Ginta Grube solo exhibition ODD YEAR opens during Museum Night

Ginta Grube’s solo exhibition ODD YEAR opens as part of Museum Night 2025, on May 17 at 8 p.m. at Jaunpils Castle (Jaunpils, Tukuma novads, LV-3145). In English, the word “odd” has several synonyms: accidental, strange, peculiar, unusual, separate, free, and superfluous. These words mark the seven thematic groups of the exhibition. By analyzing these terms alongside the events of her life, the author constructs ambiguous research clusters that result in jewelry, sketches, models, and video works. The exhibition was open until September 30th 2025.

Artist Ginta Grube’s first solo exhibition showcases her creative work, in which she expands the traditional perception of jewelry as an object of beauty, offering a contemporary perspective and daring to create jewelry with sculptural ambition, which is rare in Latvia and around the world. Her works create a wonderful relationship between the aesthetic ideals of brutalism and roughness and the fragility of minimalism. The minimalist compositions use both self-made and found objects (ready-mades), similar to Dadaism – chains, metal elements, mechanical workshop tools, etc. They evoke not only an aesthetic experience, but also philosophical reflections on lightness and heaviness, both as physical quantities and as mental states of mind or soul.

About the author

“Ginta Grūbe seeks parallels with classic jewelry design principles. The jewelry artist is characterized by a practical approach, working with available materials, creating diverse compositions with atypical materiality, unusual, even heavy objects. At times brutal and unexpected combinations of materials reveal the natural character of the objects against a delicate approach to technical solutions. The choice of materials is dominated by an effort to pay tribute to the worn-out, using it effectively and even unexpectedly. The author’s work can be described as bold, surprising and daring. Her work is often demonstrated in local as well as international arena by participating in jewelry related events as an artist, curator and organizer of events such as summer school IN SITU*. Grube’s creative work transcends boundaries and extends into interdisciplinary fields, incorporating jewelry into choreography. The artist attaches great importance to promoting contemporary jewelry through exhibitions, workshops, and sharing her daily sketches on social media,” writes graphic artist and design thinker Guna Poga.

“When planning the exhibition, I considered the significant milestones in my life. Of course, my studies at the Art Academy of Latvia are one of them. From a bachelor’s and then master’s program student, I became a guest lecturer. For nine years now, I have been a colleague of my teachers Andris Silapeters and Arvīds Endzins. My master’s thesis supervisor was Professor Juris Gagainis (1944-2017). During my studies, my horizons were significantly broadened by studying in France at the Strasbourg Academy of Art as part of the ERASMUS exchange program with lecturers Sophie Hannagarth and Florence Lehmann. Participating in Munich Jewellery Week for several years as part of the international artist collective Hatara Project helped me meet colleagues from other countries and learn about different approaches to jewelry art. The first exhibitions of the Jewelry Art Association in Cesis, Valmiera, and Kuldiga, followed by Riga and Vilnius, also had a strong influence on my experience as an artist and curator. For the second term now, I have been fortunate to serve on the board of the Jewelry Art Association. The last few years with the association “LAUKKU” and performances at the festival “Baltic Take Over” in Helsinki and later “Homo Novus” in Latvia have opened up new collaborative experiences with dance and sound artists. The video work “Priekšmetu atmiņa” (Memory of Objects), which can be seen in the exhibition, is a collaboration with contemporary dance artist Tereze Zabarovska,” says author Ginta Grūbe about the genesis of her work.

About the exhibition

The exhibition “Odd Year” is my first solo exhibition, featuring my works created over a period of 10 years. I chose the title because 2025 is an odd year, and works on display date back to 2015. I was looking for a term that would allow the exhibition to be interpreted on different levels, including the English term “Odd Year.” The exhibition is not intended to be a finished whole, but rather a revelation of my creative process, so at the beginning of this year, I set myself the goal of making one jewelry model every day until the exhibition. These are 3D sketches that have the potential to become jewelry. Some of them are difficult to call jewelry, but I call them that anyway. My creative work is tactile, meditative, and intuitive. The end result is not the primary focus. I explore what I can do with the given material and play with it, just like I did with building blocks as a child,” reveals the author. The artist has been working in this field for more than 10 years, and the exhibition was created thanks to an invitation from Inga Spure, director of the Jaunpils Museum, with the support of the State Culture Capital Foundation.