Zuzeum Art Museum, Riga
October 2, 2026 – January 17, 2027

Installation: Kich My Ass!

Kitch My Ass! was conceived in response to the repeated dismissal of Skuja Braden’s work as kitsch, turning the derogatory label into a provocative title and a defiant bodily gesture. The work challenges the hierarchies that separate ornament from meaning, craft from conceptual art, and decorative objects from works considered intellectually significant. Its vessel-like form, painted surface, material, humour, and imagery are integral to its conceptual content, asserting that visual appeal and intellectual complexity are not mutually exclusive. By reclaiming the term kitsch, Skuja Braden question the cultural conventions through which artistic value is assigned and challenge the tendency to underestimate decorative art and the creative labour associated with it.

The project also brings together porcelain dishes and prints, exploring how images shift in meaning as they move between materials and surfaces. The prints Dear, Rosary, Danglers, and Bloom were created during an Invitational Jordan Schnitzer Printmaking Residency at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, where Skuja Braden worked with master printer Julia D'Amario. Their imagery explores the relationship between concealment and revelation, using the curtain as a conceptual device for framing, hiding, dividing, and exposing. The works were not intended as curtain designs; rather, they examine who or what is made visible, and who determines the conditions of that visibility. These motifs were later translated into porcelain, where the shift from paper to ceramic surface changes how the images are encountered. Together, the prints and porcelain works extend Skuja Braden’s investigation into the unstable boundary between decoration and meaning, questioning the cultural structures that shape how artworks, materials, and artistic practices are interpreted and valued.