Black Carnation Part Three is the debut UK solo of Latvian artist Konstantin Zhukov, and the third instalment of the artist’s ongoing Black Carnation Project which investigates and reflects on the poorly documented queer histories of twentieth-century Latvia. This tension between presence and absence, as well as indexes of touch, are through lines in Zhukov’s works: sitters appear and disappear from view; a bowl, once containing apples, sits empty; white socks are left discarded on the floor. In a nod to the Soviet interior, the gallery walls are painted halfway, recalling the decor of institutions and communal apartments at the time. Zhukov reflects on the ambiguity between private and public in these shared spaces, which historically rendered queer intimacy near-impossible.

The faded painterliness of the images, printed onto the same receipt paper used for train tickets, speaks to the state of Latvia’s queer archives and to the nature of memory itself; a transience, a softness, a fuzzy edgedness. In Black Carnation Part Three, Zhukov presents a layered and complex tableau of history and legacy, interrogating which stories are historically erased or forgotten, as well as reflecting on broader themes of longing, intimacy and everyday tenderness.

The exhibition is accompanied by a sound piece commissioned from Latvian electronic band Alejas.