Prints by Zenta Dzividzinska in the new permanent display of postwar art at the Latvian National Museum of Art

Prints by artist and photographer Zenta Dzividzinska (1944-2011) are included in the new permanent display of Latvian postwar art at the Latvian National Museum of Art in Riga, Latvia.

The photography exhibition “12 Photographers / 125 Photographs / 10 Series” is curated by Elita Ansone and is on view February 19 - December 31, 2022.

Inclusion of photography in the permanent display of postwar art at the Latvian National Museum of Art by itself is a notable stride forward in the long overdue process of accepting photography as an integral part of the broader art-historical narrative in Latvia.

Even greater accomplishment is the inclusion of works by several women photographers, namely Zenta Dzividzinska, Māra Brašmane, Sarmīte Kviesīte, and Inta Ruka in this groundbreaking display. The rest of the 12 photographers in this exhibition are: Gunārs Binde, Uldis Briedis, Andrejs Grants, Gunārs Janaitis, Gvido Kajons, Valts Kleins, Aivars Liepiņš, and Egons Spuris.

Elita Ansone, the curator of the exhibition:

Portrait images of the 60s-70s are characterised by the search for a dramatic hero, making use of eloquent gestures, looks and movements, heightening contrasts of light and shade, striving for the expression of fields of composition, with artists aiming to achieve a symbolic generalisation of the image. It can be observed in the portraits by Gunārs Binde, Sarmīte Kviesīte, Gunārs Janaitis. Zenta Dzividzinska’s photography likewise grew out of this tradition, but her works from the 60s also demonstrate an interest in the manifestations of the avant-garde. Her aesthetically refined series Riga Pantomime (1964–1966), which captures episodes from the troupe’s rehearsals, puts forward an experimental process. Non-traditional framing, double-exposure, optical deformations, the multiplication of images, experiments with photographic chemicals, the image’s contrast and grain are used in the search for formal expressivity. In the context of feminism, attention should be payed to Dzividzinska’s atypical representation of women which contrasts with the aestheticised images produced by the male gaze. This can be seen in separate female portraits as well as her series House Near the River (1960s–70s), which captures in snapshots everyday moments of a family in the yard of a country house. These works are not intended as representative photographs, they are permeated with intimacy that lets us peek into the sphere of private life belonging only to the people in the photograph.