The Most Popular Art Medium that Has Two Festivals and a Gallery. A Reflection on Photography and Photographers in Latvia’s Art World

Alise Tifentale, "The Most Popular Art Medium that Has Two Festivals and a Gallery. A Reflection on Photography and Photographers in Latvia’s Art World” (Populārākais mākslas medijs, kam veltīti divi festivāli un galerija. Refleksija par fotogrāfiju un fotogrāfiem Latvijas mākslas pasaulē), Arterritory, December 7, 2021, available at https://arterritory.com/lv/vizuala_maksla/raksti/25891-popularakais_makslas_medijs_kam_veltiti_divi_festivali_un_galerija (in Latvian only).

Click to download a pdf or read it online on Arterritory website: https://arterritory.com/lv/vizuala_maksla/raksti/25891-popularakais_makslas_medijs_kam_veltiti_divi_festivali_un_galerija

Instead of an abstract, see below a few selected illustrations from the article featuring photo books and exhibitions discussed in the article:

Annemarija Gulbe, solo show Love Re-search at the ISSP Gallery, Riga, from July 17 to August 29, 2020. Photo: Alise Tifentale.

Page from the photo book Glass Strenči (Riga: Orbīta, 2019). Photo: Alise Tifentale.

Photography room in the permanent display of postwar Latvian art at the Latvian National Museum of Art. Detail. November, 2020. Photo: Alise Tifentale.

View of the exhibition by Sophie Thun and Zenta Dzividzinska, I Don't Remember a Thing: Entering the Elusive Estate of ZDZ. The exhibition was open from July 15 to September 12, 2021 at the Kim? Contemporary Art Center. Photo: Alise Tifentale. Learn more about the exhibition here: https://www.artdays.net/zdz-exhibitions/kim-2021

View of the exhibition by Sophie Thun and Zenta Dzividzinska, I Don't Remember a Thing: Entering the Elusive Estate of ZDZ. The exhibition was open from July 15 to September 12, 2021 at the Kim? Contemporary Art Center. Photo: Alise Tifentale. Learn more about the exhibition here: https://www.artdays.net/zdz-exhibitions/kim-2021

View in the exhibition Silver Girls. Retouched history of Photography at the Tartu Art Museum, Estonia. On view from June 12 to September 27, 2020. Image: Marta Pļaviņa, Young Woman Seated Near a Mirror. 1920s – 1930s. Courtesy of the Aizkraukle Museum of History and Art. Photo: Alise Tifentale.

Page from the photo book, Silver Girls. Retouched history of Photography, eds. Šelda Puķīte and Indrek Grigor (Tartu Kunstimuuseum & Blind Carbon Copy, 2020). Image: Marta Pļaviņa, Young Woman Seated Near a Mirror. 1920s – 1930s. Courtesy of the Aizkraukle Museum of History and Art. Photo: Alise Tifentale.

Is COVID-19 an “Ordinary Flu” That Benefits Politicians? Perception of Pandemic Disinformation in Latvia

Alise Tifentale, Anda Rožukalne, and Sandra Murinska. “Is COVID-19 an “Ordinary Flu” That Benefits Politicians? Perception of Pandemic Disinformation in Latvia.” Communication Today 12, no. 2 (2021): 68-83. https://communicationtoday.sk/volume-12-2021/

Abstract:

This study examines society's susceptibility to COVID-19-related disinformation in Latvia, linking it to self-evaluation of the perceived COVID-19 health risks. The main research questions are: "How do Latvians experience disinformation about COVID-19?"; "How does this experience relate to different degrees of perceived disease risks?". A nationally representative survey was conducted in September 2020, reaching 1,013 of Latvia's residents aged 18 to 75. More than half of the respondents (54%) have encountered misleading or false information; 30% thought that "the COVID-19-related chaos is beneficial to politicians", while 17% believed that "COVID-19 is like flu". Respondents with a higher level of education and more active media usage habits are more likely to recognise disinformation about COVID-19. Moreover, this skill is linked to a higher degree of perceived threat of the disease. Yet, those who rate their risk of disease as very high, alongside those who rate their risk of disease as low and unreal, are 'infodemically' vulnerable-more susceptible to disinformation, false news, and conspiracy theories. Recommendations to communicators about curbing the diffusion of disinformation and diminishing its impact are provided.

Download article pdf here

This article is one of the deliverables in the research project, Life with COVID-19: Evaluation of overcoming the coronavirus crisis in Latvia and recommendations for societal resilience in the future (VPP-COVID-2020/1-0013) that was carried out from June 2020 to March 2021, led by Alise Tifentale. The project was carried out by a consortium of five Latvian research institutions that won a nation-wide competition to implement a State Research Program funded project in social sciences. Read more about the project here: http://www.alisetifentale.net/research-blog-at/rsu-research-completed

Click on the image below to download the article pdf:

Click on any of the two images below to download the Editorial and Table of Contents of the journal (two pages in one pdf):

The Lesser Known Romantic Side of Soviet Art

Tifentale, Alise. “The Lesser Known Romantic Side of Soviet Art.” In Good Morning USSR (exh. cat.), Seoul: NAMA Gallery, mM Art Center, 2021.

The essay is published in Korean and English. The exhibition “Good Morning USSR” took place at the NAMA Gallery, mM Art Center, Seoul, June 30 - July 30, 2021.

Download and read my essay “The Lesser Known Romantic Side of Soviet Art” as a pdf here (in Korean and English) or view it in the images below:

View some sample pages from the catalogue below:

Learn more about the exhibition from the catalogue’s foreword and preface below:

Entering the Elusive Estate of Photographer Zenta Dzividzinska

Tifentale, Alise. “Entering the Elusive Estate of Photographer Zenta Dzividzinska.” MoMA Post, March 24, 2021. https://post.moma.org/entering-the-elusive-estate-of-photographer-zenta-dzividzinska/

New article in the Museum of Modern Art’s online research publication Post. Notes on Art in Global Context, listed in sections Central & Eastern Europe and Art and Gender.

UPDATE: in 2024, this article was included in the anthology Central Eastern European & Diasporic Feminisms (London: Cell, 2024). Find out more about this publication here: https://www.alisetifentale.net/research-blog-at/ceed-feminisms-bibliography

Read the article on MoMA Post website: https://post.moma.org/entering-the-elusive-estate-of-photographer-zenta-dzividzinska/ or download the article PDF here: download article pdf

To learn more about the Latvian artist and photographer Zenta Dzividzinska (1944-2011), please visit the website of her archive and estate, Art Days Forever.

Zenta Dzividzinska. Page from a contact print book. 1965. Latvian National Museum of Art.

Zenta Dzividzinska. Untitled (Self-portrait). From the series House Near the River. 1968.

Abstract:

Art historian Alise Tifentale considers the difficulties of preserving and interpreting the legacy of Latvian artist and photographer Zenta Dzividzinska (1944–2011). In the 1960s, Dzividzinska was one of the few women photographers in Riga whose work was highly regarded in the local and international photo club culture. Her most significant contribution is a collection of images capturing the daily life of three generations of women living in a small house in the country. These photographs have remained largely unknown until recently. This essay highlights the sociopolitical and cultural motives for such neglect and suggests avenues of further research of the artist’s estate.

This essay introduces the life and career of Zenta Dzividzinska or ZDZ (the artist, annoyed by having to spell out her long, Polish-sounding last name, which was rather unusual in Latvia, liked to sign with this abbreviation), focusing on her artistic output of the 1960s and early 1970s. At the center of this body of work is a vast collection of images that she later titled House Near the River, which were made in and around her parents’ home on the outskirts of Iecava, a village less than an hour’s drive south of Riga. During the 1960s, while studying art in Riga and working, ZDZ often visited her parents and extended family there. Later, she returned to the house to live in it permanently with her husband, whom she married in 1969.

House Near the River comprises hundreds of negatives and prints depicting the daily life of three generations of women as it unfolded in and around their small house in the Latvian countryside. Today these images can be viewed perhaps as para-feminist (to use Amelia Jones’s term) because explicitly feminist critique did not emerge in Latvian art until the 1980s.

Zenta Dzividzinska. Page from a contact print book. 1965. Latvian National Museum of Art.

Zenta Dzividzinska. Page from a contact print book. 1965. Latvian National Museum of Art.

Zenta Dzividzinska. Page from a contact print book. 1966. Latvian National Museum of Art.