Press Release, July 20, 2021

The Art Museum Riga Bourse, a section of the Latvian National Museum of Art specialized in the promotion of international art, proposes a reflection on self-portraiture and does so by inviting two of today's greatest Italian artists, Omar Galliani and Lorenzo Puglisi, choosing to place them side by side with a master of the past, Jacopo Robusti, better known as Tintoretto (Venice, 1518-1594).

Thanks to the collaboration between the Uffizi Galleries, the Boris and Ināra Teterev Foundation (Latvia) and under the patronage of the Italian Embassy in Latvia, and thanks to the support of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the famous Portrait of a Man, a masterpiece by the Venetian master, will arrive for the first time at the National Museum of the Latvian capital. This work becomes the fulcrum (the center) of a confrontation around which develops the self-narrative through images of two contemporary artists that the curator, Astrida Rogule, has chosen to represent the excellence of the self-portrait in contemporary Italian art: Omar Galliani and Lorenzo Puglisi.

Thanks to the collaboration between the Uffizi Galleries, the Boris and Ināra Teterev Foundation (Latvia) and under the patronage of the Italian Embassy in Latvia, and with the support of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the famous Portrait of a Man, a masterpiece by the Venetian master, will arrive for the first time at the National Museum of the Latvian capital. This work becomes the fulcrum of a confrontation around which develops the self-narration through images of two contemporary artists that the curator, Astrida Rogule, has chosen to represent the excellence of the self-portrait in contemporary Italian art: Omar Galliani and Lorenzo Puglisi.

The two artists, who have exhibited together in unique and evocative places such as the chapel of the coronation of the Museo Riso in Palermo (2016), the Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples (2017), the Francesco Messina Museum in Milan (2018) continue their fruitful creative collaboration, beyond the Italian borders with the exhibition Self-Reflection.

To host the exhibition, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of its foundation, is the Art Museum Riga Bourse, located in a building of the second half of the nineteenth century that recalls in its architectural structure just the Venice of Jacopo Robusti. 

In the large main hall, once the seat of the Riga Bourse, Omar Galliani and Lorenzo Puglisi each present six large-scale works and a self-portrait (destined for the collection of the Uffizi Galleries) with which they establish an empathetic and timeless dialogue with Tintoretto's Portrait of a Man. The exhibition intends to lead the visitor to reflect on the act of artistic creation, where what is represented is the inner world of the artist who sublimates in the likeness of himself even the outer world: the result of a process of "self-reflection" that has always occurred in all ages.

Omar Galliani and Lorenzo Puglisi, drawing on the centuries-old tradition witnessed by the great Master of the sixteenth century, offer the opportunity to admire the evolution of this path. Tintoretto is their "ancestor" and his masterpiece exemplifies in an illuminating way the profound understanding of self and the nature of the human being. Philosophy and practice create a connection between the sixteenth century and the Third Millennium through the infinite possibilities of painting and drawing. 

It is important to reiterate how Italian art still plays a leading role in contemporary art on an international level. The exhibition Self Reflection, dedicated to Italian art of the past and present, is a great gift to Latvian viewers and tourists visiting Riga, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Art Museum Riga Bourse.