From February 15 to May 18, 2025, the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (10 Skārņu Street, Riga) invites you to visit an impressive Baltic contemporary glass art exhibition entitled "Layers", embracing the work of 24 talented artists from Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania.
The Baltic Contemporary Glass Art Exhibition focuses attention on the modern application of glass – the ways how the traditional properties of this material can be used in a contemporary and conceptually ideological context. It shows the artists' innovative solutions, introduction of original techniques and their search for the actual place of the glass as an artistic material in interdisciplinary discourse. Contemporary expression in glass emerges as a response to a dialogue with traditional techniques and pre-existing layers of our experience.
LAYERS is the title of the exhibition based on the idea of multi-strata. By uncovering layers, we can discover lost treasures, unexpected phenomena, and perceive a dimension of surprising depth. Layers are inherent in the earth's crust, in the atmosphere, and in the perception of any phenomenon. Nothing has ever been clear-cut; the nature of things is always ambiguous – it can be perceived in context or subtext. History is also shaped by the layering of events. Every development has its course, whether it is evolution or on a smaller level – a blossoming of a flower.
The exhibition is aimed to bring together these diverse professional artists, whose primary tool of self-expression is glass into one major show. The artists come from Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia – the Baltic region – or they have, in one way or other, been linked to it. Thus, they manage to offer an explicit overview of the present-day state of the field they are engaged in, as well as ensure the continuity of traditions and find new interpretations, and impulses for further artistic explorations. They pose a question – what do we value in a glass work? Is it the visually irresistible beauty or the profound message it brings? The exhibition offers us to explore the current relationship between the artist, the idea, the material, and the artwork itself to keep us inspired and enriched, to be aware, to build self-confidence and recognition.
The Baltic contemporary glass art exhibition showcases works by 24 outstanding artists. The art objects were judged and selected by a panel of curators – Kati Kerstna (Estonia), Dalia Truskaitė (Lithuania), Bārbala Gulbe, and Marta Ģibiete (Latvia). The jury also included other local and international experts of the field. Finally, the exhibition presents artworks by 9 artists from Latvia, 7 from Lithuania, and 7 from Estonia, highlighting the multi-layered Baltic character and creating a unique atmosphere and environment.
In the exhibition hall, visitors will discover individual stories, fantasies, and visions in glass, expressed on various levels – from visually direct to poetically and enigmatically encoded.
The Baltic dimension of the exhibition allows us to recognize the kindred and at the same time assess the difference of perception viewing the artworks from the neighbouring countries. It enables us to rediscover our own perspectives on glass – the material common to us all – and see how the shared history and related identity of the Baltic States are in an artistic way echoed in the material. It is the same Baltic Sea and shores, the same forests, the same grey rain and fog, the long months of darkness, and the closer to the North, the greater the hunger for light. The turns of the weather and the conditions that make glass as milky as fog, frosted, dewy or often transparent like ice – they are often the most poignant metaphor for glass. Glass is perhaps the best medium to represent the weather – shades of grey permeate meteorological phenomena, moods, and artistic expressions in our region. Of course, like sudden breaks in cloud cover, exceptions will flourish, both among artists and individual works.
