On May 28th the Art Station Dubulti in Riga will present an international contemporary art exhibition “My Heart Is a Tiger”. The exhibition title comes from Rainis’ play “Joseph And His Brothers”. The exhibition title is significant outcry in which Joseph reveals long hidden humiliation – brotherly betrayal. The exhibition will present Latvian and foreign contemporary artists whose work is a social voice and philosophical generalizations.

Though one criteria of choosing artists was their natural openness to man, to “politics of man”. The project “Leap” is based on the ideas of Nietzsche about humans trying to transcend themselves. Bašeski’s man, like Nietzsche’s, is in a constant struggle to go beyond himself, and so do Rainis man. The drama of existence, the drama of choosing human (and individual) perspective, the drama of experiencing “life-affirmation” are the cross-points in Žarko Bašeski’s art and Rainis poetry, and both of them share their interest to philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Bašeski’s sculptures are also strong metaphors of contemporaneity which develops and makes widely available technologies to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. Bašeski’s work resonates to recent philosophical approaches that move beyond humanism, e.g. transhumanism.

What concerns Rainis, his thematic in drama from which the title “My Heart Is a Tiger” is quoted is ethics. In his rather pathos-full struggle between revenge and forgiveness the protagonist of “Joseph and his Brothers” chooses the “third way”, which can be read as a challenge to transcend the common knowledge.

The exhibition curators are the art curator and critic Inga Steimane and the publicist and writer Arno Jundze. The exhibition will be on display until 15 September 2015.