Valdis Celms

In the mid-1970s, Valdis Celms became one of Latvia’s leading theoreticians and practitioners of design and kinetic art. Celms’ list of achievements covers a highly diverse range of creative activities, including multifaceted design solutions, poster graphics, photographic manipulations and collages, visual designs for Song Festivals and impressive theoretical studies of sign culture. 

The secret of the physical and virtual movement of the objects created in the artist’s laboratory are a creative kinetic art recipe combining components such as form, colour, light, materials and mechanics, which when blended in the right proportions creates a pleasurable visual aesthetic and a dynamic artistic phenomenon.

In 1972, the Latvian Artists’ Union held a large exhibition titled “Svētki” (Festival) at the former Riga Bourse building on Doma laukums in Old Riga. This was the debut for the first designers and interior artists to graduate from the Art Academy of Latvia, who presented kinetic art, op-art and outdoor objects. Celms contributed two works to the show – an op-art-inspired cube and rotating cylinders. “Rotating Cylinders” is a kinetic sculpture which was initially intended for display at the estuary of the Daugava River, marking the “gates” of Riga.  While this plan was never implemented, the frequent appearance of the image of the work in the press stimulated public interest in kinetic art and made “Rotating Cylinders” a visual icon of Latvian contemporary art. 

Rotating Cylinders. Kinetic Sculpture (Object). 1972. (Renewed 2017).