Anna Mari Liivrand bends materials and meanings at Kogo gallery

Anna Mari Liivrand’s solo exhibition at Kogo gallery, reviewed by ERR in an article originally published in Sirp, presents four installations whose curved forms and shifting meanings resist fixed interpretations.

Liivrand, a recent Köler Prize laureate, has a recognisable artistic style. Her new exhibition, “The Allure of Curving Paths”, is no exception. The exhibition is curated by Elīna Drāke and is open until 24 October.

The four installations immediately command the attention of visitors entering the gallery. The echoing room contains no music, lighting effects or theatrical staging. Instead, the works are allowed to exist and breathe. Visitors can move freely between them, viewing the installations from every angle and circling them in different directions.

This spacious arrangement brings out even the smallest details. Ornamental metal structures hold or surround different kinds of glass, including frosted, ordinary and flower-patterned glass. Found objects, botanical drawings, warning signs and patches of spray paint are also incorporated into the works.

Two of Liivrand’s drawings are displayed in the gallery’s second room, reinforcing the impression of a distinct artistic handwriting. They repeat the delicate botanical drawings and the same curved garden posts found in the installations. The forged metal structures appear like drawings that have stepped off the page and acquired a third dimension, while the decorated glass introduces a familiar ornamentation.

The combination of glass and metal may initially invite viewers to see the works as either strong or delicate, or even as masculine or feminine. Found objects appear as small asides that fit neatly into neither category. The strict divisions soon begin to dissolve. The metalwork takes the shape of flowers and plants, becoming soft, flexible and curved, while the glass is not merely fragile and breakable. Its roughness, brittleness, sharp edges and divisions also reveal the material’s resilience.

This unsettled and constantly shifting atmosphere dominates the exhibition. Liivrand’s works do not offer viewers a fixed narrative. They are neither overly illustrative nor clearly subordinate to a single idea.

The exhibition text says that each installation forms a separate chapter in a broader narrative, with the fragments following their own paths. Yet the exhibition seems more like a text to be read through quotations, digressions and repetitions. Liivrand has also said that her narratives are not linear, but consist of layers of stories placed on top of one another.

Viewers must fill the gaps between those layers themselves. The installations may not tell observers a story so much as activate their imagination. The works need to be given time to guide the gaze and reveal the relationships, connections and chains of association that emerge during the act of looking.