Building Art Collection as an Intellectual Adventure

“… the ripple effect is huge when something like this happens …” (Google.com)

It seems an almost impossible mission to describe a collector with the right words. And what are they, art collectors? It has already been several years since I met Raivis Zabis, a businessman, art enthusiast and collector. If someone asked me how I would describe him as a collector, I would probably say that I don't know. I should mention, however, that art is something essential to Raivis and that it adds significant value to his life. His primary driving force seems to be his own curiosity; I would even name it a thirst for knowledge, and for a reason. Raivis is able to see artists and their potential before others have noticed them. He has a gift to spot the artistic potential where institutions and curators haven't yet set their foot. I might say that Raivis is more like a detective and a traveller, or even more like a XIXth century traveller who took an expedition to find one thing, only to discover something else along the way.

Perhaps that is where we should start. A collector is formed, first and foremost, by his approach to art and the world in general: how interested he is in the new, in the artist's creative process, how much he is involved in this process, when and how he follows it, and whether he supports it. Raivis' concept of collecting is inseparable from his idea of perceiving, creating and experiencing art.

He not only “collects” art pieces, but also supports their creation by providing a place and a space at his artist residency near Liepāja, with the idea that it will expand as an incubator for art and culture in the coming years. As stated on the website of his collection “When the purchase of artworks goes beyond accidental purchases and assumes a character of deliberate and more or less permanent activity, the process itself becomes a kind of art. The art of buying art.”^[1]

In my discussions with Raivis, I have noticed his increased interest in the art processes, particularly in painting. However, he is not a blind follower of current trends in the art world, visiting biennials and art fairs or buying the work of uncommon artists, but rather a careful and considered cultivator of his own taste. Perhaps the cultural environment of St Petersburg, where Raivis spent several years, was the starting point for his affair with art.

In the last decade, the collector’s role in the Latvian art scene has undeniably increased, and the art world has been dominated by several individuals who acquire contemporary art. While entrepreneur Jānis Zuzāns (who purchased a number of works from the Candy Bomber exhibition of contemporary paintings in 2008) entered the art market in the late 2000s, several other local collectors, Māris Vitols, Vita Liberte, the Teterevs couple, and others, have followed in his footsteps in recent years.

Notably, a collector in Latvia today is in his own way preserving contemporary art for future generations, thereby filling a niche that should be served by a non-existent contemporary art museum. Although contemporary art is sporadically acquired by the Latvian National Museum of Art, a collector is able to buy it much more freely and often more effectively, responding to the current trends by creating exciting and original art combinations, and sometimes even stepping into the curator’s shoes. 

Obviously, this does not make an artistic act any less important, as Raivis pointed out in an interview.  However, this phenomenon should also be viewed critically, remembering that collecting is ultimately a matter of a certain personal/individual taste; to a large extent, assembling a collection is based on one's own subjective criteria, so a collector cannot be expected to cover the entire art scene or to be familiar with regular artistic practices. But given that a collector is not isolated from the general ecosystem of the art world and is an essential participant in it, he also has a certain responsibility for the art processes and, consequently, for the way in which society consumes and perceives art.

Raivis keeps emphasising that his collection is largely based on his love for painting, a classical yet contemporary artistic medium that has been experiencing a renaissance in the last decade. According to art theorist Isabelle Graw, “from the early modern period to the present, painting has been continuously associated with intellectual capacities: it has either been thought to display knowledge … or assumed to possess the power to do things and act.” ^[2]

Since the historical avant-garde of the XXth century, painting as a medium has expanded its boundaries, and it is no longer possible to speak only of painting on canvas, which deals with exploring an object. In a broader sense, the definition of painting, along with the artistic process itself, should include the conceptual environment or the idea, as well as the "agents" (institutions, gallery owners, collectors, critics, etc.) who, apart from the artist himself, are also involved in the process.

The idea of the canvas as a plane has changed, as can be vividly seen, for example, in the paintings of contemporary artist Katharina Grosse, whose work Raivis also greatly admires.

While Raivis sticks to the classical parameters of painting, with its language dominated by presence of craft, emotional and sensual component, and imagery (multi-layered, but also abstract themes), his choice shows a desire to open up to broader experiments on pictorial language, and a certain fascination with painting as a form.

“Visible brushstrokes and glossy oil paint can trigger a haptic longing to touch the painting’s surface.... these kind of haptic events can give rise to what I call “vitalistic fantasies”: for example, the belief, going back to painting theorists in antiquity, that paintings bear some resemblance to their creators. Despite actually being absent, the artist is imagined into the picture she or he has created and seems to maintain a ghostly presence within the work.” ^[3]

This idea can be related to the approach that Raivis also practises, by being in close (even constant) contact with the artists whose work is included in his collection. This communication, discussions and knowledge of artistic practice seem to give an additional value to an artwork. Moreover, it is complemented by a belief in the artist's growth or creative journey, something that can be described as a potential investment in the future with a certain risk premium.

Painting for Raivis is like an intellectual exercise in which it is exciting to participate, exploring the relations of this medium with both the historical and the contemporary. Below I will review a selection of works by some Latvian artists from the RZ Collection, looking at how their identities and aesthetic views form a mutual connection, and how they fit into the current processes of contemporary Latvian painting.

The RZ collection features artists from different generations. Many of them are not the most prominent figures on the contemporary art scene. This says a lot about Raivis' aesthetic taste as a collector: he is not so much focused on contemporary art trends, but prefers a broader perspective, also paying attention to marginal names, for example, Dace Dēliņa Lipska, an artist vividly painting Suiti women, or Aldis Donenbergs, who specialises in expressive images of birds. You won't find these artists at contemporary art exhibitions in Riga; their work is most commonly seen at the local art museums in Liepāja or Valmiera.

That said, the work of these artists, even if they follow the values of classical painting with its emphasis on the effective pictorial image, is something that Raivis has noticed and highly appreciated. In a similar way, Kaspars Perskis uses the language of academic painting. However, his work, like the Mannerist experiments of Atis Jākobsons exploring ideal beauty, appeals with a cultivated form that attracts the viewer with the free expression of his strokes and romantic images.

Daiga Krūze, whose painterly vision with its purity, dynamic colour relations and inner paradoxes is highly regarded by the local school of painting, also creates this kind of ideal imaginary landscape.

Sandra Strēle, a younger generation artist, addresses similar landscape issues too, but her paintings lack Daiga’s fluidity and intuitive emotion. Sandra rather focuses on schematic architectural landscapes where the depicted scene is structured, organised and sometimes even looks like an image from a design magazine.

The collection also features works by Lauris Ozols and Klāvs Loris. These young artists, although fairly new to painting, show interesting qualities of pictorial language: an ability to go beyond the mainstream academic school of painting and address new challenges. Their presence in the collection shows that Raivis likes to broaden his horizons with painting by actively following the latest trends and including those names that are still at the beginning of their artistic journey.

Raivis' collection is not homogeneous and is constantly evolving; his artistic choices are often contrasting and full of paradoxes. This is his signature collecting approach and style.

^[1] About the RZ Collection https://rzcollection.com/about (retrieved: 07.07.2022).

^[2] Isabelle Graw. The Love of Painting. Genealogy of a Success Medium. (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2018), p. 12.

^[3] Ibid, p. 20.