The first Riga Smallest Art and Sports Festival will take place in Von Strick Villa / Article / LSM.lv

The first Riga Smallest Art and Sports Festival will take place at the von Strick Villa in Riga over the weekend. For more than a year, Stricka Villa has been home to the Smallest Gallery in Riga, which occupies exactly one window of the building. Now the activities have become bigger and at the weekend the villa will feature performances and exhibitions by artists, as well as a badminton tournament for freelancers.

Karl Christoph von Strick’s mansion, designed by Karl Felsko, is one of the most elegant villas in Riga. In recent years, thanks to the efforts of Mārtiņš Mielava and like-minded people, the building is gradually regaining its splendor and has become a favorite cultural place. Riga’s Smallest Gallery has been operating in Stricka Villa for two years now, occupying exactly one building window, Riga Smallest Art Auctions have also taken place, but this weekend the Riga Smallest Art and Sports Festival will take place for the first time.

“We opened a summer cafe, Austris Mailītis came to our aid, drew a couple of terraces as it might look, and there was also a badminton court in the middle,” said Mārtiņš Mielavs, the organizer of the Riga Smallest Art and Sports Festival.

His colleague Auguste Petre added that the first thought was simply to create interactions between different fields of art, anticipating that artists would work on the spot.

The artist Vika Eksta, who has been invited to the festival, has decided to dedicate her performance to gymnastics, and step by step, the art festival has also become a sports festival.

“People are welcome to come not only in the garden of the villa, but also indoors, where they will be able to see the exhibition of Maija Tabaka’s works. These are works that we have received from several private collections. Yes, because a very, very intimate, special selection of Maija Tabaka’s works, ”revealed Petre.

Until the middle of September, Monika Pormale’s solo exhibition will be on display at the Riga Smallest Gallery, while the works of Uģis Albiņš and Daša Melņikova, which they have created especially for the villa garden, will be on display in the garden.

“It seemed to me that the villa in general is a place where everything happens and different things – people are always busy, and I feel that there is a lack of a third element that people can look at forever – there is a fire, the stoves are built, people are , and then only water is missing, ”said the artist Darja Melnikova, who creates a fountain during the festival.

‘There will be an installation of ready-made objects called VS (versus). As we know, in Latin it means ‘against’. But when asking people what the combination of these two letters means, of course, there are so many possibilities of interpretation – “maybe on Sunday, the state works, met in the summer, all shit, hay in the hay” – there are endless interpretations of it, “described artist Monika Pormale .

Petre pointed out that the culmination of the festival is expected on Sunday, when the artists’ badminton tournament will take place, where the artists will compete in a team created by Alexander Brezhe in several teams.

“We will have a wonderful judge for the badminton tournament – Māris Gailis, who has experience – he judged the women’s boxing match in 1986 during Miervaldis Pol’s performance,” added Petre.

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