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Krišs Salmanis

Krišs Salmanis (1977, Riga) works with video, animation, and installations. In his last personal exhibition, Construction, Salmanis showed works that portrayed his unsuccessful attempts to take part in local life during his A4 artist residency in the city of Chengdu, China. Salmanis has represented Latvia in the 55th Venice Biennale and received the Purvītis Prize in 2017. His works can be found in the Latvian National Museum of Art, in the Latvian Museum of Contemporary Art and in the collection of the Art Museum of Estonia.

Wake Me Up When It’s Over
Painter’s plastic, motor, electronics, 2022

 
Russia's full-scale attack against Ukraine continues to shock the world, after months of a brutal war, specifically when medieval methods and deliberate cruelty by the perpetrators are publisized in the news. Methods that seem to have no place in the high-precision cyber-crypto statecraft of the 21st century, adopted by countries throughout the globe. I follow the news and the analysts, I see the war almost live, I see images I would not like to see and I imagine things I would not like to experience. My mind screams like Ivars Šteinberg's poem Shame of the World, but it gets tired and just wants to switch off until it's all over.
How I wish that at the opening of this catalogue this work would not be contemporary anymore…

Strategic patience
Water drops, 2022

 
Each evening’s analyst reassures us and tries to cheer us up, telling us that Ukraine will do better when the promised weapons arrive and that its crews are trained. We understand that this action cannot happen quickly. Yet every night we ask: when, when, when? The analyst answers – soon. But while the Ukrainians are arming themselves with tactical missiles, we must arm ourselves with patience. Strategic.