Leonards Laganovskis

Leonards Laganovskis is a classic Latvian contemporary artist and conceptualist who has taken part in exhibitions since the 1980s. In his installations, paintings and graphics, he plays with or paraphrases regional and universal symbols and images which comment on their time, linguistic conventions and power mechanisms. Often employing Soviet mythological elements and signs, the artist employs unobtrusive irony to alienate content from form, offering the viewer a postmodern game with double codes and ending in absurdity. 

In the series “The Scientific Organisation of Work“, Laganovskis made use of Soviet-era door signs bearing the names of organisational units and officials’ titles. On the one hand, such typical-looking nameplates with examples of Soviet bureaucratic lexicon and familiar fonts could be seen as signs of the respective time, while on the other, once they lose their official place on the office door, these signs of bureaucratic power lose their force and instead become ironic artworks.

Series “The Scientific Organisation of Work“. 1990.