For the sixth year in a row, Ellex, the Baltic circle of legal excellence in Latvia, continues to support the art project "The Story of a Painting" that was created in cooperation with the Latvian National Museum of Art (LNMM). This year the project featured a video series of eight interviews with artists, which were created as an addition to the future LNMM exhibition "Demolition of the wall. Latvian Art 1985–1991". The exhibition will be open from February 3rd, 2023 until January 12th, 2025 at LNMM.

The project depicts the processes of Latvian contemporary art during that period of socio-political changes. The artists and culture personalities, featured as part of the exhibition videos, are Sandra Krastina, Franceska Kirke, Helena Heinrihsone, Ivars Poikans, Andrejs Kalnacs, Uldis Briedis, Ingrida Drazniece, and writer Aivars Klavis. The video interviews present the artists talking about the spirit of the historically turbulent and changing times, along with the artworks selected for the upcoming exhibition. In addition, the writer Osvalds Zebris dedicated an essay to each author, and the artist Kristaps Kalns captured the interviewed personalities in photographs.

“The video series, essays and photo stories featured this year are dedicated to the boundary breakers of the Awakening period in Latvian art, with the aim to reveal somewhat forgotten, but still existing truths about art and life in general. All these stories have one thing in common – they are presented by great personalities, who are passionate about their path and, therefore, were able to make a significant contribution to the restoration of Latvia’s independence,” comments Liga Merwin, managing partner at Ellex in Latvia. The 8 video interviews, essays, and photos continue the series of projects implemented in partnership between LNMM and Ellex in Latvia, which was launched in 2017 with the initiative “The Story of a Painting” (I – 2017, II – 2019), followed by projects “The Story of a Photographer” (2019), “Art restoration in the museum” (2020) and “Art collection 2020” platform (2021).

The video stories of the project are available at Ellex and LNMM websites and YouTube channels, social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, Delfi, and can also be viewed at the exhibition. The essays are available on the LNMM Soundcloud channel.