Exhibition “Don’t Cry! Feminist Perspectives in Latvian Art: 1965–2023”

Zenta Dzividzinska’s vintage prints from the 1960s are included in a group exhibition Don’t Cry! Feminist Perspectives in Latvian Art: 1965–2023 curated by Elita Ansone at the Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia. On view from July 14 to October 15, 2023.

Curated by Elita Ansone, the exhibition examines the history of feminist ideas in Latvian art. Ansone writes about the exhibition:

“In Latvia, feminism as a conscious academic discipline only started to take shape towards the end of the 20th century. Researchers have taken up women’s history studies, gradually also building an understanding about the specific conditions in Eastern Europe that have determined the formation of women’s consciousness in the context of gender. In Latvian art, especially in recent decades, works that critically interpret stereotypes about women’s role and place in society are being created. In the preceding years however we must rather talk about a kind of latent feminism, or “feminism without feminists”, when women artists dealing with the depiction of women’s lives did not conceptualise it as a broad problematic requiring public discussion.

The exhibition Don't Cry! looks at Latvian art from a feminist interpretation, employs gender discourse and merges into a stream of social activism giving women the voice to speak for themselves. The project’s title implies a prohibition to express emotions and hence opinion. It recalls the image cultivated during the Soviet occupation of the heroic Soviet woman who overcomes all life’s difficulties without complaining and subjects it to irony. The stigma of the strong woman and Soviet women’s misguided pride in their ability to live under harsh conditions has hindered a critical perspective towards everyday problems and a spirit of social struggle, and this psychological heritage can still be felt today.”