Artists: Daria Melnikova & Agata Melnikova
Exhibition title: Dancing Specularity
Venue: kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, Latvia
Date: May 20 – July 9, 2017
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga
Note: Poet and critic Sergej Timofejev in conversation with the artist Daria Melnikova and multimedia artist Agata Melnikova can be found here
Dancing Specularity is Daria Melnikova and Agata Melnikova’s second exhibition together. The idea is based on the concept of rapport exemplified by the mutual understanding and harmonious relation between the two sisters, and their empathy, being on each other’s side. It is a kind of harmonious mirroring that resembles a synchronous dance, and a similar feeling is created by the objects displayed in the exhibition room. Among the sisters’ previous collaborations is the exhibition Celestial Stems at Gallery 427 in Riga (2016), the work Room 3. Follow Me (exhibition A Bigger Peace, A Smaller Peace at the Latvian Railway History Museum, Riga, 2015) as well as ongoing accessory collection Ancient Relics.
Daria Melnikova (b. 1984) has graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia, Visual Communication department. Her solo-exhibitions include: Yesterday Is The New Tomorrow, ISSMAG gallery, Moscow (2017), EX-UVIA, Konstanet, Tallinn (2016), Room 2. Fool’s Gold, MVT Summer House, Riga (2015), Room 1. Brewing Harmony, Vita Kuben, Umeo (2014), A Green Silhouette of Grey (2014) and Dashing Lines and Forming Heaps, kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2011). Selected group exhibitions: Dedication, Exploitation & Haute Collaboration, Silberkuppe, Berlin (2017), Stoneroses #5, Riverside, Berne (2016), Le Fragole del Baltico, Careof, Milan (2015), Something eerie, Signal Center for Contemporary Art, Malmo, Lily’s Pool, Art in General, New York (2015), Literacy-Illiteracy, 16. Tallinn Print Triennial, KUMU, Tallinn (2014), Present Tense, Kalmar konstmuseum, Kalmar (2014), Vortex, Project Space Garage, Moscow (2014), Sculpture Is Space, Hobusepea, Tallinn (2013). Daria is the first laureate of the kim? Residency Award.
Agata Melnikova (b. 1988) has graduated from Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, Music Theory and History department. In 2015, she created the Closer To The Equator EP for a one-act contemporary ballet performance at the Latvian National Opera. Agata is a Red Bull Music Academy Montreal 2016 alumna. Working under the alias Sign Libra, she has performed live at the Montreal planetarium and at the Ambient Church in New York. In 2016, she started to practise in visual arts.
