“Art I’ve Lived With”: an Exhibition of the Collection of Mikhail Baryshnikov

May 17, 2015

The exhibition organisers: kim? Contemporary Arts Centre, in collaboration with the Baryshnikov Arts Centre in New York and the Latvian National Museum of Art, are offering an insight into the art collection of the great Riga-born master of ballet Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Mikhail Baryshnikov was born in 1948 in Riga, Latvia. In 1969, he became the lead dancer of the Kirov Ballet Theatre in Leningrad, but defected from the Soviet Union in 1974 and began dancing as part of the world’s largest ballet companies, including in the New York City Ballet. Subsequently for several decades, he was the artistic director and lead dancer for world famous ballet theatres and dance troupes.

Collecting works of art was a passion that began to consume Mikhail Baryshnikov in the 1970s. Many of the works in his collection have become part of it as special dedications or gifts. Other works of art have been purchased by Baryshnikov over the years, because they captivated him aesthetically. Therefore, the collection, which is comprised of over one hundred exhibits, has evolved in a very personal and stylistically diverse manner – several artistic directions and various artists are represented. The collection is suggestive of the personality, intellect, taste and intuition of the ballet master himself.

Museum visitors in Riga can view almost the whole collection. The exhibition is also augmented by a full catalogue of the works, in which one can read the thoughts of Mikhail Baryshnikov himself about this collection and its origins.

Photo: Didzis Grodzs.