The art project-competition addressed the following message to the invited artists:
The project "On the Bench!" envisages utilitarian artistic objects in the Riga city space.
The works are not intended to be decorative, but rather to be the collective embodiment of the leitmotif of the Boris and Ināra Teterev Foundation’s public art programme “Joy and the Joy of Thought”. At the same time, all works must be serious contemporary art works and city benches as well.
The following quality prototypes have been used:
- Krišs Salmanis’ work "Sick and Tired" for the competition exhibition “Riga Smiles”,
- Miervaldis Polis’ Krišjānis Valdemārs on a bench in Ventspils,
- a new idea from Aigars Bikše envisaging a bench with a large Rainis at one end and a small Rainis at the other.
Participants of the exhibition
This was a closed competition for the invited artists:
- Aigars Bikše, who participated with works "Like a wolf through Riga" and "Sitting on money".
- Maija Kurševa, who participated with the work "Chairs".
- Liene Mackus, who participated with works "Lion of Riga" and "Scetch No. 2 with a beaver".
- Evelīna Deičmane, who participated with works "Time" and "Pile of words".
- Ieva Rubeze, who participated with the work "Inner circle".
- Krists Pudzens, who participated with the work "Untitled".
- Sandra Krastiņa, who participated with the work "In its place".
- Krišs Salmanis, who participated with the work "Untitled".
- Andris Vītoliņš, who participated with the work "Albert Einstein's brain".
- Marta Zariņa-Ģelze, who participated with the work "Ally".
- Kaspars Podnieks, who participated with works "Listening to birdsong", "Retro chair bench" and "Latvian pattern bench".
- Anda Lāce, who participated with the work "Guards".
- Dāvis Liekniņš, who participated with the work "Untitled".
- Barbara Gaile, who participated with the work "The Parisian bench".