EXHIBITION "THE POSTER AS A WEAPON" | 3–22 OCTOBER 2025

The exhibition shows only a part of the AAL's extensive poster collection, which contains more than 4,000 items. This is the first time it will be available to viewers on such a large scale. The collection reveals a diverse spectrum of 20th-century art and political change, highlighting the development of posters from the late 19th century to the Soviet period.

The exhibition emphasises the power of images in communication, encouraging viewers to critically evaluate visual messages, while also serving as a contemporary platform for the development of visual literacy and thinking.

Posters have served different functions at different times: from decorative examples at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries to avant-garde experiments; from the national pathos of interwar Latvia to the canonised images of Soviet propaganda; from the geometric modernism of the 1960s to the surreal and expressive compositions of the 1980s. This historical panorama allows us to see the poster as one of the most powerful tools of visual communication.

In 2021, the systematisation and processing of the poster collection was begun, but the origins of the collection are linked to the painter and art historian Jurģis Skulme (1928–2015), who established the AAL Information Centre (at that time “Scientific sector”) in 1961. Currently, the collection can be considered the second largest poster resource in Latvia, after the National Library of Latvia.

Exhibition opening hours:
3–22 October 2025
Monday–Friday: 10:00–18:00
Break: 14:30–15:00
Art Academy of Latvia, Kalpaka Boulevard 13, Riga
Free admission

Exhibition concept authors:
Prof. Andris Vītoliņš, Vice-Rector for Administrative and Creative Work at the AAL
Iveta Feldmane, scientific project assistant, guest lecturer and researcher
Inese Rozentāla, Exhibition Coordinator, Development and Communications Departmen
Kristians Brekte, Head of the Painting Department, Associate Professor

Thanks to the FLPP research project, a digital archive of the AAL poster collection is being created, which will be widely available to the public in the future.

Images