Contemporary Solutions for Contemporary Art

May 13, 2014

In order to raise public awareness of the collection formed by ABLV Bank for the forthcoming Contemporary Art Museum and to promote this type of art in general, the ABLV Charitable Foundation has created an interactive version of the exhibition “...for an occurrence to become an adventure...” in the form of a 360 degree virtual tour of the exhibition. 

The exhibition “...for an occurrence to become an adventure...” was on view at Rīga Art Space from 20 September - 27 October 2013 and it was the general public’s first introduction to the collection formed by ABLV Bank for the forthcoming Contemporary Art Museum. The collection is currently comprised of 204 works by 31 artists. All of the artists with works in the collection were represented in the exhibition. Viewed by more than 6,000 people, the exhibition attracted widespread public interest. 

Given the huge public interest in the exhibition and in contemporary art as a whole, ABLV Charitable Foundation decided to create an interactive version of the exhibition, thus providing an introduction to contemporary art and to the collection formed by ABLV Bank that the general public can enjoy at any time and in any place. 

The interactive version of the exhibition offers viewers the chance to take a virtual walking tour of the exhibition, spending time contemplating the works of art therein, viewing them close-up, and learning more about the stories behind the works of art and the artists who created them. In addition to viewing the works of art, art lovers can also play an educational game, which was created during the ABLV Charitable Foundation’s exhibition for senior grade pupils. During the course of the game, players can learn more about the nature of contemporary art, how it should be understood and how it is connected to various teaching subjects — physics, chemistry, biology, history, informatics and culturology, etc.

The interactive exhibition can be viewed in Latvian, Russian and English. In order to activate the virtual tour, please use the Google Chrome browser.

“The creation of the interactive version of the exhibition is unique. We know of no equivalent in Latvia, because the interactive version of the exhibition “...for an occurrence to become an adventure...” has been created using materials from the real exhibition environment. The exhibition was also nominated for several awards as the most important cultural event of 2013; therefore we are particularly pleased that it can now be viewed at any time by anyone. Contemporary solutions are required for an introduction to contemporary art. As the biggest supporter of the contemporary art scene in Latvia, we are ready to provide them,” explained ABLV Charitable Foundation’s Board Chair Zanda Zilgalve.

To create the virtual tour of the exhibition, we engaged Skatskat.lv, a company specialising in the development of such solutions. Assessing this project, the company’s Managing Director and joint owner Mikus Opelts, said: “Creating a virtual exhibition of ABLV Bank’s contemporary art collection was a major challenge. Even though before this project we had created over 550 visualisations of various types and degrees of complexity, the field of art exacts entirely different quality standards. Our goals was to develop a product that is on a par with outstanding global examples of virtual museum excursions such as those offered by the National Gallery (London) and Google, matching them in terms of the quality of ABLV Bank’s virtual collection of contemporary art and, in many nuances, even surpassing them. For example, the sculptures are adjustable and can be viewed from all sides; this is particularly evident in Dmitry Gutov’s work, where the angle radically changes the nature of the work. We have also integrated “motion videos” to bring the environment to life, which means that, while viewing an image, viewers may see a visitor to the exhibition passing by in the background. As to the extent to which we’ve succeeded, we’ll live it to the virtual visitors to the exhibition to judge.”

ABLV Charitable Foundation was founded in 2006 by ABLV Bank shareholders Ernests Bernis and Oļegs Fiļs, in order to put their core values into practice in real life and support the responsibility of entrepreneurs towards society and the environment. The Foundation functions as ABLV Bank’s main partner in realm of charitable activity, supporting creative people and outstanding organisations that invest their efforts and knowledge, in order to achieve universally important goals – to create a united, abundant and safe society. In particular, the Foundation focuses its attention on contemporary art, children and adolescents, and the development of education and civic society. In past years, the Foundation has supported more than 240 projects, awarding financing to them in the amount of EUR 1,200,000.