{"id":124624,"date":"2026-07-07T20:41:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T20:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/124624\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T20:41:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T20:41:14","slug":"riga-contemporary-small-by-design-and-serious-about-staying-that-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/124624\/","title":{"rendered":"Riga Contemporary: Small by Design and Serious About Staying That Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"A<\/a>This art fair draws, perhaps, just a small portion of the population, but its audience is large enough to make it feel like a viable alternative to the megas. Photo: \u0122irts Ra\u0123elis<\/p>\n

The burgeoning Baltic art fair Riga Contemporary<\/a> completed its second edition last week, attracting a young stylish crowd on opening night. Prioritizing cultural fervor over commercial single-mindedness, it boasted deliberately affordable participation fees for galleries and free entry for visitors\u2014largely possible because it\u2019s subsidized by the Riga City Council. Bringing together 40 galleries from 15 countries, it adopted a two-pronged curatorial approach: on one hand, guided by regional scouting from the Latvian team behind Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, on the other, American reach by way of Jeffrey Rosen<\/a>, the Texas-born co-founder of MISAKO & ROSEN<\/a> gallery in Tokyo and a co-president of NADA<\/a>, who helped anchor the first edition of the fair in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s broadening the circle, keeping it international, but it\u2019s also a little bit more realistic in terms of what we\u2019re expecting of people,\u201d Rosen told Observer. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to grow a market within a region\u2026 rather than trying to start from another part of the world.\u201d This was a pivot from the expansive view of last year, which brought over spaces from Korea and Jakarta. \u201cIt seemed irresponsible to try and get galleries from Asia to come unless they themselves had a good plan.\u201d He felt that without striving so hard to be as geographically diverse as possible, the result was more consistent presentations.<\/p>\n

Rosen shared a booth with the Milwaukee outfit Green Gallery<\/a>, jointly showing almost entirely Latvian artists selling in the \u20ac3,000-6,000 range, including a painting by Amanda Ziemele<\/a> (who represented Latvia at the Venice Biennale in 2024), deconstructed mirror pieces by Indri\u0137is \u0122elzis and psychedelic drawings by Viktor Timofeev<\/a>. \u201cWe could use our international perspective and presence as a way to boost what\u2019s happening locally,\u201d Rosen reasoned.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes time to let everyone know we are here to stay,\u201d Zane \u010culkst\u0113na<\/a>, founder of Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, added, noting the team\u2019s efforts to become better acquainted with the regional Eastern European and Nordic scenes. \u201cFor years, we would rather meet in New York or Venice than in Warsaw or Budapest, or even in Helsinki. We made a conscious effort to go country by country and look into what\u2019s happening there and approach galleries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the galleries, there was significant American representation: from New York (Jenny’s<\/a>, Polina Berlin<\/a>, Margot Samel<\/a>, The Gallery<\/a>), Chicago (Good Weather<\/a>, Tala<\/a>, Weatherproof<\/a>, Met Him Pike Hoses<\/a>) and Los Angeles (Gattopardo<\/a>, Kristina Kite<\/a>). The European presence included two galleries from Milan (Castiglioni<\/a>, Eastcontemporary<\/a>), two from Brussels (Gauli Zitter<\/a>, Kin<\/a>) and one from Paris (new garden galerie<\/a>). There were eight galleries from Riga itself and a sprinkling from Helsinki, Bucharest, Warsaw, Tbilisi, Tallinn and Vilnius.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/a>Attila Bagi, Naranjito, T\u00e0pies, Barcelona, 2026. Oil on canvas, 103 x 77 cm. Brought by Longtermhandstand. Courtesy the artist and Longtermhandstand<\/p>\n

For a new fair, pre-existing models provide deeply problematic strategies as a result of \u201ccorporate greed and the fact that\u2026 they\u2019re being made as mass entertainment events for an audience [even though] they\u2019re trade fairs for professionals. Who\u2019s winning in that equation? The person that owns the fair! But not the galleries; not the audience; not the artists,\u201d Rosen said. \u201cMaybe you start from the ground up with the local audience\u2026 You\u2019re trying to generate some sense of culture, which can generate commerce.\u201d Maintaining an intimate scale\u2014and refusing to aspire to be a massive event in the long term\u2014draws, perhaps, just a small portion of the population, but an audience large enough to feel like a viable alternative.<\/p>\n

This sentiment was echoed in a conversation\u2014part of the public program\u2014around the topic of the art market in 2026<\/a>. One speaker, Emily Watlington<\/a>, deputy editor of Art in America\/ARTnews, noted that we\u2019re existing in an age without \u201ca set of shared references\u201d and that any \u201cidea of there being an authoritative decider of who is an important artist has kind of fallen apart.\u201d This status quo of disparate hierarchies, she pointed out, is one local communities can adeptly fill in for themselves. The idea was also echoed by an international panel addressing the topic of the role of regional art fairs, where speakers including the artistic director of ArtVilnius, the CEO of CHART Art Fair, the artistic director of Foto Tallinn Art Fair and the artistic director of Art D\u00fcsseldorf collectively agreed that it doesn\u2019t make sense to aspire to ruthless global competitiveness over nurturing the local scene with the specificity on offer.<\/p>\n

The two Estonian co-founders of London-based Galerina<\/a>, Niina Ulfsak<\/a> and Mischa Lustin<\/a>, started the gallery within their apartment\u2014\u201dit was a bit like \u2018if you know you know\u2019 kind of thing\u2026 We would only DM [the address] to people because it was in our house\u201d\u2014until going public in January. (Gallerist Olga Temnikova<\/a> of Temnikova & Kasela<\/a>, who had a booth at the fair and spearheaded ESTHER in New York at the Estonia House, an event subsidized by the Estonian government, gave them their first internship when they were still teenagers.)<\/p>\n

Of his native Baltic region, Lustin says: \u201cIt\u2019s in its early embryonic stage\u2014it really would be smart to capture it, because it\u2019s only been 30-odd years of free market economy in this region, and it\u2019s only now that the middle class is beginning to stabilize a little bit and emerge and start to poke the ceiling a little bit.\u201d Given the huge success of companies with founders from this region\u2014Vinted, Bolt, Revolut\u2014\u201dthere\u2019s more money in the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/a>Nico Bernath\u2019s R\u00e9ka L\u0151rincz solo presentation. Courtesy Nico Bernath<\/p>\n

Not that much money, though. One Latvian gallerist somewhat dryly described the scene as \u201cmore art lovers than buyers.\u201d Slovakian gallerist Nico Bernath<\/a>, who launched his new namesake space in April, described European fairs as \u201csleepy\u201d and that \u201cyou have to convince people\u201d relative to the American insouciance about spending on art. Bernath was showing Hungarian artist and healer R\u00e9ka L\u0151rincz<\/a>, who toys with gender stereotypes, and whose embroidered piece Invisible Work, selling at \u20ac7,000, was made from actual American dollars set within delicate embroideries\u2014a perfect capitalist emblem. Bernath has participated in fairs with a previous project in Mexico City and in Miami, and is more enthusiastic about showing in North and Central America.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Lustin posited that \u201cthere are enough cool emerging galleries [at the fair] where if you would like to invest in contemporary art whose value will grow, these would be, logically, the galleries to do it at. Because they\u2019re more affordable\u2014now\u2014but many galleries here have a very tight grip on the institutional support of these artists\u2019 careers, because that\u2019s what provides the longevity of these artists\u2019 market.\u201d Galerina was showing small new works for \u00a3600 by a Polish artist and British artist Sarah Staton<\/a>\u2019s larger pieces on linen, selling from \u00a35,000-6,500. Lustin continued: \u201cWhen we do the fairs, obviously, the objective is to sell, but another objective is to meet those curators and institutional people and writers who do reviews.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/a>Sarah Staton, Gentle Spots like YBA (Tutti Frutti), 2007. Mixed media on linen, 40.5 \u00d7 30.5 cm. (16 \u00d7 12 inches). Brought by Galerina. Courtesy of the artist and Galerina, London<\/p>\n

\u201cOur collector base was the art world itself,\u201d Lustin added. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t the people who have, like, 10k to spare on an artwork. These were the people who would have 2k to spare or a thousand pounds to spare\u2014the artists, the gallerists, the curators, the sort of people who are in this community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallerist Peter Bencze<\/a> of Budapest-based Longtermhandstand<\/a> said: \u201cI don\u2019t believe in all of this crisis. If you are showing good art and you are doing the work, at some point it will pay off. There is a person in the world who wants to buy a painting from you\u2014you have to find them! I truly believe these small-format fairs, like Riga Contemporary, are helping a new generation\u2026 This is part of the evolution, even if it\u2019s slower than big fairs, but I really like the conversations.\u201d His booth featured a duo show: Hungarian artist Attila Bagi<\/a>, whose \u20ac4,000 paintings referenced a set of posters from the 1982 World Cup, and half-Hungarian half-Syrian ceramicist R\u00f3za El-Hassan<\/a>, showing women\u2019s anti-war activist circles selling for \u20ac4,500 each.<\/p>\n

Whether the fair is in crisis, the second edition overall seemed successful. Rosen noted this second edition \u201cfeels improved\u2026 It\u2019s not an unknown quantity.\u201d He described the first year as possessing a \u201cwhat is going on?\u201d vibe, \u201cwhereas I felt like [at the opening] people were like, this is our art fair.\u201d<\/p>\n

More in Art Fairs, Biennials and Triennials<\/p>\n

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