The Māksla XO gallery started out in 1999 with the opening of an exhibition space in the very heart of Riga's Old Town in Konventa Sēta. On September, 2010, the "Maksla XO" gallery move to Riga's finest Art Nouveau area and open the new exhibition space at Elizabetes street 14.
Art historian, exhibition curator and prolific author Ilze Žeivate is the founder and manager of the Māksla XO gallery. Since its opening, the gallery also has a team of art professionals - art historian Ilona Arne, painter Zane Iltnere and assistant Jana Jakobsone.
The gallery's basic mission is based on the idea of finding its special place and meaning in the international art world by offering a powerful, creative and many-sided modern and contemporary art generation.
Since 1999 the Māksla XO gallery has developed a well thought out programme of exhibitions that includes solo exhibitions by the artists represented by the gallery and annual gallery projects - group shows. Every year some 12 to 18 exhibitions are held in the gallery space or outside and to date there have been almost two hundred such shows.
In parallel, the gallery is also involved in local and international art projects. The gallery also collaborates with foreign art museums and foundations in the organisation of exhibitions and more ambitious projects for internationally recognised and popular artists.
The Māksla XO gallery represents some of the most important artists in contemporary Latvian art whose styles have become their "trademarks" not only in the Latvian art context but also in international projects - Helena Heinrihsone, Ivars Heinrihsons, Ieva Iltnere, Franceska Kirke, Guntars Sietins, Kristaps Zarins, Kristaps Gelzis, Dzemma Skulme, Vilis Ozols, Edvards Grube, Tatjana Krivenkova, Kaspars Zarins, Vija Zarina and others.
Through careful evaluation of the tendencies in Latvian contemporary art, the gallery also represents the youngest generation of Latvian artists whose highly distinctive artistic vision reveals their sense of the age - Kaspars Podnieks, Otto Zitmanis, Harijs Brants, Jana Brike, Anna Heinrihsone, Vineta Kaulaca, Kristina Keire, Neonilla Medvedeva, Ginters Krumholcs.
The Māksla XO gallery regularly organises special exhibitions of works by Latvian Old Masters from the early 20th century to the 1970s.
Working together with Latvian museums and cultural organisations the gallery has organised specially curated retrospective and group exhibitions of works by artists of the classical Latvian 20th century avant-garde.
The Māksla XO gallery provides consultations on the arrangement of artworks in interiors; it works on forming private collections and corporate collections of contemporary art. Its largest project (2004 - 2008) has been for Swedbank (Latvia, formerly Hansabanka) resulting in the formation of a contemporary art collection of some 400 works and a comprehensive catalogue The Hansabanka Collection of Contemporary Art, which was compiled and written by the gallery.
For its most important exhibitions and projects the gallery publishes catalogues and analytical articles for the press and specialist periodicals (Studija, Latvijas Arhitectūra etc.).
The gallery also offers consultations where expert opinion on works of art is required.
Māksla XO gallery has received critical acclaim from art curators and critics alike for its museum quality exhibitions.
