klerici from Italy. 20 contemporary painting from Indonesia. The founder of the Moscow surrealism Viktor Krotov has brought from his workshop in Paris to Riga a rondo shape painting in a Louvre frame and a monumental work “Millenium” that will be presented accompanied by a specially written musical piece.

The whole week of the fair foreign authors, gallery owners and art experts will be presenting the works. The first day is traditionally scheduled for art professionals and VIP guests.

A web page has been created for the fair HTTP://ARTRIGA.COM as well as profiles in various social networks. During the fair a press center with accredited foreign journalists will be functioning in the museum and there will also be a web live broadcasting.

A press center club will be opened 10.00-23.00 with a free WiFi, a cafeteria with 100 chairs, presentation equipment and a web live broadcasting.