On Thursday, the 1th of May, exhibition “In Spite of Everything” will open it’s doors for visitors

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The exhibition “In Spite of Everything” is about people whose lives were linked to destinies involving occupation and exile, above all highlighting the desire of the creative personality to oppose an inhuman regime and simultaneously exist as a reasonable being.

The exhibition has been created especially for the “Corner House”. The place where it’s taking place is connected with repressions spanning many decades and tells its own story. For this very reason, in installing the exhibition, no significant changes will be made to the appearance or layout of the “Corner House’s” sixth floor cabinets, allowing viewers to sense the message and narrative conveyed by the building itself. In turn, the works in the exhibition will be positioned chronologically, allowing each of the works to address the viewer personally on a deeply human level without pathos or bravura, leaving a feeling of deep confusion, amazement, sincerity and pain.

The majority of the exhibited works are being put on public view for the first time. They are small works including Aina Roze’s tiny images of children drawn on a deportation wagon, Juris Barkāns’ memories of his time doing service, Brenda Hāse’s scenes of daily life under imprisonment, Gunārs Bērziņš’ caricatures, Alfrēds Marija Švarcers’ secretly written and illustrated palm-sized diary, Alfejs Bromults’ aquarelles created while a prisoner and during his time in a filtration camp, Otto Mednis’ portraits, Apolinārijs Ulass’ drawn portraits, which were created using colour pencils and oil paints sent from Latvia, as well as other works.

It is evident that all the authors have endeavoured to depict the events as precisely as possible and to give their works not only an illustrative, but almost photographic value, as evidence of the events of that era.

Each drawing, no matter how ascetic it is in terms of its means of expression, is emotionally rich and includes a mechanism, which when touched, even ever so slightly, releases a coiled spring; a frozen world of lines unfurls and the clock begins to tick anew. These diminutive works of art have the unique ability to open the doors of time to the viewers, allowing him to participate in events which many only know of from the recollections of others.

Otto Mednis’ “Prison companion” and Alfejs Bromults’ “Prisoners in Komsomolsk filtration camp barracks”, Museum of Occupation of Latvia collection

The numbers of the years in which the works were created (1941, 1945, 1949, 1956…) and the places where they were created: a deportation wagon, concentration camp, filtration camp for prisoners of war, and leger – speak for themselves. In viewing the exhibition, every visitor will have the chance to study the portraits of participants in real events, an unusual living environment, landscapes, and surprising children’s drawings, among which are works created from a child’s perspective by Benita Plezere and Elza Reisone (née Liepa) during their internment in Siberian camps.

At the conclusion to the exhibition, we have also included works created at the end of the 20th century and the start of the 21st. These are reflections on events and reconstructions of memories created by eyewitnesses, which in addition to their artistic value give the viewer the chance to connect the events of that time with the present day in emotional terms. These works are particularly worth highlighting. Thanks to the temporal distance, the depicted events have acquired a multi-layered emotionality and monumentality of expression. Among the authors of these works are Nikolajs Stūris, Kārlis Kere and others.

As an independent element of the exhibition, we have also formed a set of paintings by the Hare Krishna artist Mihael Kuļičkovs (Rasmuss) which were confiscated in 1985.

Cooperation partners:

Culture and Arts Project “NOASS”, the Latvian Museum of Naïve Art, the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, the Museum “Jews in Latvia”, and Talsi Distric Museum.

On behalf of the project team, we would like to personally thank: Taiga Kokneviča, Evita Rukke, Iļja Ļenskis and Aina Zariņa, and Guna Millersone.

“KGB BUILDING. File No. 1914/2014″ will be open May 1st – October 19th.

Opening times:

Monday 10:00 – 16:00

Tuesday – Closed

Wednesday 10:00 – 20:00

Thursday – Sunday 10:00 – 18:00

Ticket prices:

Entry to all exhibitions EUR 5,00

KGB cellar tour with guide (without other exhibitions) EUR 5,00

Students, schoolchildren and pensioners (on presentation of relevant ID) EUR 2,00

Family tickets (2 adults + children) EUR 10,00