Indrikis Gelzis Latvian, b. 1988

Overview

Gelzis’s works are rendered in black metal and blue fabric, they stretch, bend, and flex as though they might weasel their way out of two-dimensionality. They’re impish rather than creepy, interested less in uncovering subcon- scious desires than in playfully destabilizing the staid functionality through which we graph and understand data and, by extension, reality.

 

These are hard lines. They break up space and delineate geometric forms whose meanings we can only assume. We use minimalism now to think about systems since it is no longer just a matter of reduction, of paring back to the core characteristics of a medium or a material, so much as generating a program or map, a set of data points from which some form of technical information might be predicted or inferred. Gelzis makes these works digitally, 3D-modeling the sculptures before rendering them in steel tubes and fabric sleeves. This process - and the fact that the finished works look a bit like hyperactive stock market graphs - might allude to neoliberal capitalism’s impulse to accumulate information-as-wealth.Through it, the artist both materially consolidates and abstracts information into paintings and/or sculptures which appear to map some sort of data but flippantly refuse legibility.

 

A text by Dana Kopel who is a curator, writer and editor at the New Museum in New York.

 

http://www.indrikisgelzis.com/
Works
Biography

Born 1998, in Riga, Latvia

Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York

 
Education

2015 - 2016

HISK - Higher Institute for Fine Arts, Ghent, Belgium
2012 - 2014

Latvian Academy of Art, Department of Visual Communication; MA

2011 - 2012

ArtEZ institute of the Arts. Media department. Enschede, Netherlands

 

Selected Solo exhibitions

2020 (current)

Figure of Everything. Castor gallery. London, UK.

2019 

Pause for the cause. Cinnnamon gallery. Rotterdam, Netherlands
TABLEAU. ASHES/ASHES. New York, USA
2018

Nightball effect. King’s Leap. Brooklyn, New York

Skeleton of the wind Together with Viktor Timofeev. Suprainfinit gallery. Bucharest, Romania

The Man on the Moon. Duo with Adja Yunkers. Belenius Gallery. Stockholm, Sweden
2017

Rest and vest. Vartai gallery. Vilnius, Lithuania
Aeolian Breath. Tallinas street 10. Riga, Latvia
Between the sheets. Cinnnamon gallery. Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Sky’s The Limit. Hole Of The Fox. Antwerp, Belgium. Text by Domenico De Chirico
Tastes Like Headaches. Indrikis Gelzis and Adam Cruces with Louisa Gagliardi. Text by Kyle Hilton KIM? Contemporary Art Centre. Riga, Latvia
2015

Two unexpected visitors. Arsenals Creative studio. National Art Museum of Latvia. Riga, Latvia

2015

Patiently becoming a sculpture. Mākslai Vajag Telpu. Riga, Latvia.
We have a thing in common. Gallery VARTAI, Vilnius, Lithuania.

2014

Specifying interpretations on a single individual. Riga Art space. Intro space. Riga, Latvia.
2013

Blind sounds. Entrance gallery. Prague, Czech
2012

The Meeting. KIM? Contemporary Art Centre. Riga, Latvia. Curated by Zane Onckule
Blind sounds. KIM? Contemporary Art Centre. Riga, Latvia. Curated by Zane Onckule
2011

Lost in eyeshot. Cesis, Latvia

 

Group exhibitions

2020

4 Gate Connection. Tatjana Pieters Gallery. Ghent, Belgium
2019

DARK MODE. ASHES/ASHES. New York, USA
Close Up. Cesis, Latvia
A closed mouth gathers no feet. Dash gallery. Kortrijk, Belgium
2018

Doors of Paradise. Union Pacific gallery. London, England
The Last Rave. Diesel Project Space. Liege, Belgium
Heavy metal. Group show. Jerome Pauchant gallery. Paris, France.
Superposition. Group exhibition. Joshua Liner gallery. New York, USA.
2017

NNN. Group exhibition. National Art Museum of Latvia. Riga, Latvia
Monsone. Suprainfinit gallery. Bucharest, Romania. Curated by Domenico De Chirico
Wholesome Environment. Lundgren gallery. Palma, Spain
Lockers V2. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Amsterdam, Netherland. Curated by Diego Diez

Form Cannibalism. The Stable. Waregem, Belgium

2016

The Empty Fox Hole?. HISK final show. Ghent, Belgium. Curated by Philippe Van Cauteren

2015

A bigger peace, a smaller peace. Latvian Railway History Museum. Riga, Latvia.

Influx. Era VI VII VI. New York, USA
2014

Salon. KIM? Contemporary Art Centre. Riga, Latvia
2013

Consul’Art. Pavillion- M. Merseille, France.

 

ART FAIRS

2019

Art Brussel. Represented by Cinnnamon gallery. Brussel, Belgium

Arco Lisboa. Represented by Suprainfinit gallery. Lisabon, Portugal

2018

Arco Madrid. Represented by Cinnnamon gallery. Madrid, Italy

2017

Sunday. Represented by Suprainfinit gallery. London, England

Independent. Represented by Art Viewer. Brussel, Belgium

Poppositions. Represented by kim? Contemporary art centre

 

ARTIST TALK

2015 - “Stage, Scale and Surprise: John C. Welchman and Indrikis Gelzis in Conversation”. Art Museum “Riga Bourse”, Latvian National Museum of Art

 

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Museum of Recent Art, Romania
Paul Thiers Collection, Belgium
Alain Servais Family Collection, Belgium
Antoine De Werd Collection, Netherlands
Tanguy Van De Weghe Collection, Belgium
Francis Vanhoonacker Collection, Belgium

Frederic de Goldschmidt Collection, Belgium
BTA ART Collection, Latvia
Colin Fernandes Collection, USA
Janis Zuzans private collection, Latvia

Exhibitions