The Fondation Beyeler will devote a comprehensive solo exhibition to the artist Vija Celmins (*1938, Riga), who masterfully works in painting, drawing, and sculpture. Celmins’ visual language is both subtle and powerful. Initially, Celmins focussed on everyday objects as well as scenes of disaster and war. She then turned to the surface structures of spider webs, oceans and deserts, and later more particularly the night sky and galaxies. Her images resist the cursory gaze; yet once we engage with them, they deploy a fascinating beauty, between intimacy and distance.
The exhibition will display a selection of works produced by Celmins from the 1960s to the present day, bringing to vivid life the mesmerising effect of her pictorial worlds. It will also feature a small selection of sculptures—which Celmins herself qualifies as “three-dimensional paintings”. Finally, the exhibition will present a new group of works that carry forward Celmins’ long-standing and intense engagement with surfaces and spatial depth. The exhibition will be the most significant presentation of Celmins’ work in Europe in almost 20 years.
