For society
Aizkraukles banka is 100% owned by Latvian shareholders, that is why participation in socially?important projects is considered the bank obligation. In this way, the bank aims to affirm its far?reaching plans.
Both AB.LV management and employees are convinced that successful business is based not only on the professional customer service, but on responsibility to our state as well.
Social responsibility
Implementing the bank and their own main values into real life, the owners of Aizkraukles banka have established the “AB.LV Fund” (AB.LV Sabiedriskā labuma fonds). This is a corporate charity fund, which promotes the society and business responsibility for people around us and for working environment.
The fund provides support to creative persons and outstanding organizations, contributing their efforts and knowledge to achievement of targets important for the whole society — building of strong Latvian state and consolidated wealthy society.
Fund activities involve providing support to contemporary art, children and youth projects,promoting development of urban environment, education, and establishment of civil society.
Contemporary Art
In
2005, Aizkraukles Banka and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of
Latvia agreed on long-term cooperation in the field of contemporary art
development, pursuant to which the bank shall invest one million lats
over a period of 10 years, and those funds will be used for purchasing
artworks to constitute holdings of the Latvian Contemporary Art Museum.
Aizkraukles Banka is the major supporter of development of the museum
holdings.
The guiding principle underpinning development of the
Contemporary Art Museum holdings is to promote, investigate and
maintain art processes, and to respond to events in visual arts,
building them upon progress taking place in the art of Latvia, the
Baltics and Europe, and also upon cultural heritage.
Most of the visual works of art, constituting the holdings, were created in Latvia and the Baltics between the middle of the 20th century and our days. The artworks fall into three main categories:
- CONCEPTUAL WORKS OF ART OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20th CENTURY / Reflection of inventive changes in the use of means of artistic expression and in the essence of creative message, standing for the visuality shift to conceptualization, i.e. a shift from visual perception of a work of art to emotional and intellectual comprehension.
- NONCONFORMIST ART: 1960s–1990s / Largely a reflection and response to complicated social and political situation behind the claimed perfect facade of soviet times, not refraining from revelation of different reality often combined with critical message.
- BRIGHT REFLECTION OF MODERN ART PROCESSES / Works of art often stepping beyond the forms, conventionally considered to be a part of arts, and comprising interdisciplinary elements — visual, social, political, psychological data, expression and knowledge, mass media strategies and various other approaches.
Aizkraukles Banka has already supported purchase of 86 artworks to be included to holdings of the museum holdings. They include two pictures by Imants Lancmanis from “Kaletu Barn” series of works, two works by Aija Zarina and four paintings by Barbara Gaile, ten photographs from Inta Ruka series “My Rural People”, a triptych by Juris Boiko — “Sounds”, a collage “Song Festival” by Estonian artist Andreas Tolts, works by Leonard Laganovskis from series “Tribunes”, snapshots by the founder of Lithuanian school of photography Antanas Sutkus, depicting prominent French philosopher of the 20th century Jean-Paul Sartre, etc.
Decisions on including artworks to the contemporary art holdings are taken by international expert commission. The members of the commission are: art critic and curator Helena Demakova, JSC Aizkraukles Banka Chairman of the Board Ernests Bernis, curator of the Trondheim University (Norway) and Helsinki Contemporary Art Museum KIASMA Maaretta Jaukkuri, world-famous contemporary art expert and curator Norbert Weber (Germany), curator, art historian, director of KUMU Sirje Helme (Estonia), professor of Vilnius Academy of Arts, art historian Raminta Jurenaite (Lithuania), artistic director of the Russian National Center for Contemporary Art Leonid Bazhanov (Russia), multimedia artist Raitis Smits, art historian, expert of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art Ieva Astahovska, artist Leonards Laganovskis, senior civil servant of the Visual Arts Division of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia Mara Adina.
Besides long-term cooperation with the Latvian Ministry of Culture, Aizkraukles Banka provides financing to Contemporary Art Exhibitions Programme, administered by AB.LV Sabiedriskā labuma fonds. The aim of the programme is to promote development of contemporary art by supporting nation-wide socially-significant contemporary art exhibitions, therefore improving society awareness and understanding of arts, and also increasing opportunities of accessing art events in Latvia.
More information available at www.abfonds.lv.
