The Annual Grant Competition is Announced

September 20, 2016

The ABLV Charitable Foundation is announcing its annual grant competition, inviting artists and arts institutions to present their exhibition concepts therein. The goal of the grant competition is to support current developments within contemporary art, as well as to encourage the organising of exhibitions based on research that would reflect recent art history in Latvia. The ABLV Charitable Foundation is the co-founder of a private initiative to establish the Latvian Museum of Contemporary Art, which is due to open its doors to visitors in 2021. Therefore, the grant competition applications will be evaluated on the basis of the potential of the planned projects to establish a common collaborative platform, in order to stimulate public interest in contemporary art as a means of making people hungry to learn and challenging them to think by getting them to look in the mirror, ask themselves questions and swap experiences and ideas. It is intended that grants will be awarded to professional-level exhibitions and art educational projects of national importance. The total sum allocated to the grant competition in 2017 is EUR 37 500, of which EUR 30 000 will be allocated to support contemporary art exhibitions and EUR 7 500 will go to educational projects run under the auspices of the exhibitions backed by the Foundation.

As the Head of ABLV Charitable Foundation’s Arts Programmes Kaspars Vanags explains, “In the work to establish the Latvian Museum of Contemporary Art, the dialogue with its future audience and collaboration with other art institutions are equally important when it comes to exchanging ideas about how to generate and shape the museum’s content. Therefore, we look forward to seeing innovative proposals for attracting new audience segments, as well as models for creative collaboration between institutions in various sectors in the creation of joint exhibitions. As in previous years, precedence will be given to providing support to exhibitions for which new works of art will be created or which will provide coverage of research into the art scene in the Baltic States during the period from 1960. Special mention should also be made of the financial support due to be allocated under the terms and conditions of the competition to applications for support in which a comprehensive educational programme is planned under the auspices of the exhibitions.”

The deadline for the submission of applications is 18 October 2016 (until 23.59). Applications should be submitted electronically to the following e-mail address: maksla@ablv.org. The grant competition’s terms and conditions, application and budget forms, which must be completed in Latvian, are available on the Foundation’s homepage: www.ablv.org in the section “How to Receive Financing”.

ABLV Charitable Foundation, which this year celebrates a decade in operation, was founded 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 the 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, the development of education and civic society, as well as civic improvement projects in the City of Riga. In past years, the Foundation has supported nearly 300 projects, awarding financing to them in the amount of almost EUR 3 000 000.

For more detailed information, please contact:
Ksenia Pegasheva
Project Manager
ABLV Charitable Foundation
Phone: (+371) 67281383
E-mail: maksla@ablv.org
www.ablv.org