RIGA.- Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Art Museum Riga Bourse, in collaboration with the world-famous Uffizi Gallery, the Italian art exhibition Self-Reflection. Tintoretto, Omar Galliani, Lorenzo Puglisi will be on view from 21 August to 14 November 2021. The centre of the exhibition is the Portrait of a Man by the great Venetian Renaissance artist Tintoretto, which is to be seen in Riga for the first time ever. This exhibition is organized with the support of the Boris and Ināra Teterev Foundation, as well as the Embassy of the Italian Republic in Latvia.

Italian contemporary artists Omar Galliani and Lorenzo Puglisi introduce the audience to their large-scale compositions created especially for Riga exhibition. The themes and means of artistic expression are rooted in the traditions of Italian painting and drawing. The two artists have already arranged several joint exhibitions in Italy: at the Francesco Messina Museum in Milan (2018), in the church of Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples (2017) and at the Sicilian Museum of Contemporary Art, Palazzo Riso, in Palermo (2016, RISO – Museo regionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Palermo) – hence, the exhibition at the Art Museum Riga Bourse is considered to be a purposeful continuation of their creative cooperation.

Each author is represented by seven artworks, which create the dialogue about the vital basics of existence – the role and the mission of every human being in the world, the beautiful and the valuable, threats and fears, courage and love. Although the creative “manuscripts” of Galliani and Puglisi differ, they are united by a faith in discovering the artistic truth that was so strongly manifested by the great Italian Renaissance masters.




Self-reflection and the search for the essential clearly dominate in Omar Galliani’s drawings and paintings. It is reflected via the fragility and delicacy of the interaction of the plot elements, background, and details. In the artworks of Lorenzo Puglisi, the heritage of the Renaissance plays a special role – his self-reflection is rooted in paraphrases about the compositions of painters of the past. In his paintings on a monochrome, juicy black background with sharp, rich strokes, light-accentuated focus elements are highlighted faces, palms, silhouettes, costume folds. Both artists are joined by the view that the great teachers of the past are an inexhaustible source of inspiration, both in art and in the way an artist must serve his/her talent – just like the great Venetian Tintoretto (Jacopo Comin, 1518–1594) did in his time.

The exhibition Self-Reflection dedicated to Italian art of the past and present is a wonderful gift to Latvian spectators and guests of the country on the tenth anniversary of the Art Museum Riga Bourse.

The Art Museum Riga Bourse is a part of the Latvian National Museum of Art and is an architectural monument of national importance. It was built between 1852 and 1855 in the style of a Venetian Renaissance palazzo symbolising wealth and plenitude. Museum holds a remarkable collection of Italian art in Latvia where it is mostly associated with the significant period of this culture space – the Renaissance and its great masters, who drew inspiration and knowledge from Antiquity, the greatness of the Roman art giants, and who set the tone for the further development of visual art and architectural styles and trends to the present day.

Text by Astrīda Rogule