From April 25 to June 6, the exhibition "The Bureaucrat Who Secretly Reads Poetry" by Roberta Atraste (LV) – winner of the Riga Photography Biennial – NEXT 2025 award "Young Curator!" – will be on view at the Art Academy of Latvia’s experimental art space "Pilo". Exhibition participants: John Huntington (SE), Arta Kauliņa (LV), Sara Krøgholt Trier (DK), Katariin Mudist (EE), and Evija Pintāne (LV). Scenographer: Krišjānis Beļavskis (LV).

NEXT Award "Emerging Curator!" was launched in 2021 in collaboration with the Curatorial Studies program of the Art Academy of Latvia to provide a platform for young Latvian curators and highlight the role of the curator as a creative personality and mediator between artists, works of art, viewers and society within contemporary cultural processes.

This year’s award winner, Roberta Atraste, in the exhibition "The Bureaucrat Who Secretly Reads Poetry" focuses on bureaucracy and administrative processes in art.
Although such practices existed prior to conceptual art, it was in the 1960s that artists began operating as “managers” and "clerks." Visual arts representatives were among the first to delegate the production of their works – not necessarily to eliminate or “dematerialize” the art object, as is sometimes deemed, but to focus on activities such as registering, documenting, archiving, enumerating, and indexing. In art history, such practices are commonly associated with the concept of institutional critique. However, they can also be viewed from another perspective, highlighting the often overlooked absurd, poetic, psychological, and even enjoyable aspects of these procedures. The aim of this exhibition is to explore and showcase the aesthetics of bureaucracy and administrative processes in a contemporary context. The Art Academy of Latvia experimental art space "Pilot" is located on the ground floor of an office building, providing an opportunity to engage not only with gallery visitors but potentially with its neighboring workers as well.

The Riga Photography Biennial (RPB) is an international contemporary art event, focusing on the analysis of visual culture and artistic representation. The term ‘photography’ in the title of the biennial is used as an all-embracing concept encompassing a mixed range of artistic image-making practices that have continued to transform the lexicon of contemporary art in the 21st century. The Riga Photography Biennial – NEXT offers visibility and provides a platform for promising young artists and helps to announce themselves to a wider audience and context. Riga Photography Biennial – NEXT 2025 program from 24 April to 6 July, the Riga Photography Biennial – NEXT 2025 program will offer a wide-ranging program of exhibitions and education events, giving the floor to emerging artists and curators from the Baltic and other countries who have addressed aspects of the theme ‘invisible but present’.

Supporters and partners of the Riga Photography Biennial – NEXT 2025: State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Riga City Council, exhibition hall ‘Riga Contemporary Art Space’, Art Academy of Latvia, Experimental Art Space of the Art Academy of Latvia ‘Pilot’, ISSP Gallery, Gallery ‘Alma’, Gallery ‘Asni’, ‘Smilga’ Culture Space, ‘VV Foundation’, ‘NoRoutine Books’, The Centre of Creative Learning ‘Annas 2’, Nordic Council of Ministers’ Office in Latvia, Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OKA), Estonian Embassy in Riga, Embassy of Sweden in Riga, Embassy of Finland in Riga, ‘Riga Art Week’ (RAW), printing house ‘Adverts’, ‘Hibnerstudio’, ‘Rixwell Hotels’, ‘Arctic Paper’, Valmiermuiža Craft Brewery, Arterritory.com, Echo Gone Wrong, NOBA

More information: www.rpbiennial.com

The Art’s Academy of Latvia experimental art space "Pilot" (R. Vāgnera Street 3, Riga) is open from Tuesday to Saturday, 12:00–18:00. Admission is free.