(b Liepaja, 14 April 1939; d West Berlin, 14 Feb 1984). Latvian performance artist. He arrived in Germany at the age of five as a refugee and later triumphed over geopolitical circumstances to help revitalize artistic culture in his occupied homeland. While pursuing architectural studies at the Technische Hochschule in Aachen (1961–71), he grew interested in the interplay of progressive politics and innovative art forms, which prompted early collaborations with Wolf Vostell and Joseph Beuys, such as their performance 20 July ’64. In 1966 Abolins and Gerd Vorhoff founded the Neue Galerie in Aachen, where they organized happenings and performances by Beuys, Jörg Immendorff, Nam June Paik, Tomas Schmit and other key members of FLUXUS, the movement instigated by another exiled Balt, the composer George Maciunas (1931–78). At the same time, inspired by the New Left, Abolins combated artistic provincialism within the conservative Latvian émigré community by proposing a cultural rapprochement with Soviet Latvia. Advocating an international—rather than a narrowly nationalist—Latvian identity, Abolins helped to organize in 1973 the first major exhibition of art from Latvia to reach the West since the Soviet annexation. One year later he became the executive secretary of the Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst in West Berlin, under the auspices of which he promoted the rediscovery of the avant-gardist Gustav Klucis and the Western European début of the contemporary realist MAIJA TABAKA. In turn, Abolins exhibited in Riga, where his irreverence, kitsch aesthetics and experiments with CORRESPONDENCE ART were revelatory to the local audience. Ironically, it was his leftist orientation that enabled him to alleviate the isolation of Latvian artists under Communism.