"Gleizds, Paper, Scissors" Līva Kreislere, Līva Rutmane

From 22 November 2024, an exhibition entitled Gleizds, Paper, Scissors is on view at Pauls Stradiņš Medicine History Museum. Dedicated to the link between the creative experiments of the photographer Jānis Gleizds (1924–2010) and the scientific surgical research of the time, the exhibition intertwines subjects like disability and Soviet erotica, the aesthetics of a medically transformed body and the first steps toward social acceptance of the divergent into a single cohesive story.

The exhibition focuses on the photographer Jānis Gleizds’ work in the 1970s and 1980s with particular emphasis on the lengthy collaboration between the artist and surgeons at the Traumatology and Orthopaedics Research Institute. In a time when the official art scene had to conform with the Soviet regime, Gleizds, the Institute’s photo lab assistant, untrained in arts, and the surgeons, whose experimental practice was artlike in its creativity, developed the aesthetic principles behind cutting-edge technological solutions that would allow erotic imagination endow the ideologized body of the Soviet citizen with sexual characteristics enveloped in an aura of light.

For the Soviet society that habitually excluded people with disabilities, forcing them out of the visibility zone, the case of a young Latgalian man who came to Riga to get fitted for prosthetics and went on to became famous was an exception. After losing both hands at the age of 24, Jānis Gleizds ended up at the Traumatology and Orthopaedics research Institute as a patient; following a surgical operation that made it possible for him to train as a photographer, he was offered the post of a photo lab assistant and stayed on at the Institute for 40 years. Alongside his job he was also a keen member of the Riga amateur photography club; his fine-art photography brought him numerous awards at international competitions. Key to success was Gleizds’ distinctive method of photo editing, born under the impact of the experiments he had observed in the operating theatre of the Traumatology and Orthopaedics Institute.

The Institute enjoyed certain word-of-mouth popularity at the time, although only a few handfuls of people knew of many of the surgical procedures that were performed there: the first sex reassignment surgeries in the Soviet Union, prosthetic treatment of men suffering from impotence, plastic breast surgery for women. Legends were told about the women who had managed to have their breasts or other body parts ‘done’ thanks to their connections, fostering faith in the infinite power of medicine, while the masterful photo collages by Gleizds kindled imagination that transferred the newly acquired body from the down-to-earth Soviet reality to sensual Gardens of Paradise.

A retrospect on Gleizds’ oeuvre reveals the transformation undergone by the Latvian society in its views on the human body and sexuality, paying increasing attention to the relationship between the natural and the artificial.

The exhibition is curated by Anna Volkova and Vladimirs Svetlovs.

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About the museum

The Pauls Stradiņš Medicine History Museum opened its doors to visitors in 1961, offering an overview of achievements in the history of medicine from the Stone Age to the mid-20th century in its permanent exhibition. The museum is distinguished by the fact that the historical layout and messages of the permanent exhibition, as well as the dioramas popular in 20th-century science museums, have largely been preserved to this day, providing an opportunity to view an example of museology practiced according to Soviet ideological guidelines.   As the museum team begins redefining the institution, special attention is currently being paid to the circumstances of the museum's founding and the development of its collection, as well as the dialogue with the public about the future directions of the museum’s activities. This is reflected in both recent exhibitions and public events programs, as well as in interventions made in the museum's permanent exhibition. In collaboration with curators, artists, scientists from various fields, and non-governmental organizations, the museum team sees the future potential of the museum as an interdisciplinary platform that fosters understanding of care as the foundation of a sustainable society and brings attention to the concept of health as a changing cultural and social construct.   Exhibition Program: Gleizds, Paper, Scissors (2024-2025); Life After Death. Remembrance Practices and the Museum (2024); How I’ve Been Feeling Lately (2023); Sneakers: Eco x Ego (2023); Peace Nourishes. War Destroys (2022); Dairy Diaries (2022); Museum Blood Count (2021-2022).

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