Indrikis Gelzis Latvian, b. 1988
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.
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
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Indriķis Ģelzis
Rest and Vest 5 Dec 2017 - 5 Jan 2018Ģelzis’s wall sculptures seemingly flirt with the future visions and sculptural compositions of the early 20th century futurists and constructivists. However, since the future of the past is now the...Read more -
INDRIĶIS ĢELZIS
Solo exhibition 8 Jan - 7 Feb 2015The artist reveals the theme of perception important to him by creating a certain surreal situation: one of the gallery’s halls contains a video work in which three viewers are...Read more