Collections are shaped by the simple yet powerful act of bringing things together. It’s an innate and fundamental human activity which can be found and displayed in museums and in memory boxes, in institutions and in childhood bedrooms. Whether of paintings, porcelain, or postcards, a collection reflects on who we are and lets us remember where we come from. Encompassing nearly 35,000 works, the Zuzāns collection is a living record of Latvian art and a portrait of collecting as a cultural and personal act. What is more, it is a reflection of the creative effort of countless individuals. The exhibition focuses on 200 artworks from the Zuzāns family collection.
This exhibition approaches the act of collecting as an extension of artistic thinking by bringing together works through intuition and association. Selected from the wider collection, the artworks are arranged into sets that follow no fixed system, but instead draw connections through form, colour, gesture, or mood. Some connections are immediate and visible, others may be more subtle and suggestive. What unfolds is an archipelago of collections, a landscape to explore with attention and curiosity, an invitation to discover what draws us in and why.