"Other Passengers" Viktor Timofeev

In cooperation with the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, from 22 March to 15 June 2025, the most extensive solo exhibition to date by the New York-based Latvian artist Viktor Timofeev, "Other Passengers", is presented in the 4th floor exhibition halls of the main building of the Latvian National Museum of Art in Riga (Jaņa Rozentāla laukums 1), exploring themes of otherness, fragmented identities, readability, and incomprehensibility.

The exhibition brings together key motifs of Viktor Timofeev’s artistic practice, forming a unified multimedia installation that includes new paintings, drawings, video works, and a specially composed soundscape, created in collaboration with artist Miša Skalskis (FI/LT). All exposition’s elements intertwine autobiographical references with broader societal processes, developing a socio-critical metaphor in a scenographically structured environment. As visitors gradually move through the three exhibition spaces, a dramaturgy unfolds – revealing the coexistence and clash of two parallel realities – prompting an exploration of the boundaries between fact and fiction, objectivity and subjectivity.

Deeply connected to artist’s ongoing creative explorations, which include video games, worldmaking, and an interest in irrational systems, the exhibition works extend long-developed concepts while seeking new modes of expression. One of Viktor Timofeev’s key pieces, "Alphabet Clock", which systematically and infinitely mutates letter forms, is reinterpreted within the exhibition, addressing issues of alienation, power, and societal norms.

Working between Riga and New York, Viktor Timofeev has long examined identity, language, and modes of communication, investigating their multilayered, shifting nature and the possibilities of integration or resistance within dominant systems. His work often explores governance structures and communication mechanisms, using different media to unfold ideas of the absurd. These serve as both a reaction to the turbulent, uncontrollable processes of contemporary reality and as an opportunity to construct an environment that subverts the norms of daily life with absurdity and play.

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About the museum

The Latvian National Museum of Art is the most important art museum in Latvia and the first building in the Baltics designed specifically for the needs of an art museum. The museum's building is an architectural monument of national significance. It is one of the most impressive historicist buildings in the Riga Boulevard Circle.