Novel Im Sog von Riga [Riga Warmth]. Langenthal: BaltArt-Verlag, 2013. 

ISBN 978-3-9523109-3-9

Translated into German by Markus Roduner. The original editition, Rigas siltums [Riga Warmth] (2003).

The book on the publisher's website.

Before her career as art and photography historian, Alise Tifentale has published three fiction books – a short story collection Hotel Rīga (1999) and two novels, The Main Prize: A Trip for Two (2001) and Riga Warmth (2003). Since 1996 her stories and fragments of works in progress have appeared in several publications and translated into English, German, Finnish, Lithuanian, and Estonian.

Her writing combines autobiographical notes with fiction, inspired by the American author Hunter S. Thompson and Latvian-American writer Anšlavs Eglītis. Tifentale's novels reflect upon the paradoxes of contemporary life, shaped by mainstream mass culture as well as by the unwritten codes of different subcultures, such as the art world of a small, but ambitious city. It is exactly the milieu where the heart-breaking events of Riga Warmth evolve.

Riga: Neputns, 2011. 168 pages, parallel text in English and Latvian.

ISBN 978-9984-807-85-0

The book on the publisher's website. (sold out) 

Download a pdf of sample chapter from The Photograph as Art in Latvia, 1960-1969.

Please contact me at atifentale at gradcenter dot cuny dot edu if you would like to consult the full version of the book for your research. Thank you! 

About the book:

The Photograph as Art in Latvia, 1960-1969 is the first contemporary study about the recent past of Latvian photographic art.  The 1960s is a magical decade in Western culture and Latvia as well. Being artificially separated from the European and global information circuit by the Soviet regime, Latvian artists nevertheless were looking for--and found--the way to be in contact and interact with this circuit.

During the 1960s, some Latvian photographers succeeded in attaining what was forbidden (or limited) for representatives of other arts--they participated in international exhibitions, and they developed modernist aesthetics and a system of artistic imagery based on Western art and distinctively different from the dominant visual culture of the Soviet Union.

The book gives an insight into the most significant stylistic trends and means of expression characteristic of the Latvian photographic art of the 1960s. This time  constitutes the part of the 20th century Latvian visual art heritage that has not been sufficiently studied until now. The author analyses works of photographic art by Latvian authors created between 1960 and 1969 that were exhibited in Latvian and international exhibitions and/or were reproduced in photography magazines, photobooks, and exhibition catalogues with an international circulation.

Photographic art in Latvia during the Soviet period--after the Second World War, developed differently from the way it did in the Western world. The pivotal moment in the development of photography in postwar Latvia came in 1962, with the establishment of the Riga Camera Club, which quickly grew into a major creative hub for Latvia and for the rest of the USSR. Its importance in the region is comparable to the significance of Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante, a São Paulo-based photo club which in the 1950s and early 1960s united the most visible Brazilian modernist photographers and artists

Although established as an amateur organization--just like its better known counterpart Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante in São Paulo, the Riga Camera Club was a place where strong, creative personalities came together, where certain aesthetic criteria were established, where information was exchanged intensively, and where creative tension was maintained by a spirit of competition.

One of the main spheres of activity at the club was organizing annual exhibitions which shaped the ideas of that time regarding the photograph as a work of art. No less important was the participation of several photographers associated with the club in international exhibitions of photography that in the 1960s made photographic art something of a privileged field. Most of the works reproduced in this volume have been shown at international exhibitions of photographic art in the 1960s outside of the USSR.

Riga: Neputns, 2009. 104 pages, parallel text in English and Latvian.

ISBN 978-9984-807-40-9

Information about ordering the book on the publisher's website.

Download the pdf of the book here (without illustrations). For a full, illustrated version, please see the printed book, or contact me at atifentale at gradcenter dot cuny dot edu. 

Read a review of the book, published in Studija 67, No. 4 (2009). Download a pdf of the review. 

Alnis Stakle (b. 1975) is one of the leading Latvian photographers of his generation. Self-portraits, still lifes and close-ups of the private environment, and detached views of deserted (or almost deserted landscapes - such are the characteristic motifs of Stakle's photography. Commenting on his own work, Stakle frequently emphasizes its personal character: motifs such as dreaming, introspection, and meditation are combined and reiterated.

His work certainly is personal, but that doesn't mean it's too open or intimate. Stakle utilizes material from life consciously, in order to create and develop his aesthetic system, and his work is not a public diary, a passionate struggle with demons or a flood of emotional self-revelations. Quite the contrary: Stakle's works are examples of detached and reticent observation, as if from outside or from above, and this special perspective, cleansed of all emotion, presents us an opportunity for multiple interpretations.

Works from Stakle's major series are reproduced, including Nothing Personal (1996-2006), Living Space Daugavpils (2001-2006), Place for Dreams (2001-2006), Half Life (2002), Ex[Pride] (2004-2008), and Home Sweet Home (2006-2007).

Riga: Neputns, 2009. 240 pages, hardcover, parallel text in English and Latvian.

ISBN 978-9984-807-46-1

The book on the publisher's website.

Edited by Alise Tifentale.

Essays by Laima Slava, Katrina Teivane-Korpa, and Alise Tifentale.

This album comprises works by a famous Latvian photographer Jānis Kreicbergs (1939-2011) over 45 years, from 1960 to 2005, within a geographically vast area including USA, Europe, and Asia and under various political regimes – the USSR during the Khrushchev Thaw, Soviet bloc and Western countries on both sides of the “iron curtain” during the Cold War, and the renewed independent Republic of Latvia post-1991.

The album contains widely published and exhibited works along with first publications - photographs that art editor Zenta Dzividzinska discovered while working with Jānis Kreicbergs’ photo archives.

All of his works contain motifs (in subject matter and formal qualities) that make them unmistakeably his, if compared to the work of most of his contemporaries. We could say that he had his own “style”, a term interpreted by Barthes as an “organised network of obsessions.” Kreicbergs’ network of ideas consists of spontaneity, freedom and sensuality).

There is also a thematic leitmotif: interpretation of the feminine image and individuality, shifting between the universal (sexuality) and the individual (personality). Another important element is Kreicbergs’ photographic manner with its set of unique features, which combines the principles of snapshot and staged photography (a blend of elements from 1960s studio photography, from so-called street photography, press and report photography, as well as fashion and advertising photo stylistics). These subjective qualities along with the ever-present historically documentary aspect make Kreicbergs’ selected works a unique value within the context of European and Latvian history of photographic art.

Novel Rigas Siltums [Riga Warmth]. Riga: Atena, 2003. 255 pages, in Latvian.

ISBN 978-9984-34-026-0

Before her career as art and photography historian, Alise Tifentale has published three fiction books – a short story collection Hotel Rīga (1999) and two novels, The Main Prize: A Trip for Two (2001) and Riga Warmth (2003). Since 1996 her stories and fragments of works in progress have appeared in several publications and translated into English, German, Finnish, Lithuanian, and Estonian.

Her writing combines autobiographical notes with fiction, inspired by the American author Hunter S. Thompson and Latvian-American writer Anšlavs Eglītis. Tifentale's novels reflect upon the paradoxes of contemporary life, shaped by mainstream mass culture as well as by the unwritten codes of different subcultures, such as the art world of a small, but ambitious city. It is exactly the milieu where the heart-breaking events of Riga Warmth evolve.

Novel Galvena balva - celojums divata [Riga Warmth]. Riga: Petergailis, 2001. 

ISBN: 9984-67-362-6

Before her career as art and photography historian, Alise Tifentale has published three fiction books – a short story collection Hotel Rīga (1999) and two novels, The Main Prize: A Trip for Two (2001) and Riga Warmth (2003). Since 1996 her stories and fragments of works in progress have appeared in several publications and translated into English, German, Finnish, Lithuanian, and Estonian.

Her writing combines autobiographical notes with fiction, inspired by the American author Hunter S. Thompson and Latvian-American writer Anšlavs Eglītis. Tifentale's novels reflect upon the paradoxes of contemporary life, shaped by mainstream mass culture as well as by the unwritten codes of different subcultures. This novel, written in 2001, deals with a growing tension in Latvia around 2022 until the violent outbursts of extreme nationalism, homophobia, and xenophobia find the perfect victim, a well-known Hollywood celebrity who happens to be gay, mixed-race, and - Latvian.

Collection of short stories Hotel Riga. Riga: Self-published, 1999.  In Latvian and English.

Before her career as art and photography historian, Alise Tifentale has published three fiction books – a short story collection Hotel Rīga (1999) and two novels, The Main Prize: A Trip for Two (2001) and Riga Warmth (2003). Since 1996 her stories and fragments of works in progress have appeared in several publications and translated into English, German, Finnish, Lithuanian, and Estonian.

Her writing combines autobiographical notes with fiction, inspired by the American author Hunter S. Thompson and Latvian-American writer Anšlavs Eglītis. Tifentale's novels reflect upon the paradoxes of contemporary life, shaped by mainstream mass culture as well as by the unwritten codes of different subcultures, especially the art world. The short stories collected in this volume are like songs about love and longing.