From 3 to 9 July, everyone is invited to take part in the events taking place in our city. Don’t miss the chance to enjoy the best of art, music and activities. Come with your friends and family and enjoy a week full of adventure.

July 3

• 15.20 | CINEMA | TOY STORY 5 | Daugavpils Culture Palace, Smilšu Street 92
• 16.00 | FARMERS’ EVENING MARKET | Ditton Shopping Center parking lot
• 17.30 | CINEMA | MINIONS & MONSTERS | Daugavpils Culture Palace, Smilšu Street 92
• 19.00 | COLOR RUN | Stropu Active Recreation and Sports Track
• 19.00 | BOARD GAMES EVENING | Daugavpils Geek Game Club, Muitas Street 1
• 19.25 | CINEMA | THE INVITE | Daugavpils Culture Palace, Smilšu Street 92
• 22.00 | JULY BIRTHDAY WEEKEND | One More Club, Viestura Street 53
• 23.00 | DISCO AND KARAOKE | Restaurant “Grand”, Varšavas Street 43B 

July 4

• 10.00 | YOUTH SUMMER | STAGE 2 | Ditton Shopping Center parking lot
• 11.00 | CINEMA | TOY STORY 5 | Daugavpils Culture Palace, Smilšu Street 92
• 13.15 | CINEMA | TOY STORY 5 | Daugavpils Culture Palace, Smilšu Street 92
• 15.00 | WORKSHOP: DISINFORMATION AND FAKE NEWS | “New East” Association, 18. novembra Street 41A
• 15.30 | CINEMA | MINIONS & MONSTERS | Daugavpils Culture Palace, Smilšu Street 92
• 16.00 | LATVIAN FOOTBALL PREMIER LEAGUE | BFC DAUGAVPILS VS. FK LIEPĀJA | “Esplanāde” Stadium, Stadiona Street 1
• 17.30 | CINEMA | SUPERGIRL | Daugavpils Culture Palace, Smilšu Street 92
• 18.00 | HOBBY CLUB MEETING | Creative Studio “Lama Dazz”, Hekeļa Street 4
• 19.00 | “DALI DALI” LATVIAN FOOTBALL 3RD LEAGUE: DFS vs. FK KRĀSLAVA | “Esplanāde” Stadium, Stadiona Street 1
• 19.00 | HAWAIIAN EVENING | Family Recreation Center “Bereg”, Lielā Street 49
• 19.50 | CINEMA | COLONY | Daugavpils Culture Palace, Smilšu Street 92
• 21.00 | COCKTAIL NIGHT WITH DJ EDGARITO | Gamma Restaurant, Rīgas Street 71/73 
• 23.00 | DISCO AND KARAOKE | “Grand” Restaurant, Varšavas Street 43B

July 5

• 11.00 | CINEMA | MINIONS & MONSTERS | Daugavpils Culture Palace, Smilšu Street 92
• 12.55 | CINEMA | TOY STORY 5 | Daugavpils Culture Palace, Smilšu Street 92
• 14.00 | MASTER CLASS | FRAMED ART WITH A MOVIE | Studio “AstttArtt”, Hekeļa Street 4
• 15.10 | CINEMA | MINIONS & MONSTERS | Daugavpils Culture Palace, Smilšu Street 92
• 16.00 | SPEEDWAY | LOKOMOTIV DAUGAVPILS VS. TRANS MF LANDSHUT DEVILS | “Lokomotīve” Stadium, Jelgavas Street 54
• 17.05 | CINEMA | MICHAEL | Daugavpils Culture Palace, Smilšu Street 92
• 19.00 | MAGIC: THE GATHERING | Daugavpils Geek Gaming Club, Muitas Street 1
• 19.45 | CINEMA | OBSESSION | Daugavpils Culture Palace, Smilšu Street 92

July 8

• 11.00 | MUSEUM FOR CHILDREN | “HOW WATER SPARKLES!” | Rothko Museum, Mihaila Street 3
• 15.00 | LESSON 6 OF THE YOUNG ZOOLOGISTS’ SCHOOL | Latgale Zoo, Vienības Street 27
• 15.30 | CINEMA | MOANA | Daugavpils Culture Palace, Smilšu Street 92
• 16.00 | FARMERS’ EVENING MARKET | Ditton Shopping Center parking lot
• 18.00 | PERFORMANCE “LATVIAN LANGUAGE LESSONS” / GENERAL REHEARSAL | “New East” Association, 18. novembra iela 41A
• 18.00 | DAUGAVPILS CITY OPEN 7X7 SOCCER CHAMPIONSHIP 2026 | “Esplanāde” Stadium, Stadiona Street 1
• 18.00 | CINEMA | MOANA | Daugavpils Culture Palace, Smilšu Street 92
• 19.00 | MUSICAL LOTTO | Restobar “DičBAR”, Viestura Street 59

July 9

• 11.00 | LITERARY-THEMED EVENT FOR CHILDREN | READ ALONG WITH BJVŽ 2026 | Piekrastes Library, Aveņu Street 40
• 11.00 | THEMED QUIZ | THE WORLD EXPLORERS’ EXPEDITION | Jaunbūves Library, 18. novembra Street 161 
• 11.00 | UNUSUAL RECORDS DAY | Čiekuru Library, Čiekuru Street  5–1B
• 11.00 | PHOTO ACTIVITY AT THE LIBRARY | READING ADVENTURE AT THE LIBRARY | Children’s Library “Zīlīte”, Mihoelsa Street 58 
• 17.00 | MASTER CLASS | VARIETIES OF BODY SCRUBS | House of Traditions, Rīgas Street 22A
• 18.00 | PERFORMANCE “LATVIAN LANGUAGE LESSONS” / PREMIERE | “New East” Association, 18. novembra Street 41A

More information about the events: http://daugavpils.lv/afisa

Movie screening schedule: https://dkp.lv/kino/

Daugavpils Theater performance schedule: http://daugavpilsteratris.lv

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Publicity images:

• Roger Ballen (USA/RSA). “Puppy between Feet”. Photography. 1999
• Liu Guofu (China). “Cold Mountain No. 10” (diptych). Oil on canvas, 150 x 190 cm (detail), 2021
• Romualdas Balinskas (Lithuania). From the “Before and After” series. Acrylic on paper, 200 x 160 cm, 2024
• Madara Tropa (Latvia). “Indefinite”. Mixed media (copying pencil, watercolour and ink on paper), 50 x 70 cm, 2025
• Pēteris Martinsons (Latvia). “Rockets”. Porcelain, glaze, overglaze, decal, 1980. Collection of the Rīga Porcelain Museum. Photographed by Gvido Kajons

The post Summer in Five Exhibitions Rothko Museum Announces New Exhibition Season appeared first on VISITDAUGAVPILS.

On the evening of 23 May, the Rothko Museum will light up for the European Night of Museums. Visitors can look forward to exhibitions, artist talks, creative workshops and interactive events across the museum and the wider Daugavpils Fortress, where art will come alive through sight, touch and participation.

From 8pm to 11pm, the museum storage facility at 2 Komandanta Street will present two exhibitions centred on material ethics – “My Gentle Friend: Awakened Textiles” by the Faustas Latėnas Art School in Zarasai, Lithuania, and “Multimetamorphoses” by the Rothko Museum Youth Club. Between 8pm and 9pm, visitors of all ages are invited to take part in creative workshops focused on textile printing and imaginative ways of reusing pre-loved fabrics.

In the fortress casemates, audiences can discover the Rothko Museum’s contemporary ceramics collection. The earthen medium remains centre stage in the outdoor gallery 4METRI at 8 Hospitāļa Street, where an exhibition will showcase work from “Ceramic Laboratory 2026”, an international symposium bringing together artists from eight countries. Both venues will be open from 8pm to 11pm.

At the Rothko Museum’s main building, 3 Mihaila Street, Museum Night will begin in the late afternoon. At 6pm, visitors are invited to meet the Finnish artist Rose-Mari Torpo, who will introduce her exhibition “Strange Light”.

From 8pm to 11pm, four exhibitions will be on view: “Habitus” by the Daugavpils artist Jūlija Verbicka-Vasiļjeva; “Borderland”, bringing together 60 artists from Latgale; “Ways of Seeing” from the RZ Collection; and “Strange Light” by Rose-Mari Torpo.

Younger visitors will be able to explore “Clay Pixels”, an interactive digital installation marking the 95th anniversary of the ceramic artist Pēteris Martinsons. The work invites audiences not only to observe, but also to contribute.

 All events are free and open to the public.

Publicity image: Museum Night at the Rothko Museum by Didzis Grodzs

Information: Rothko Museum

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With the opening of an exhibition at 4METRI Gallery, the international ceramics symposium Ceramic Laboratory 2026 gets under way in Daugavpils, bringing together fifteen artists for a three-week residency that leads to a final exhibition at the Rothko Museum.

Now in its fourteenth year, the symposium is run by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics in partnership with the Rothko Museum. For three weeks, Daugavpils becomes a working studio: artists test techniques, refine their practice, push the limits of the material and develop new bodies of work that feed into the broader landscape of contemporary ceramics.

This year’s edition brings together nine international artists and six from Latvia. The public programme opens with an introductory exhibition on 30 April, 1pm, at 4METRI Gallery (8 Hospitāļa Street). On 6 and 7 May at 3pm, the Rothko Museum (3 Mihaila Street) hosts artist talks. The symposium concludes with an exhibition of newly created works, opening at the Rothko Museum on 15 May at 4pm. Admission to all public events is free.

Inviting audiences to experience the symposium’s public programme, its long-time curator Aivars Baranovskis reflects:

“Work of lasting value begins here. Different schools, experiences and aesthetics come together, as artists push the language of contemporary ceramics forward with consistency and ambition, while continuing to shape Daugavpils as one of the region’s leading centres for the medium.”

The 2026 symposium brings together artists from Switzerland, Canada, Italy, the United States, Germany, Poland and Portugal, alongside participants from Latvia. The line-up includes Robin Kerr (Switzerland), Joon Hee Kim (Canada), Fausto Salvi (Italy), Jessica Smith (USA), Roxy Lee (Germany), Malwina Kowalewska (Poland), Yola Vale (Portugal), Michał Żesławski (Poland), Hanna Miadzvedzeva (Poland/Belarus), and from Latvia – Juta Rindina, Lilija Zeiļa, Una Gura, Nellija Dzalba, Kristīne Nicmane and Ilona Abdulajeva.

The symposium is supported by the Daugavpils City Council and the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia.

Publicity images: symposium in progress (photos by Didzis Grodzs)

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On 12 April, closing the current display of Mark Rothko paintings at the Rothko Museum, admission will be offered at a fifty per cent discount on the full ticket price.

The museum’s Rothko display, unveiled in April 2023, currently features six original works by Mark Rothko from the family collections of the artist’s daughter, Kate Rothko Prizel, and son, Christopher Rothko. Created across different periods of Rothko’s career, the works trace his transition from early figurative painting towards the iconic colour field abstraction.

The display is designed as a rotating presentation, with works periodically replaced while maintaining a focus on different stages of Rothko’s artistic development. Since the museum opened in 2013, visitors have had the opportunity to view a total of twenty-four Rothko paintings, with every new selection offering further insight into his art.

On 12 April, admission to the latest Rothko display will be €3 (standard concession discounts are not combined with this offer). The ticket also includes access to the Rothko Museum collection exhibition “No. 2 [Untitled]”, likewise on view for the last time.

Following a brief changeover period, a new exhibition, “Rothko. From the Family Collection”, will open on 24 April 2026, headlining the museum’s thirteenth anniversary programme.

Publicity image: Mark Rothko’s art at the Rothko Museum. Photo by Pāvels Terentjevs

Information:
Inga Gedžūne, Rotko muzejs
inga.gedzune@daugavpils.lv
+371 26070651

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The Rothko Museum in Daugavpils has joined the global arts and culture platform Bloomberg Connects, becoming the first museum in Latvia to be featured on the app and marking a significant step in expanding digital access to art.

Through the Bloomberg Connects mobile app, audiences can explore the Rothko Museum on site or remotely from anywhere in the world. The museum’s digital guide offers curated audio, text and visual content, providing insight into its collection, exhibitions and Rothko’s artistic legacy.

At the heart of the guide are personal narratives that bring the museum’s context into sharper focus. These include audio recordings by Rothko’s children, Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko, reflecting on their family’s connection to Daugavpils and their first impressions of the artist’s birthplace. Art historian David Anfam contributes further perspective on Rothko’s work and its presence in his country of origin.

The guide also introduces key aspects of the museum’s collection, including the exhibition “No. 2 [Untitled]”, where artists reflect on their works and their inclusion in the museum’s holdings. A dedicated section is devoted to the museum’s international residency programme, offering insight into artists’ experiences of working within the distinctive environment of the Daugavpils Fortress – a setting shaped by architecture, landscape and proximity to Rothko’s work.

“Joining Bloomberg Connects allows us to extend the museum experience beyond its physical space and offer a more layered engagement for both on-site and remote audiences,” says Pāvels Terentjevs, Head of Art and Communications at the Rothko Museum. “For the museum, this means strengthening the presence of Rothko’s legacy in his birthplace while opening that experience to a global audience.”

The Rothko Museum guide on Bloomberg Connects is available in English. The app can be downloaded free of charge on both Android and iOS devices.

Developed by Bloomberg Philanthropies, Bloomberg Connects provides digital guides to more than 1,250 cultural institutions worldwide – from major international organisations such as Venice Biennale, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Tate Modern to more locally rooted regional institutions – offering free and open access to arts and culture anytime, anywhere.

Information: Rothko Museum

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On 24 April, the Rothko Museum will host “Fields of Colour”, a vibrant jazz performance by the Matthias Van den Brande Quartet (Belgium), composed in dialogue with Rothko’s iconic paintings.

Conceived by Belgian saxophonist Matthias Van den Brande, this remarkable reimagining of Rothko’s legacy offers a contemporary musical response to the artist’s emotional and chromatic language. Echoing the layered depth and quiet intensity of Rothko’s paintings, the programme draws on his exploration of colour as a vehicle of feeling and presence, translating visual perception into sound – an approach shaped in part by Van den Brande’s own experience of colour blindness.

Besides showcasing the award-winning trio of Matthias Van den Brande (saxophone), Tijs Klaassen (double bass) and Eouter Kühne (drums), the project also welcomes the acclaimed Belgian trumpeter Jean-Paul Estiévenart, who adds a further dimension of expressiveness and virtuosity to the performance.

The programme builds on the album “Fields of Colour”, recorded in February 2024 at La Buissonne studio in southern France and released in March 2025 on Fresh Sound New Talent Records.

“It is pulsating, powerful, exciting, captivating. A pure joy to listen to.” – Jean-Claude Vantroyen, Le Soir

The concert forms part of a wider cultural programme marking the museum’s 13th anniversary, centred on the opening of “Rothko. From the Family Collection”, a new display of paintings on loan from the private collections of the artist’s children. The day will also see the unveiling of “Transposition. The Rothko Motif”, a satellite project by Latvian textile artist Iveta Vecenāne who has translated into tapestry selected paintings from Rothko’s lesser-known Surrealist period.

The exhibitions will open at 4 p.m. and will be accessible free of charge on opening night. The concert, which concludes the day’s programme at 5:30 p.m., is also free, with advance registration required via the museum’s website.

Support: Daugavpils City Council and Latvia’s Culture Capital Foundation.

Matthias Van den Brande (b. 1993) is a Belgian jazz saxophonist, composer and arranger whose work reflects an international background shaped by studies in Belgium, Amsterdam and Philadelphia. He has performed as a soloist with the Brussels Jazz Orchestra and released his debut album “Opus #1” in 2018. With the Matthias Van den Brande Trio, active since 2022, he has won several international awards and released “Three Sides of a Coin” (2023), a studio album widely acclaimed across Europe.

Publicity image: Matthias Van den Brande Trio and Jean-Paul Estiévenart, photo by Victoriano Moreno

Information: Rothko Museum

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On 24 April 2026, the Rothko Museum in Daugavpils will unveil a new permanent display of paintings by Mark Rothko, offering a renewed encounter with one of the defining figures of twentieth-century art in a place where his story began.

Drawn from the private collections of Christopher Rothko and Kate Rothko Prizel, the exhibition – on view until April 2029 – continues the museum’s distinctive role as the only institution in Eastern Europe to offer permanent access to Rothko’s ground-breaking creative vision.

Conceived as a focused, evolving presentation, the display traces the entire arc of Rothko’s artistic development – from early figurative and Surrealist compositions to multiform experiments and the luminous colour field paintings of his mature period. Together, they reveal a decisive shift: from representation to abstraction, from image to presence, and from form to colour as a vehicle of emotional and spiritual experience.

Anchored in the institution’s founding vision, the exhibition is produced in close collaboration with the artist’s children, whose continuous support maintains a rotating display of Rothko paintings in his birthplace. So far, visitors have encountered twenty-four artworks from the Rothko family collection, and each new selection affords a fresh perspective on his art.

“It is a privilege to present these works in Daugavpils, where Rothko’s life began,” says Māris Čačka, Director of the museum. “The lasting generosity of Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko allows us to keep sharing Rothko’s paintings with audiences from Latvia and beyond. Each new rotation invites a slower, more attentive way of looking and deepens the dialogue between his legacy and contemporary artistic practice.”

Born in Daugavpils in 1903, Mark Rothko spent his formative years here before emigrating to the United States. Although his career unfolded abroad, the city remains an essential point of origin. Opened in 2013, the Rothko Museum honours this connection, inviting visitors to encounter his work not as an illustration of biography, but as an intimate and immersive experience shaped by colour, light and stillness.

The opening day programme on 24 April extends this conversation across disciplines. At 4 p.m., the new Rothko display will be unveiled alongside “Transposition. The Rothko Motif”, a satellite project by the Latvian textile artist Iveta Vecenāne, where she translates selected paintings from Rothko’s lesser-known Surrealist period into tapestry, echoing his expressive line and complex chromatic structures.

At 5:30 p.m., the museum’s concert hall will host “Fields of Colour”, an acoustic jazz performance by the Matthias Van den Brande Quartet (Belgium), inspired by Rothko’s art.

The opening day programme will mark the 13th anniversary of the Rothko Museum and will be accessible free of charge. Advance online registration for the concert will be required via the museum’s website.

With: Collection of Kristopher Rothko; Collection of Kate Rothko Prizel.

Support: Daugavpils City Council; Latvia’s Culture Capital Foundation; JCDecaux Latvia; Caparol.

Publicity images:

• Rothko Museum (photo by Santa Suhanova)
• Mark Rothko, Nude (1938/1939). Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 61 cm. Collection of Kate Rothko Prizel.
• Mark Rothko, Untitled (1948). Oil on canvas, 157.5 x 81.3 cm. Collection of Christopher Rothko.

Information: Rothko Museum

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The Rothko Museum has announced an open call for artists from France to take part in a forthcoming group exhibition centred on the legacy of the French modernist painter Yves Brayer.

Opening in September 2026 as part of the Rothko Museum’s autumn exhibition season, the show is curated by the French curator Gilles Bonnevialle. The project takes as its point of departure Brayer’s paintings from the 1930s and 1940s, a period when the artist developed the compositional discipline and structural clarity that would become hallmarks of his work.

Created at a time when Europe was marked by political and social instability, these paintings can be read as visual constructions of order in a climate of tension. Rather than approaching them as direct political commentary, the exhibition proposes to view them as reflections on the resilience of form in moments of historical uncertainty.

In dialogue with this historical material, the Rothko Museum invites contemporary artists based in France to submit works that explore the relationship between form and instability. The exhibition also looks at how visual structures construct space under conditions of geopolitical tension and how they can either stabilise or disrupt our perception of reality. Participating works are expected to respond to these questions as independent contemporary reflections rather than illustrations of a particular historical moment.

Submissions are particularly welcome in the media of photography, video, installation, sculpture and object-based practice. Applications will be reviewed by the exhibition’s curatorial team, who will assess proposals for conceptual clarity, professional quality and their ability to enter into a meaningful dialogue with Brayer’s work.

The open call invites applications from French artists, as well as artists of other nationalities who live and work in France.

Application closes on 1 July 2026.

Further details about the exhibition and the application process are available on the Rothko Museum website: www.rothkomuseum.com.

The exhibition is supported by the Daugavpils City Council and Latvia’s Culture Capital Foundation.

Yves Brayer (1907–1990) was a painter, printmaker, illustrator and stage designer, recognised as one of the most significant figures in twentieth-century French figurative art. His work is distinguished by compositional clarity, a carefully structured organisation of space and a confident, expressive use of line. During the 1930s and 1940s, as Europe faced mounting political and social instability, Brayer’s paintings reveal an increasingly pronounced search for visual balance and inner order – an artistic response to the turbulence of his time.

Publicity images:

• Open call’s visual identity

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The two‑year Latvia–Lithuania cross‑border cooperation project “Digital Crafts Tourism” (D-tour) has concluded, resulting in the creation of a new cultural tourism route. The route consists of five digital exhibitions, each highlighting a different field of traditional craftsmanship.

At the beginning of January 2026, the Latgale Planning Region, in cooperation with the Daugavpils City Municipality institution Vienības nams and Krāslava Municipality, invited visitors on a journey through time. Opening celebrations of new, contemporary digital exhibitions took place in Daugavpils and Krāslava, offering an opportunity to explore ancient craft skills, traditional ways of life, and the values of wooden architecture through a modern, interactive digital format.

On 7 January, the doors of the Craftsmanship and Life Wisdom Exhibition opened to visitors at the Traditions House of Daugavpils Unity House. The exhibition is dedicated to the world of the Latgalian farmstead – a place where everyday life, work, and family traditions unfolded through the changing seasons. It offers a contemporary interpretation of ancient crafts, allowing visitors to discover them through visual imagery, sound, hands-on activities, and interactive storytelling.

From early morning, children and young people visited the Traditions House to take part in creative activities together with local historian Evija Maļkeviča-Grundele, bathhouse master Dzintra Abarone, splint basket-weaving craftsman Andris Kačkāns, and blacksmith Edgars Vronskis. Together with the head of the Traditions House, Baiba Pankjāne, children explored the new exhibition and, under the guidance of the masters, learned how threads were made in the past, the significance of the traditional bathhouse, and how splint baskets and metal jewellery were crafted.

In the evening, the celebration was enriched by songs performed by the folklore group Svātra of Daugavpils Unity House. Guests were addressed by Līvija Jankovska, Member of the Daugavpils City Council and Chair of the Committee on Education, Culture and Social Affairs; Iveta Maļina-Tabūne, Head of the Administration of the Latgale Planning Region and Manager of the Latgale Special Economic Zone; Ints Bērziņš, Head of the smart technologies company SIA Solavi; Director of Unity House Diāna Soldāne; and senior expert of the Latvia–Lithuania Programme, Līga Upeniece.

On 8 January, the multimedia exhibition “THE CODE OF WOOD. The Values of Krāslava’s Wooden Architecture” was opened in Krāslava. The exhibition tells the story of the importance of wood in Latgale’s cultural environment and craftsmanship. Visitors can explore the development of Krāslava’s wooden buildings, view traditional craftsmen’s tools and decorative elements, and take part in creative activities that reveal the construction principles and aesthetic qualities of wooden architecture.

On the opening day, workshops for children and young people were led by woodcraft master Aivars Andžāns. Musician and instrument maker Aleksandrs Maijers introduced visitors to the world of wooden musical instruments. Many attendees gathered for a discussion with architect Ģertrūde Rasnača on the distinctive features of single-farmstead wooden architecture in South Latgale.

The opening event was moderated by Sarmīte Teivāne, Project Manager of Digital Crafts Tourism. Welcoming speeches were delivered by Inese Vorslova, Deputy Executive Director of Krāslava Municipality for Financial Affairs; Alla Lomanovska, Acting Director of the Krāslava Regional Museum; exhibition creator Didzis Jaunzems; and senior expert of the Latvia–Lithuania Programme, Līga Upeniece. A special atmosphere was created by the musical performances of instrument maker and musician Aleksandrs Maijers.

The celebrations were organised by the lead partner of the project Digital Crafts Tourism – the Latgale Planning Region (Latvia), together with all project partners: Daugavpils City Municipality institution Vienības nams (Latvia), Krāslava Municipality (Latvia), Anykščiai Art Incubator – Art Gallery (Lithuania), and the Administration of Panevėžys District Municipality (Lithuania).

Iveta Maļina-Tabūne, Head of the Administration of the Latgale Planning Region and Manager of the Latgale Special Economic Zone, emphasises that in order to preserve and promote traditional cultural values more effectively and to pass on the knowledge and skills of intangible cultural heritage practitioners to future generations, it is essential to diversify approaches and introduce modern methods and tools. Direct, in-person transmission of skills from tradition bearers is not always possible, making digital solutions increasingly important.

Overall, five digital exhibitions have been opened within the project:
– the Latgalian farmstead at the Traditions House in Daugavpils;
– wooden architecture and woodcarving at the Krāslava Palace Complex;
– ceramics at the Anykščiai Art Incubator – Art Gallery;
– flax weaving and traditional folk musical instruments in Upytė village, Panevėžys district.

The newly opened exhibitions demonstrate that cultural heritage can be vibrant, engaging, and contemporary. They not only tell stories of the past but also inspire visitors to reflect on the role of craftsmanship and architecture today.

The Craftsmanship and Life Wisdom Exhibition in Daugavpils and “The Code of Wood” exhibition in Krāslava remain open to visitors – to everyone who wishes to experience the stories of Latgale in a digital, emotional, and deeply personal way.

The project “Digital crafts tourism” (acronym D-tour; No LL-00100) is co-funded by the European Union. The project is implemented within the Interreg VI-A Latvia-Lithuania Programme 2021-2027.

The total project budget is EUR 697 275.  The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund with EUR 557 820.

Interreg VI-A Latvia–Lithuania Programme 2021–2027 aims to enhance the sustainable and cohesive socioeconomic development of its regions by fostering competitiveness and attractiveness for residents, students, workers, and visitors alike, thereby creating environments conducive to living, studying, working, and visiting.

Programme website: http://www.latlit.eu. About the project: latlit.eu/theprojects/d-tour/.

This publication has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the Latgale Planning Region and does not necessarily represent the official position of the European Parliament.

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Contributing your artwork is simple. Scan the QR code on a sheet and follow the instructions on your device to photograph and upload your coloured drawing. Your creation will appear on the exhibition’s screen in 3D, alongside the contributions of other visitors.

“Clay Pixels” is on view and open to visitor participation on the museum’s top floor throughout 2026.

The exhibition has been realised in collaboration with “We Rock” and with the support of Latvia’s Culture Capital Foundation.

Born in Daugavpils on 28 January 1931, Pēteris Martinsons (1931–2013) made history as Latvia’s most internationally celebrated 20th-century ceramicist. His pioneering work transformed Latvian ceramics, establishing it as a vibrant and contemporary artistic medium. The Rothko Museum holds an extensive collection of his works, with hundreds on permanent display in the museum’s ceramic gallery, Martinsons House. Since 2016, the museum has hosted the international Martinsons Award exhibition as part of the Latvia Ceramics Biennale, honouring his legacy and celebrating the enduring vitality of the ceramic medium.

Publicity images: “Clay Pixels” at the Rothko Museum (photographed by Santa Suhanova)

For more information, please contact

Inga Gedžūne, Rothko Museum

+371 26070651

inga.gedzune@daugavpils.lv

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Daugavpils becomes a crossroads of creativity as professional printmakers from Europe, Asia, and North America gather for the 14th International Latgale Graphic Art Symposium – a lively creative forum culminating in a group exhibition at the Rothko Museum on 7 March.

From 23 February to 8 March, the Rothko Museum’s studios will pulse with creative energy. For two immersive weeks, nine artists from Italy, Canada, Poland, India, Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia will work together, creating new artworks for the museum’s collection and shaping an exhibition that will celebrate their journey through the residency.

Selected from applications representing thirty-three countries, this year’s participants are Alessandro Cugno (Italy), John Graham (Canada), Kamila Bednarska and Katarzyna Tereszkiewicz (Poland), Kateryna Svirgunenko and Valentyna Ariepieva (Ukraine), Kethavath Vijay (India), Nida Shah (Lithuania) and Ināra Garklāva (Latvia).

Beyond the focused studio practice, the symposium opens its doors to the public through meet-the-artist events at the Rothko Museum.

On 27 February, 4 p.m., participating artists will present their creative portfolios.

The symposium exhibition will open on 7 March, 4 p.m., unveiling the results of this dynamic creative fortnight.

Admission to both events is free.

Conceived and produced by SIVIA Association, the symposium is part of the Rothko Museum’s residency programme and runs with support from the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia and the Daugavpils City Council.

Since its inception in 2013, the Latgale Graphic Art Symposium has brought together over a hundred artists from nearly forty countries. Today, it continues to revitalise the graphic medium in Daugavpils and elevate Latgale’s global reputation, attracting artists to this crossroads of cultures to distil their impressions, exchange ideas and experience the contemporary resonance of traditional printmaking techniques.

Publicity image: In the Rothko Museum’s printmaking studio (photo by Pāvels Terentjevs)

Information:
Tatjana Černova
Curator of the symposium
tatjana.cernova@daugavpils.lv

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At 4.00 p.m. on Friday, 20 February, the Rothko Museum opens its first exhibition season of the year with six new projects bringing together artistic voices from Italy, Finland, and Latvia. Moving from contemplative and restrained non-figurative painting and installation to photographic narratives that trace experience as it inscribes itself on mind and body, the season echoes silence, light, belonging, memory, and stillness.

Gregorio Botta: “Painting Brings You Home”

Gregorio Botta (Italy) is the first Italian artist to exhibit solo at the Rothko Museum in Daugavpils. The city that gave birth to Mark Rothko and his Abstract Expressionism now represents a “home” for a silent, contemplative form of non-figurative painting – an ideal legacy that has long inspired Botta’s artistic research.

According to the exhibition’s curator Bruno Corà, art historian and critic, although Botta’s practice unfolds through a plurality of media, often in three-dimensional installations and sculptures, it is grounded in painting understood as an originating artistic gesture and continues to be deeply meditative:

“Using natural materials such as wax, rice paper, water, glass, leaves, and stone, the artist creates rarefied works that evoke emptiness and silence through minimal forms.”

Over the years, Botta has exhibited in important museums and institutions in Italy and abroad, establishing himself as one of the most distinctive voices of contemporary Italian art. At the Latvian exhibition, around thirty works are presented, some created specifically for this occasion.

Rose-Mari Torpo: “Strange Light”

Inspired by the fragile threshold moments of dawn and dusk, Finnish abstractionist Rose-Mari Torpo paints shifting, almost illusory spaces where light, colour, and movement generate immersive encounters. Working across canvas, paper, polyester, and found readymade materials, she experiments with spray paint, acrylic, and ink to test the boundaries of painting itself, letting the work extend beyond its frame and become an active spatial element.

Curator Tatjana Černova highlights the artist’s recent engagement with iridescent materials, which refract and reflect light, intensifying the inherent dynamism of her compositions:

“At times her surfaces resemble atmospheric dust; at others they appear liquid, or more solid and congealed. The structural indeterminacy of Torpo’s painting corresponds to an emotional register that remains consciously suspended and mutable, existing beyond figuration.”

Artists from Latgale: “Borderland”

The Rothko Museum’s annual spring exhibition of Latgale artists turns its gaze to the border, both as a line on a map and as a threshold of imagination. Bringing together sixty-four artists across generations and media, it reflects a shared connection to Latgale as a home, muse, crossroads, or point of departure.

Curator Aivars Baranovskis frames Borderland as a mental and physical space between staying and leaving, tradition and modernity, the local and the global:

“Beyond geography, the exhibition reflects on art itself as a practice unfolding at the border between normality and abnormality, between what is accepted and what is condemned. Because art’s very purpose is to test and redefine existing boundaries: illuminate the marginal, challenge the norm, and celebrate the richness of experience and meaning life has to give.”

With this conceptual focus, the show is both a meeting point for artists and an invitation for the viewer to see this complex region not just as lines on a map, but as a source of possibility and inspiration.

RZ Collection: “Ways of Seeing”

“Ways of Seeing” presents selected works from the RZ Collection – the private assemblage of entrepreneur and art patron Raivis Zabis (1973–2023). Guided by intuition and emotional response rather than systematic acquisition, he approached collecting as a deeply personal, almost artistic process. Contemporary art, which he saw as the clearest mirror of its time, formed the core of his engagement.

Curator Dace Dēliņa-Lipska notes that the exhibition’s title reflects the collector’s belief that art must be seen to be fully alive:

“For Zabis, artworks belonged out in the open rather than in storage. Indeed, art truly breathes and comes alive when someone stops to look. This exhibition is an invitation to reflect on ways of seeing – art, time, and our shared humanity.”

Jūlija Verbicka-Vasiļjeva: “Habitus”

In “Habitus”, Jūlija Verbicka-Vasiļjeva presents a photographic series unfolding as a visual and emotional inquiry into the boundary between appearance and experience, between what is visible and what is lived. Working at the intersection of documentary observation, subtle staging, and directorial control, the artist constructs a finely calibrated narrative that traces how social environment, upbringing, and personal history inscribe themselves in posture, gaze, and silence, shaping how we relate to ourselves and others.

Curator Tatjana Černova observes how in Verbicka-Vasiļjeva’s practice, habitus moves beyond its sociological origins to become a lived imprint – an experience absorbed into the body, behaviour, and emotional memory:

“At the heart of the exhibition lies an understanding of the human being as a process rather than a fixed state, drawing attention to the entanglement of individual stories with collective experience and urging viewers to consider how we all reflect the world around us.”

Pēteris Martinsons: “Reflection”

In 2026, the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics partners with the Rothko Museum towards an exhibition series at the Martinsons House gallery to mark the 95th anniversary of the Latvian ceramic artist Pēteris Martinsons (1931–2013). Drawing on works from Latvian and international museum collections, the programme offers a wide-ranging view of the artist’s impressive creative legacy.

The first exhibition in the series presents large-scale ceramic sculptures from the collection of the Latvian National Museum of Art. Curator Valentīns Petjko highlights the exhibition’s anchoring diptych “Reflection” – early yet assured figurative abstractions where the human figure is distilled into geometric minimalism and archetypal signs. Meanwhile, the later works articulate Martinsons’s mature visual language, shaped by architectural thinking, sculptural experimentation, and a pronounced engagement with graphic line.

Exhibition Dates and Opening Night

The Rothko Museum’s spring exhibition season runs from 20 February to 24 May 2026.

Admission to the new exhibitions is free on opening night.

The Rothko Museum’s spring exhibition season was prepared in partnership with the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics, the Latvian National Museum of Art and Il Cigno Arte, with valued support from the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Daugavpils City Council, Italian Embassy in Latvia, Nordic Culture Point, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, and Caparol.

Publicity images:

• Gregorio Botta “Horizon”. Glass and wax, 20 x 200 x 8 cm, 2024
• Rose-Mari Torpo “Dawn”. Ink, acrylic, and spray paint on polyester and canvas, 180 x 125 cm, 2025. Photo by Janette Holmström
• “Borderland” – the exhibition’s graphic identity. Designed by Irina Bogdanova
• Anna Zholud “The Way Series No. 1”. Oil on cardboard, 75 x 105 cm, 2017. Photo by Valters Pelns
• Jūlija Verbicka-Vasiļjeva “Star” (from the Habitus series). Photography, 100 x 70 cm, 2025
• Pēteris Martinsons “Tension”. Chamotte, engoe, drawing, 72 x 34.5 x 33.5 cm, 1980. Latvian National Museum of Art

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As February 14 – Valentine’s Day, the Day of Love – approaches, the Latgale Culinary Heritage Centre “Šmakovka” once again invites everyone to celebrate love in a special way. Throughout the entire month of February, visitors will have the opportunity to take part in the romantic and exciting Valentine’s Day quest “We Met in Šmakovka!”.

During the quest, couples will be able to test their knowledge, intuition, and teamwork skills by completing tasks that lead them through the Šmakovka Centre’s exhibition, revealing the flavours, traditions, and stories of Latgale. It is not only a chance to spend quality time together but also to create new, heartfelt memories.

We invite you to embrace the adventure and let your hearts meet in Šmakovka – a place where love and the spirit of Latgale intertwine in one story.

Advance reservation is required.

Contacts:
Phone: +371 25666201
smakovka@daugavpils.lv
www.facebook.com/SmakovkasMuzejs
www.smakovka.lv

Address: Rīgas iela 22A, Daugavpils

Illustration by: Guna Gamazina

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At 4 p.m. on Friday, 5 December, the Rothko Museum will open its winter season with five new exhibitions exploring humour, presence, technology, and the shifting nature of contemporary experience. From introspective painting and dreamlike landscapes to porcelain shaped by both hand and machine, the season brings together voices from Lithuania and beyond, offering viewers a contemplative passage through the winter months.

Meda Norbutaitė – Wedge
Lithuanian artist, curator, and educator Meda Norbutaitė uses irony and grotesque to probe the social anxieties of contemporary life – our fears and expectations, jealousies and insecurities, inflated egos and self-doubt. Humour becomes both her language and her lens for exploring the dilemmas of today’s masked and performative self.

Art researcher Dr. Evelina Januškaitė observes: “In an age when social media offers almost endless channels for connection and floods our vision with images, Norbutaitė’s clowning becomes a wedge – a means to prise open the rigid frames that confine us so we can laugh at ourselves and rediscover a sense of freedom. Spanning the full range of emotion, the exhibition invites us to recognise and awaken the clown within – the self that reflects, opens up, critiques, loves, plays, errs, dares, and begins again.”

Solveiga Gutautė – Genius Loci

Lithuanian painter Solveiga Gutautė creates atmospheric spaces where shadow, silence, and quivering light become experiences in themselves. Unfolding on the threshold between day and dusk, dream and awareness, memory and today, her “shadow painting” is influenced by the meditative rhythms of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s music and invites viewers into a slower, more intuitive mode of perception.

The project’s curator Māris Čačka calls the exhibition a soft yet powerful reminder that “art does not need to be understood. It is enough to let it happen and to linger, for a while, within its quiet breath.”

Rokas Dovydėnas – Porcelain and the Machine
Doctor of Arts, interdisciplinary artist and curator Rokas Dovydėnas, Lithuania, traces European porcelain’s evolving language across three centuries, focusing on the meeting of traditional craftsmanship with contemporary digital solutions. Drawing on historical vase forms and the inventive spirit of pioneers like Johann Friedrich Böttger, he asks how porcelain’s meaning shifts when the hand yields part of its authority to algorithmic design and robotic fabrication.

“Using Limoges porcelain fired at 1250°C, my works follow the blanc-de-Chine tradition of white vessels with transparent glaze. Yet their creation belongs to a new era: designed with computer modelling and produced by 3D clay printers, they embody the meeting of centuries-old material with robotic precision,” the artist says.

Diana Rudokienė – Dream Topographies
Lithuanian artist Diana Rudokienė explores the fragile boundary between the visible and the unseen, guided by an enduring fascination with memory, transformation, and the subconscious. Using translucent layers of oil and subtle tonal shifts, she creates dreamlike spaces where figures dissolve into atmosphere and light, suggesting inner landscapes shared across human experience.

“In the half-light between sleep and waking, images surface – shifting, dissolving, reappearing. Painting becomes a map of the unseen, tracing the delicate borders between dream and perception. In mapping my dream topographies, I invite viewers to recognise fragments of their own,” the artist notes.

Tensions and Transitions: Navigating the Boundaries of Being
Produced by Pashmin Art Consortia, Germany, the exhibition brings together Zhang Dawo, Peter Backhaus, Horst Wagner, Fant Wenger, Reinhard Hanke, Holger Dempwolff, Sonia Parchet, and Anna van den Hövel – eight artists whose works reflect the emotional and spiritual transitions of our rapidly changing world. Blending abstraction, expressionism, and a sense of the transcendent, the exhibition invites viewers to consider the shifting boundaries of personal and collective identity and to reflect on the struggles of modern existence – alienation, pursuit of meaning, and thirst for connection.

Exhibition Dates and Opening Night
The Rothko Museum’s winter season runs from 5 December 2025 to 8 February 2026. At the same time, until 1 February 2026, visitors can still enjoy two autumn season’s exhibitions – “Martinsons Award 2025” and “Matchstick in the Sand” by Milena Pirštelienė, Lithuania.

Admission to the new exhibitions is free on opening night.

The Rothko Museum’s winter exhibition season was prepared in partnership with the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics and Pashmin Art Consortia, with valued support from the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Daugavpils City Council, Panevėžys City Municipality Cultural and Art Grant, and “Caparol”.

Publicity images:

1. Meda Norbutaitė. Vignette. Pie to the Face. Oil on canvas. 150 x 200 cm. 2022
2. Solveiga Gutautė. Untitled. Oil on canvas. 200 × 286 cm. 2025
3. Rokas Dovydėnas. A Meiping Vase. Porcelain, glaze, 3D printing. 2024
4. Diana Rudokienė. Twilight. Oil and gold foil on canvas. 80 x 160 cm. 2024
5. Holger Dempwolff. Mr Smith Walking on the Seaground. Oil on canvas, 100 x 70 cm

The post Where Art Invites to Linger: Rothko Museum Announces Winter Exhibition Season appeared first on VISITDAUGAVPILS.

Daugavpils invites you to experience a winter holiday season filled with miracles! From child-friendly performances and musical concerts to creative activities and New Year’s Eve celebrations — the city offers a wide range of events for the whole family.

HOLIDAY PROGRAM

December – the Month of Winter Miracles

December 27

• 10:00 – 15:00

Charity fair and concert

Shopping centre “Ditton”

• 10:00

Christmas performance for children “Dwarfs` Winter Fairy Tale”

Unity House Concert Hall Foyer, Rīgas Street 22a

Tickets: at the “Biļešu paradīze” box office and online

• 13:00 – 17:00

Closing day of the Christmas residence

Imperatora Street 8, Engineering Arsenal, activities both in the yard and indoors

• 14:30

Interactive performance “The Grinch in the Golden Fairy Tale” at the miracle workshop “Astra”

Vienības Square

Registration by phone: 25144770

• 16:30

Interactive performance “The Grinch in the Golden Fairy Tale” at the miracle workshop “Astra”

Vienības Square

Registration by phone: 25144770

• 17:00

End-of-year concert “For My City”

Rothko Museum Concert Hall, Mihaila Street 3, Free admission

• 17:00 and 18:00

The Little Prince’s Christmas Musical Tram

Tickets: at the “Biļešu paradīze” box office and online

• 18:00

Musical performance “Nutcracker”

Daugavpils Palace of Culture, Smilšu Street 92

December 28

• 11:00

Christmas performance for children “Dwarfs` Winter Fairy Tale”

Unity House Concert Hall Foyer, Rīgas Street 22a

Tickets: at the “Biļešu paradīze” box office and online

• 11:00

Creative master class “Christmas Tree in 3D” at the miracle workshop “Astra”

Vienības Square

Registration by phone: 25144770

• 12:00

Performance „New Year`s Commotion”

Daugavpils Palace of Culture, Smilšu Street 92

Tickets: at the “Biļešu paradīze” box office and online

• 14:00

Master class “Christmas Tree Decoration” at the miracle workshop “Astra”

Vienības Square

Registration by phone: 25144770

• 16:00

Concert “Christmas Musical Cocktail”

Unity House Concert Hall, Rīgas Street 22a

Tickets: at the “Biļešu paradīze” box office and online

December 29

• 11:00

Christmas performance for children “Dwarfs` Winter Fairy Tale”

Unity House Concert Hall Foyer, Rīgas Street 22a

Tickets: at the “Biļešu paradīze” box office and online

• 11:00

Creative class “Creative Reading in the Museum” at the Rothko Museum

Mihaila Street 3, Daugavpils

Registration: mairita.folkmane@daugavpils.lv or by phone +371 26564817

• 12:00

Master class “Little Princess” at the miracle workshop “Astra”

Vienības Square

Registration by phone: 25144770

• 14:30

“Golden Fairy Tale” at the miracle workshop “Astra”

Vienības Square

Registration by phone: 25144770

December 30

• 11:00

Creative class “Creative Crafts and Where to Store Them?”

Mihaila Street 3, Daugavpils

Registration: mairita.folkmane@daugavpils.lv or by phone +371 26564817

• 14:00

Holiday program “Santa’s Mail” at the miracle workshop “Astra”

Vienības Square

Registration by phone: 25144770

• 15:30

Holiday program “Santa’s Mail” at the miracle workshop “Astra”

Vienības Square

Registration by phone: 25144770

• 16:00

Performance “Three Baba Yagas and the New Year”

Daugavpils Palace of Culture, Smilšu Street 92

• 17:00 and 18:00

The Little Prince’s Christmas Musical Tram

Tickets: at the “Biļešu paradīze” box office and online

• 18:00

New Year`s Run

Vienības Square

December 31 – New Year’s Eve

Starting from 11:00 p.m., immerse yourselves in the rhythms of dance music!

Shortly before midnight – New Year’s Message of the President and greetings!

We`ll ring in 2026 with the Latvian anthem and festive fireworks!

The celebrations will continue at the Night Disco until 3:00 a.m.

January – Holiday Season Continues

• January 1 to 4:

Weekdays: 17:00-18:00; weekends and holidays 16:00-17:00

Moments of joy for children with fairy-tale and cartoon characters

Vienības Square

• January 1 to 7:

17:00–20:00

Musical walks in the Christmas spirit

Dubrovin Park, A.Pumpurs Square

• January 5

17:00 and 18:00

The Little Prince’s Christmas Musical Tram

Tickets: at the “Biļešu paradīze” box office and online

Lights, music, laughter and the joy of being together – come and experience the magic of winter holidays in Daugavpils!

May every moment be filled with warmth and holiday miracles with your family and friends.

The post Daugavpils Winter Holiday Adventures – Come and Experience the Miracle! appeared first on VISITDAUGAVPILS.

The city has prepared a wide and warm program of events that will delight both children and adults. From the lighting of the Christmas tree and creative workshops to musical events and a Christmas residence – Daugavpils invites you to experience a holiday season filled with miracles.

HOLIDAY PROGRAM

November – beginning of the holiday

November 29 at 16:00

Lighting the first candle in the city’s Advent wreath

Square near St. Peter`s in Chains Roman Catholic Church

November 30 at 17:00

Lighting of the city’s main Christmas tree “When the Stars Light up the Christmas Tree…”

Vienības/Unity Square

December – a month of holiday miracles

December 1 to 30 (weekdays 17:00-18:00; weekends and holidays 16:00-17:00)

Moments of joy for children: meetings with fairy-tale and cartoon characters

Vienības/Unity Square

December 1 to January 4 (weekdays 17:00-18:00; weekends and holidays 16:00-17:00)

Miracle workshop “Astra” (“Chucha Chacha” program)

Registration by phone: +371 25144770

December 1 to 20

Rides on The Little Prince’s Christmas Musical Tram (for children aged 4 to 9)

Registration by phone: +371 25144770

December 3 at 17:00 and 18:30

Master class “Porcelain Christmas tree decorations”

Tickets: at the “Biļešu paradīze” box office

House of Traditions, Rīgas Street 22a

December 4 at 17:20 

Master class “Crocheted Christmas tree decorations”

Tickets: at the “Biļešu paradīze” box office

House of Traditions, Rīgas Street 22a

December 11 at 17:20

Master class “Gingerbread baskets”

Tickets: at the “Biļešu paradīze” box office

House of Traditions, Rīgas Street 22a

December 12 at 16:00

Christmas graphics workshop for families “Welcome to the Museum!”

Participation fee: 6 EUR

Registration by phone: 26564817

Rothko Museum, Mihaila Street 3

For families and children

December 5 at 17:30

Family game “In the Footsteps of St. Nicholas”

Free participation

Polish Cultural Centre, Varšavas Street 30

December 13 at 14:00 – 18:00

Opening of the Christmas residence

Engineering Arsenal, Imperatora Street 8

December 16 at 18:00

Christmas concert performance “On the Planet of the Little Prince”

Free admission

Unity House Concert Hall, Rīgas Street 22a

December 19 at 17:00 and December 20 at 11:00

Family event “Christmas Quiz”

Free participation

Registration by phone: 65449090

Latgale Central Library, Rīgas Street 22A

December 20 at 13:00 – 17:00

Christmas residence

Engineering Arsenal, Imperatora Street 8

Second Day of Christmas – December 26

16:00

Free microphone for children with Santa Claus, Snow Maiden and fairy-tale characters

Vienības/Unity Square

17:00

Concert “Feel Christmas” by the band “Eridana”

Vienības/Unity Square

 Go on a holiday adventure with your family to Daugavpils!

Lights, traditions, warmth and the joy of being together – all of this awaits you in our city.

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At 4 p.m. on Friday, 5 September, the Rothko Museum will unveil its autumn season with six impressive exhibitions that show the richness and vitality of contemporary artistic practice. From the international Martinsons Award and its celebration of excellence in ceramics, to intimate, poetic explorations of memory, time, and nature, the season spans mediums, voices, and visions, promising an immersive encounter with creativity, imagination, and profound artistic expression.

Martinsons Award 2025
The autumn season opens with Martinsons Award, the flagship exhibition of the fifth Latvia Ceramics Biennale, which will unfold through autumn and into winter across venues in Daugavpils, Cēsis, and Liepāja. For the Martinsons Award 2025 at the Rothko Museum, an international panel of experts selected eighty works by artists from thirty countries, including twenty-three Latvians, from an incredible nine hundred and forty-one submissions. On the exhibition’s opening night, the jury will announce the winners, who will share a twenty-thousand-euro prize fund.

Co-curators Aivars Baranovskis and Valentīns Petjko emphasise the exhibition’s scale and breadth: from technically sophisticated pieces with matching conceptual depth to more intuitive, experimental works where clay itself shapes form and rhythm, revealing the poetic dialogue between material and maker. Under the Biennale theme, “From Stardust to Lush Sprouts”, the show reflects on cosmic origins and transformation, highlighting how clay, one of humanity’s oldest materials, continues to inspire contemporary creativity.

Milena Pirštelienė. Matchstick in the Sand
Lithuanian artist Milena Pirštelienė, international Gold Prize winner at the previous Biennale, presents a lyrical meditation on memory, attention, and the often overlooked details of daily life. Focusing on the small and seemingly unimportant – a shadow, a fragment of a street, a match in the sand – she asks: “Do we ever pause before the ‘insignificant’?”

In her hands, ceramics becomes a medium of quiet reflection, subtly revealing how the tiniest of objects can carry memory, emotion, and unexpected depth. The show invites the viewer to slow down, look closely, and rediscover the poetry in the everyday.

Sanita Ābelīte. Creatures
Latvian ceramicist Sanita Ābelīte, national Gold Prize winner at the Martinsons Award 2023, brings imagination to life in “Creatures”, an enchanting world of beings both real and fantastical. From animals of the forest, field, and sky to figures drawn from history and myth, Ābelīte’s creative touch transforms ideas into tangible, expressive forms that feel alive.

Created specifically for this exhibition, the ensemble of characters forms a cohesive, multi-layered world, inviting viewers to step inside and experience the artist’s nuanced vision, where craftsmanship and creativity converge and every form sparks curiosity and reflection.

Lost for words. Poland’s contemporary ceramics
“Lost for Words” presents contemporary ceramics from Poland, guest country of the 5th Latvia Ceramics Biennale. The exhibition’s title, drawn from the Polish expression brak słów, reflects both being speechless in awe and struggling to articulate profound emotion when words alone cannot express the scope of feeling.

Through striking forms, intriguing textures, and symbolic gestures, the twenty-three featured artists shape clay into a universal language, inviting viewers to interpret and connect with the intangible and thus discover resonance and meaning beyond words.

Sandra Strēle. The Night Before
Latvian artist Sandra Strēle presents “The Night Before”, an intimate yet expansive meditation on new motherhood and the fluid boundaries between humanity and nature. Through painting, Strēle explores the ebb and flow of life, where water becomes both witness and agent, preserving, transforming, and revealing connections between the personal and the ecological.

Drawing on hydrofeminist thought, the exhibition examines liminal thresholds of bodies, ideas, and actions while reflecting on ecological change and the fragile, cyclical nature of existence. Strēle’s large-scale series, unfolding in a dynamic continuum she calls seriality, invites viewers to encounter familiar images re-imagined, generating ever-new meanings and resonances.

Uģis Auziņš. Improvised
Latvian painter Uģis Auziņš presents “Improvised”, a celebration of nature’s fleeting moments and ever-changing rhythms. Drawing profusely from the landscape of his birthplace, Auziņš transforms the subtle shifts of light, season, and colour into canvases that engage both the senses and the imagination.

A lifelong observer and sensitive interpreter of the natural world, Auziņš captures the ephemeral beauty of the sky, foliage, and wind, creating works that are at once emotional, reflective, and deeply attuned to the physical world around us.

Exhibition Dates and Opening Night
The Rothko Museum’s autumn season runs from 5 September to 23 November 2025. Two exhibitions – “Martinsons Award 2025” and “Matchstick in the Sand” by Milena Pirštelienė – will extend into the winter season and conclude on 1 February 2026.

Admission is free on opening night.

The Rothko Museum’s autumn exhibition season was prepared in partnership with the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics and the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw, with valued support from the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Daugavpils City Council, the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, Embassy of Poland in Rīga, “Format”, “Szkło i Ceramika”, and “Caparol”.

Publicity images:

Rothko Museum. Photo by Didzis Grodzs.
Martinsons Award 2025. Logo.
Milena Pirštelienė. “Matchstick in the Sand”. White clay, pigment drawing, overglaze paint, glaze, 1020 °C, electric firing. 2025.
Sanita Ābelīte. “Creatures”. Ceramics. Varied sizes. 2025.
Karina Marusińska. “Self-Destruction”. Ceramics, synthetic materials, earth, ash, mixed media. Diameter 75 cm. 2023. Photo by Paweł Góral.
Sandra Strēle. “Triumphal Arch”. Water-based paint and acrylic markers on canvas. 80 x 40 cm (detail). 2025.
Uģis Auziņš. “March”. Acrylic on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2024

The post Six Exhibitions and the International Martinsons Award: Rothko Museum Announces Ambitious Autumn Lineup appeared first on VISITDAUGAVPILS.

On June 1, on the last day of the City Festival in Daugavpils, a car show hosted by the “Rolling Team” community will take place in the courtyard of the Centre of Technics and Industrial Design «Engineering Arsenal». The event will be held from 10:00 to 17:00. Many cars of different categories from Latvia and Lithuania will take part in the show.

Different contests are planned within the event:

– competition of the most powerful exhaust;

– competition of car audio systems;

– contests for all visitors and other surprises.

Entrance to this event (courtyard) is free of charge.

Let’s celebrate the 750th anniversary of Daugavpils together!

Information: “Rolling Team”

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European Museum Night is an international event that has been held in many European countries since 2005. In addition to regular exhibitions, many museums also organise special events – creative workshops, concerts, theatrical performances etc. The event will be held on Saturday evening, May 17^th and will occur until the early hours of Sunday morning. Entrance is for free.

This year, 17 places in Daugavpils will be awaiting Museum Night 2025 visitors – museums, exhibitions, sacral and cultural institutions will open their doors to everyone and will offer free admission to the permanent exhibitions as well as special events such as workshops, concerts, theatre performances and other activities.

Daugavpils city celebrates its 750th anniversary in 2025. Therefore, in response to the overall theme of the 2025 Museum Night “Stories of Our Values”, Daugavpils will invite visitors to explore the city’s history, places and people that make up Daugavpils’ values. Each of the 17 sites is an important part of this story, reflecting the diversity of Daugavpils, its rich cultural and historical heritage, as well as the personalities whose lives and activities are closely related to our city.

THE MAP OF THE MUSEUM NIGHT 2025 IN DAUGAVPILS

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From 29 May to 1 June, Daugavpils will celebrate its 750th anniversary. This year, the city’s celebrations will expand considerably, offering a varied and rich programme of culture and entertainment.

The celebrations will begin on Thursday, 29 May, at the Daugavpils Fortress, where visitors will have the opportunity to enjoy a musical programme in the courtyard of the Rothko Museum – a cabaret concert performance “THIS IS LIFE …”. This musical and theatrical experience will create a special atmosphere where passion, music and the performance of outstanding artists will merge into one breathtaking evening.

On Friday, 30 May, three stages will be set up in the city centre for concerts offering a varied musical programme. Visitors will be able to enjoy attractions, a wide range of markets and outdoor cafés starting on Friday.

On Friday afternoon, 30 May, the Rothko Museum will open its Summer Exhibition Season and Daugavpils Fortress will host a concert by “PALÚ” and “House of Berries”. The festivities will continue in the city centre – in parks, squares and Rīgas Street, as well as on the main stage at the Unity Square, where the performance of the drum and bagpipe band “AUĻI”, the band “LATGALĪŠU REPS”, the concert programme “ABBORN, “ABBA” and the musical show “RICO SANCHEZ and “The GIPSIES” will be held.

On Saturday, 31 May, the city centre will become the epicentre of the festivities. Music, entertainment and various activities will take place throughout the day. There will also be a colourful festive parade, with the participation of both local residents and visitors. At the end of the day, a grand concert will take place in Vienības Square, which promises to be one of the highlights of the festival. “SUDDEN LIGHTS” and “Bi-2” will perform in the Unity Square.

For the second time, the international event “Tourism Street” will take place during the Daugavpils City Festival. Visitors will be able to get new ideas for their holidays in Daugavpils, other parts of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. During the event, professional advice and recommendations for planning an unforgettable holiday for different target audiences will be available. The “Tourism Street” will be open in the city centre – on Ģimnāzijas Street from Saules Street to Rīgas Street:
30 May from 15.00 to 19.00;
31 May from 10.00 to 19.00.

On Sunday, 1 June, youth will take over the baton with sports activities in Vienības Square. There will be a variety of events attracting sports enthusiasts, amateurs and others.

This year the Latgalian tradition of singing together turns 100 years old, and the Latgalian Song Festival celebrates its 85th anniversary. In this regard, the Latgalian Song Festival will take place on 1 June at the Stropi open air stage for the first time in the last 10 years. During the festival there will be several concerts. The culmination will be a big festive concert, which will bring together both Latgalian artists and guests from other parts of Latvia. The programme will include Latgalian folk songs and modern compositions.

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From 10 to 22 March, Daugavpils will welcome graphic artists from nine countries for the 13th International Latgale Graphic Art Symposium – a vibrant creative forum for professional printmakers that will result in an exhibition at the Rothko Museum.

As the most significant international event in the graphic medium held in the Latgale Region, the symposium has, over the years, brought together more than a hundred printmakers from over forty countries. Its idea and concept belong to Association SIVIA, which has run the symposium since its inception in 2013 as part of the Rothko Museum’s residency programme. Today, the symposium continues to revitalise the graphic medium in Daugavpils and boost the international profile of Latgale by drawing artists to this vibrant region where creativity can truly thrive.

The symposium format gives artists two productive weeks away from the distractions of daily life, enabling them to concentrate on nothing but creation. Settled in the Rothko Museum’s printmaking studios, they distil their impressions of Daugavpils and its historic fortress and translate Latgale’s distinctive scenery into original artworks for the symposium exhibition. Some choose to hone their long-preferred techniques, while others opt for unconventional experiments to capture the creative impulse of the here and now.

Participation in the forum is competition-based. A jury of experts selected eleven artists from nine countries for the symposium’s 13th edition. Thus, the 2025 team of participants includes Ana Vivoda (Croatia), Anatolijs Šandurovs (Latvia), Antonia-Styliani Taralli (Greece), Caterina De Nisco and Michele Bernardini (Italy), Martyna Rzepecka and Łukasz Koniuszy (Poland), Indraagni Ghosh (India), Lilli-Krõõt Repnau (Estonia), Sioban Piercy (Ireland), and Sirkku Ketola (Finland).

The public will have the opportunity to get to know the artists and explore their practices at a meet-the-artist event scheduled for 3 p.m. on Friday, 14 March, in the Rothko Museum’s video room.

The symposium will close on 21 March, 4 p.m., in the museum’s gallery space with the unveiling of an exhibition that will display the tangible results of the intense creative fortnight.

Admission to both events is free of charge.

The 13th International Latgale Graphic Art Symposium is supported by the Daugavpils City Council, Latvia’s State Culture Capital Foundation, Caparol, and Devona.

Publicity image: In the Rothko Museum’s printmaking studio (photo by Pāvels Terentjevs)

Information: Rothko Museum

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At 4 p.m. on Friday, 7 March, the Rothko Museum will inaugurate its first exhibition season of the year with six new projects where art becomes a language for celebrating our humanity and deep connectedness with nature. Alongside solo exhibitions by Ritums Ivanovs, Iveta Šmita, and Basil Alkazzi (UK, Monaco), the season’s programme includes a panorama of Latgalian art, a showcase of Latvian graphics from the Rothko Museum Collection and collaborative ceramics by Silvija Šmidkena and Leons Lukšo.

Ritums Ivanovs. Temple

After years of artistic research and collaboration with the Rothko Museum, Ritums Ivanovs (Latvia) transforms the former military arsenal now housing the museum into a Temple with four chapels, set on the very ground where Mark Rothko, the global visionary of art and thought, was born and used to live. Continuing his deep engagement with portraiture, Ivanovs presents an exhibition that provides an insight into the pages of art history through Ivanovs’ distinctive artistry and Rothko’s timeless intellectual legacy. The monumental portraits become an object reference where we discover the true, the real, and the present artist – Rothko, Rembrandt, and Ritums himself.

“The Temple is a space for self-reflection, awareness, and a direct experience of art. This exhibition – a destination for art’s pilgrims – has been created slowly, step by step, with almost sacred reverence and introspection. Moved by a long and careful reading of ‘The Artist’s Reality’, a book containing Rothko’s writings that were never published in his lifetime, Ivanovs, in his paintings, pulls back the curtain to reveal the universal tensions that all artists navigate, while also offering a glimpse into his own reality and process – the method, inspirations, and persistent dedication that built this Temple,” says Aivars Baranovskis, curator of the exhibition.

Basil Alkazzi. Museum Collection 2007–2024

The Monaco-based British artist and philanthropist Basil Alkazzi paints to celebrate the deep interconnectedness of life in all its forms. The exhibition showcases a significant collection of Alkazzi’s works dating from 2007 to 2024, now part of the Rothko Museum Collection. Inspired by the lush landscapes, flora, and skies of Monaco and the South of France and executed with an extraordinary sense of colour, light, and form, they invite the viewer to contemplate the deep interconnections between the microcosm and the macrocosm, the earthly and the divine.

The exhibition’s curator, Māris Čačka, observes: “Alkazzi’s art resonates with an inner energy that transcends the physical world. Here, the horizon is not a boundary but a passage into realms both known and unknown. The dynamism in his work, the tension between stillness and movement, mirrors the complexity of human experience and the vastness of the universe. (..) So, let the exhibition offer more than just a visual experience. Let it be an invitation to meditate on the profound beauty of the universe and our place within it.”

Iveta Šmita. Let the Forest Be a Forest

Latvian artist Iveta Šmita, from Sigulda, has developed a unique technique of painting on silk using calligraphy ink and a natural staining agent derived from alder bark, which she prepares herself. Her exhibition is an ecologically conscious statement on the problem of deforestation – a poignant issue given that, although Latvians are often considered a ‘forest nation,’ the country’s natural forest biotopes are vanishing at an alarming rate.

The exhibition also features figurative pieces inspired by the art of ballet. How does deforestation tie into classical dance? A recent national study on “Cultural Participation and Its Impact” revealed that only fourteen per cent of Latvia’s population attends opera and ballet performances. Meanwhile, the proportion of the country’s natural forests is rapidly declining, primarily due to industrial logging.

“While Latvia may theoretically boast ample forested areas, they are increasingly dominated by intensively managed monocultures, closely associated with clear-cut zones and artificially cultivated saplings. Will access to a living, diverse forest soon become the privilege of a select few, much like the appreciation of high art, such as ballet, appears to be today?” the artist asks.

Desire. Juried Exhibition from the Latgale Region

Each spring, the Rothko Museum presents the latest instalment of its annual juried exhibition conceived specifically as a platform for local talent. This time, the exhibition theme explores “Desire”. In Latvian, the word is almost perfectly homonymous with ‘election’, identical in all but one small diacritic. This linguistic nuance ties desire to political action – an apt association, given that every election involves an active interplay between our individual expectations and collective choices.

“In Latvian (and many other languages), the meanings of certain words will shift with the presence of diacritic marks. This playful duality inspired the Rothko Museum’s challenge to the artists of Latgale for the 2025 edition of its annual juried exhibition. The theme invites the artists to engage with present-day concerns in the language of art while staying mindful of our personal and collective hopes and visions for the future,” sums up Tatjana Černova, the exhibition’s curator.

The exhibition jury reviewed 87 applications and selected 49 artists whose creativity unfolds in different media – from painting, printmaking, and ceramics to textile, multimedia art, and installation. Their work paints a compelling panorama of the region’s art today.

Selection. Latvian Graphics in the Rothko Museum Collection

From its inception, the Rothko Museum has been committed to expanding its Contemporary Graphic Art Collection, with a dedicated focus on Latvian artists. This collection has evolved through the museum’s annual graphic art symposium and generous donations or strategic purchases after successful solo exhibitions by graphic artists.

The exhibition celebrates eighteen distinguished figures in domestic graphic art, bringing together established masters and the younger cohort of the medium’s practitioners. In this, it throws a metaphoric bridge from past to present, with each selected piece a testament to the enduring power of artistic expression. The concept of selection is compellingly articulated by Māris Čačka, the Rothko Museum Director: “More than a simple compilation, this carefully curated set is both an intellectual statement and emotional decision highlighting the unmistakable creative voice of every featured artist while inviting viewers to explore the rich and stunningly diverse collective landscape of Latvian graphic art. In doing so, we shine a spotlight on the Rothko Museum’s collection and celebrate the individual creative spark of every featured artist.”

Silvija Šmidkena & Leons Lukšo. Constructive Dialogue

Showcasing works from the collection of the Latvian National Museum of Art, the exhibition invites the viewer into the shared creative world of Silvija Šmidkena (1935–2024) and Leons Lukšo (1930–1984) – two major figures in Latvian professional ceramics since the 1960s, partners in art and life. Their collaborative pieces, created between 1965 and 1984, reflect a unique artistic dialogue shaped during Lukšo’s years at the iconic Ķīpsala Ceramics Studio, a legendary hub of ground-breaking creative innovation for some of Latvia’s finest ceramic artists. In the couple’s creative interchange, Šmidkena’s sensitivity to nature and pursuit of emotional depth blends seamlessly with Lukšo’s minimalist approach to structured geometric form to produce striking artworks that emphasise the intricate dynamic between the artist and the viewer.

On view at the Rothko Museum’s Martinsons House, the exhibition draws parallels between the legacy of the distinguished Latvian ceramicist Pēteris Martinsons (1931–2013) and the artistic explorations of his colleagues and contemporaries.

Exhibition Dates and Opening Night

The Rothko Museum’s spring season runs from 7 March to 18 May 2025. Two exhibitions – “Selection: Latvian Graphics in the Rothko Museum Collection” and “Constructive Dialogue” by Šmidkena and Lukšo – will close a week earlier, on 11 May.

Admission is free on opening night.

The Rothko Museum’s spring exhibition season was prepared in partnership with the Latvian National Museum of Art and the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics. The season’s programme is supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, the Daugavpils City Council, the Basil Alkazzi Acquisitions Fund, Devona, and Caparol.

Publicity images:

• Ritums Ivanovs. “Temple. Rothko. Pink”. Acrylic on canvas. 200 x 170 cm, 2024/5 (detail). Photo by Jānis Deinats.
• Basil Alkazzi. “Transmigration II”. Gouache on paper. 58 x 79 cm. 2016.
• Iveta Šmita. “Piece I” from the “Forest” series. Author’s original technique: calligraphy ink on silk and linen. 70 x 50 cm (detail). 2025.
• Nele Zirnīte. “Autumn Shadows”. Etching and linocut on paper. 50 x 65 cm. 2015.
• Silvija Šmidkena & Leons Lukšo. From the “Constructive Shapes” series. H – 29 cm (detail). Clay, glaze. 1973.
• “Desire”. Publicity banner.

Information:
Inga Gedžūne, Rothko museum
inga.gedzune@daugavpils.lv
+371 26070651

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Daugavpils will celebrate its 750th anniversary from 29 May to 1 June. Daugavpils city has already started intensive work on the city’s celebration programme, which highlights not only the city’s significant anniversary, but also the 85th anniversary of the first Latgale Song Festival at the Stropu Stage.

This year, the cultural and entertainment programme of the City Festival will be extensive and diverse. The city’s cultural institutions will offer events with a strong focus on exploring the history of Daugavpils.

The celebrations will start on Thursday, 29 May, at the Daugavpils Fortress, where visitors will have the opportunity to enjoy a musical programme in the courtyard of the Rothko Museum.

On Friday, 30 May, three stages will be set up in the city centre for concerts offering a varied musical programme. Visitors will be able to enjoy attractions, a wide range of festive market stalls and outdoor cafés starting on Friday.

On Saturday 31 May, the city centre will become the epicentre of the festivities. Music, entertainment and activities will take place throughout the day. There will also be a colourful parade with the participation of both residents and visitors. At the end of the day, a grand concert will take place at the Unity Square, which promises to be one of the highlights of the festival. For the second time, the Daugavpils City Festival will feature a “Tourism Street”, where representatives of the Baltic tourism industry will offer their best tips and advice for an unforgettable holiday here in Daugavpils and in other places.

There will be a variety of events attracting sports enthusiasts, amateurs and others on Sunday, 1 June.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Latgale tradition of communal singing and 85 years since the first Latgale Song Festival was held in Daugavpils. To celebrate this jubilee, the Latgale Song Festival will take place on 1 June at the Stropu Stage, featuring the most beautiful Latgalian folk songs and contemporary compositions. This festival is an important cultural event that celebrates Latvian singing culture, strengthens the identity of Latgale and promotes the development of local music and folk art. The Latgale Song Festival will include a number of cultural events, culminating in a large concert that will bring together local and regional artists, as well as guests from other parts of Latvia.

The programme of events will follow.

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At 4 p.m. on Friday, 29 November, the Rothko Museum will launch its winter season, closing the year with six profoundly moving exhibitions. The season’s international dimension comes from “The Beginning and the Light”, a metaphysically oriented solo exhibition by the Italian-Argentine artist Ernesto Morales. Also on show are five domestic projects – the sombre and expressive “Wind Breaker” by Gustavs Filipsons, the enigmatic “Islands” by Mārtiņš Zitmanis, the spiritual and luminous “Eternal Child” by Ruta Štelmahere, the tenderly reminiscent “I’m in the House” by Jekaterina Griškjāne, and the gently comforting “Warm Light” by Inese Margēviča.

“The Beginning and the Light” by Ernesto Morales

The winter season introduces to the local public Ernesto Morales, an Argentinian whose creativity unfolds in Italy since 2006. More recently, Morales has anchored his creative practice in the themes of origin and light. The artist’s interest transcends the purely metaphysical realm. His radiant yet clouded compositions help him trace how space, in dialogue with the viewer’s movement, can alter how the painting is perceived depending on its interaction with the ambient light.

“The exhibition title is about awakening and triumph, a source of strength that fuels growth, renewal, betterment, and new creation. A thinking and perceptive viewer will notice how Morales paints the essence of the universe’s origins, his clouds absorbing and reflecting light in an eternal cycle: spilling into lakes, rivers, and seas before returning, rising up again, reflected in the oceanic mirror, to form new clouds and thereby signal a perpetual rebirth and an interminable new beginning,” comments Māris Čačka, Morales’s curator for the current show.

“Wind Breaker” by Gustavs Filipsons

The latest solo exhibition by Gustavs Filipsons outlines his personal progression through almost fully black and monochrome abstraction. The artist’s famously expressive style draws its dynamic energy from the robust, wind-beaten shores of Kurzeme, the western coastal region of his native Latvia. The vastness that unfolds within the black in Filipsons’s paintings defies all spatial boundaries and dimensions. What happens in the dark is both irrational and mesmerising, and the layered textures seem to be suggesting an experience, a dream, a vision.

“The images appearing in my work are beacons that guide my soul on its unfolding journey through the dark – a voyage that will ultimately bring me home. We all seek inner peace and balance, but without us diving deep into our souls, without profound purification that will cleanse us from our fears, malevolence, and selfish greed, we’ll never find true happiness or freedom. All our experiences are active forces that move us towards freedom and help us to keep changing for the better. But it will only happen if we truly want it,” the artist opens up about what underpins his work.

“Islands” by Mārtiņš Zitmanis

The “islands” that the artist Mārtiņš Zitmanis refers to in his exhibition title are painted objects that appear in almost everything he paints. The exhibition leans towards abstraction, but the “island objects” invariably take centre stage. From realism to abstraction, the viewer is continuously invited to reflect on the specific lens and properties of Zitmanis’s mental archipelago and to consider where we all are drifting in humanity’s vast ocean of ideas.

“For me, an observation sparks association, which, in turn, suggests an image. The latter I develop, discarding anything that feels excessive, into a geometrically structured graphic composition, with its distinctive lines and planes, metallic surface properties, and rhythmic textures. I’m drawn to mediaeval iconography and modern sculpture – their way of representing things that isn’t literal or strictly realistic but can be likened in its impact to an ornamental sign,” the artist says.

For Zitmanis, who spent the first thirteen years of his long, itinerant career in Daugavpils, the exhibition is a homecoming – a return to the earliest in a line of memorable “islands” that have anchored him in his creative voyage.

“Eternal Child” by Ruta Štelmahere

Ruta Štelmahere, Latvian artist, poet and art educator, draws from defining moments of her life – embracing faith in God, the birth of her two children and the passing of her parents. These moments have been her sacred, enigmatic glimpses of eternity when she has brushed the curtain that separates us from the great beyond. This final frontier is where we all come face to face with our eternal child, so vulnerable and genuine.

“A shining image flashes in the cloud of light that is my childhood – my first awareness of eternity and time, infinity and space. Immediately, ageless archetypal questions are storming through my fledgling mind. I’m wondering what existed before I came to be and what will happen once I am gone. What does it mean to be and never end? And how can something have no end? Our inner child is growing and maturing as we live, yet it remains a child, holding the hand of God the Father, our eternal origin and destination,” Štelmahere says.

The artist navigates these timeless questions in her painting with depth and reverence for the sacred, endlessly reaching for the edge of light and bearing faithful witness to its revelations.

“I’m in the House” by Jekaterina Griškjāne

Jekaterina Griškjāne, artist and children’s book illustrator, adds to the winter season with her moving solo exhibition, deeply rooted in a painful loss and journey of acceptance – a young mind trying to make sense of the departure of someone dear. The artist was only nine years old when her secure and happy world was shaken by the passing of her grandfather, who’d been her closest friend. Not fully understanding what exactly death entailed, she felt it had to be a kind of final passage. The exhibition traces such a journey between two worlds and draws from a first-hand experience of facing death and navigating the rugged path towards acceptance.

“My message is that death need not be feared because our loved ones remain within us, living forever in our hearts, their final home,” sums up the artist.

“Warm Light” by Inese Margēviča

On view in the Rothko Museum’s Martinsons House, the latest solo show by Inese Margēviča, a noted Latvian ceramicist, explores the two-way interaction between humans and plants by diving into our reciprocity and energy exchange, which gives us inspiration, solace and support. The exhibits all feature a recurring image – wild cyclamen, seen by the artist in the wild in an abandoned garden in off-season France.

“I wonder what wild cyclamen is doing, cocooned in velvety, protective dark, and if it feels the gardener’s caring hands when gently nestled in a bank of soil. Or maybe it is sound asleep, and the unsightly wood-like bulb is destined to remain forever dormant in its unappealing form? What is this force that changes everything and coaxes from the humble root a tender shoot that starts unfurling, reaching up towards the sun, then grows into a delicate rosette, develops leaves, and ultimately blossoms into soft pink blooms? Slowly, the plant transforms and starts to breathe anew….” the artist opens up about her inspiration.

The Rothko Museum’s winter season runs from 29 November 2024 to 23 February 2025. Still on view from the autumn season through 16 February 2025 is “Disegno Interno: Surrender to Your Obsessions” – a sweeping tribute exhibition celebrating the iconic surrealist filmmaker Jan Švankmajer and Eva Švankmajerová, his wife and co-creator (Czechia).

Admission to the new exhibitions is free on opening night.

Supporters: State Culture Capital Foundation, Daugavpils City Council, Italian Embassy in Latvia, Devona, Caparol.

Information: Rotko muzejs

Publicity photo: Gustavs Filipsons, Wind Breaker, oil on plywood, 120 x 160 cm, 2021

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The Rothko Museum invites artists to apply to its 2025 symposium programme, which will feature four major international events in painting, graphics, and ceramics.

The first event in the 2025 line-up, the 13th International Latgale Graphic Art Symposium, will run from 10 to 22 March 2025. This vibrant creative forum remains the most significant international printmaking event in Latvia’s Latgale Region. Co-produced with the SIVIA Association, it aims to revitalise the graphic medium in Daugavpils and boost Latgale’s international profile by drawing artists to this dynamic space where creativity can thrive. Applications are welcome till 25 January 2025.

From 28 April to 16 May 2025, the Rothko Museum will host the 13th International Ceramic Laboratory Symposium. Organised in a close partnership with the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics, this open platform for contemporary experiments in the ceramic medium attracts the world’s leading ceramic artists, who spend almost three weeks in a shared studio space exploring different firing techniques – from electric and wood firing to more innovative, experimental technologies. Applications are welcome till 31 January 2025.

From 21 to 31 July 2025, the Rothko Museum will partner with the Balvi Municipality to organise the 9th Valdis Bušs International Painting Plein Air. Taking place in Viļaka, a scenic town in eastern Latvia, it commemorates Valdis Bušs, a renowned Latvian landscapist who was born there, and promotes Viļaka as an excellent destination for artists with a focus on quality, professionalism and sustainable growth. Applications are welcome till 30 April 2025.

Finally, from 12 to 27 September, the Rothko Museum will host the twenty-first instalment of its signature creative forum – the Mark Rothko International Painting Symposium. Mark Rothko’s name and unmistakable iconic style remain intensely relevant today, and the two-week tribute symposium held in his birthplace attracts worldwide attention, especially from the artists who resonate with Rothko’s visual language and profound philosophy. Applications are welcome till 1 June 2025.

For application details, please visit the Rothko Museum’s website: https://rothkomuseum.com/en/museum/catalogues/symposia/.

Contact details:

Inga Gedžūne
+371 65430279
inga.gedzune@daugavpils.lv

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Discover the autumnal mood and take part in a variety of exciting events for families and groups of friends. From cultural delights to sporting activities, there’s something for everyone. Join your friends and family for unforgettable autumn moments!

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Everyone is invited to take part in the vibrant and exciting events taking place in Daugavpils from 18 to 24 October!
Whether you are a culture, music or sports lover, this week in Daugavpils offers something for everyone!

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From 11 October to 17 October, Daugavpils will host exciting cultural events offering a variety of activities for every visitor and resident of the city.
We invite you to join us for an unforgettable week of art, music, folk traditions and entertainment.

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From 11 October to 3 November, Daugavpils Central Park will become the mysterious “Horror Park”, which promises to be the most ambitious and spectacular event of this autumn. Every evening from 3 pm to 10 pm, the park will open its doors to all those who are willing to immerse themselves in an atmosphere of mysticism and fear.

Last year, the “Horror Park” in the city of Bauska attracted thousands of tourists from all over Latvia. And this year, the hosts have decided to bring the Horror Park to Daugavpils, the second largest city in Latvia! In Daugavpils, guests will be greeted by terrifying scenery, scary sculptures and interactive zones. The park will feature more than 200 objects – pumpkin and spider web mazes, “live” zombies ready to scare even the bravest visitors. Special attention has been paid to the design and lighting to make every corner of the park look even scarier in the evening hours.

What can you expect at the “Horror Park” in Daugavpils?

– A witch’s house on hen’s legs: children can take part in magic rituals and the witch will give them unusual advice.

-Magic labyrinths: mysterious corridors of spider webs and lanterns where you can test your courage.

-Photo zones: specially designed areas for taking terrifying and colourful photos to remember this event for a lifetime.

Whether you are an adult or a child, whether you like edgy sensations or are simply looking for unusual entertainment, the Horror Park in Daugavpils offers something for everyone.

Entrance fee:
– Adult ticket – 10 euro
– Children’s ticket (6-12 years) – 5 euros
– Senior ticket – 5 euros
– Children under 6 and people with disabilities – free.

The organisers invite everyone to follow the Horror Park’s news and competition announcements on Facebook and TikTok to find out about all the surprises that await visitors to the park.

“The organisers of the Horror Park also invite catering companies to join the event.
Contacts: Facebook or e-mail: shausmu_parks_daugavpils@inbox.lv.

Don’t miss the chance to be part of this most exciting autumn event!

Information: Horror Park 

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From 20th September to 26th September, Daugavpils will host exciting cultural events offering a variety of activities for every visitor and resident of the city.
We invite you to join us and enjoy an unforgettable week of art, music, folk traditions and entertainment.

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Everyone is invited to the events from 13th September to 19th September. The week will be packed with interesting events for all ages and interests. Follow the programme and don’t miss out on exciting events.

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From 6th to 12th September, Daugavpils will host a variety of exciting events. We invite everyone to join us and enjoy this wealth of cultural, artistic and sporting activities.

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New and exciting events are expected every day, suitable for families and groups of friends.
Don’t miss your chance to experience something special this week!

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If you are planning a holiday in Daugavpils from 9th August to 15th August, take a look at the cultural and sports events on offer.

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From July 29 to August 3, the municipality of Visaginas will celebrate its 49th birthday. This neighbouring Lithuanian city invites Latvian friends to experience an impressive city festival program!

Distinguished artists from various European countries will grace Visaginas with their talents, culminating on August 3 with NOIZE MC, now residing in Vilnius and freshly back from a musical tour across Europe and the USA, presenting an unforgettable performance featuring the program “Swan Lake”!

Visaginas 49th City Festival Program:

July 29, Monday

6:00 PM | Santarves aikste / Greentrials (Latvia) / Greentrials Bike Tour (Extreme bicycle show)

7:00 PM | VKC “Draugystė”, Parko g. 7 / Visaginas Ballet / Vitalij Grabov / Laura Geraščenko (Visaginas / Klaipėda) / You Are Beautiful, My Beloved, You Are Beautiful

And Rima Pipoyan / Voicech Žuromskas (Armenia / Lithuania) / Me, My non-Self and I (Contemporary Ballet)

7:45 PM | VKC “Draugystė”, Parko g. 7 / Alexsandre Vassiliev Fund (Lithuania) / The Show Must Go On (Exhibition opening / Costume exhibition)

10:00 PM | VKC cinema theater “Draugystė”, Parko g. 7 / Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos (Ireland, UK, USA) / Scanorama Summer Night Cinema: Poor things (N-18) (Cinema)

July 30, Tuesday

3:00 PM | VKC “Sedulina”, exhibition space, Vilties g. 5 / Young Artists Club “Palette” / Scent of August (Exhibition opening)

5:00 PM | Visaginas Public Library branch (Sedulinos al. 14/3) / Visaginas Public Library

Home Is Where the Heart Is (Creative meeting with Margarita Simonova)

7:00 PM | VKC “Draugystė”, Parko g. 7 / Henri Herbert (USA) / Blues Piano Grooves / Paid(Music)

9:00 PM | VKC “Banga” terrace, Parko g. 16 / Alina Orlova with a group

10:30 PM | VKC cinema theater “Draugystė”, Parko g. 7 / Dir. Luca Guadagnino (Italy, USA)

Scanorama Summer Night Cinema: Bones and All (N-18) (Cinema)

July 31, Wednesday

11:00 AM | Vilties g. 1 / Visaginas Social Services Center / Hug Your City (Seniors’ hike)

12:00 PM | VKC “Draugystė”, Parko g. 7 / Klaipėda Puppet Theater / The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane / Paid (For children)

6:30 PM | VKC “Banga”, Parko g. 16 / Šeiko Dance Theater / The Four Seasons / Paid (Dance Theater)

8:00 PM | VKC “Draugystė”, Parko g. 7 / Open Circle (Vilnius) / Will Pass / Paid (Theater)

10:00 PM | VKC cinema theater “Draugystė”, Parko g. 7 / Dir. Valdimar Johannsson (Iceland, Sweden, Poland) / Scanorama Summer Night Cinema: Lamb (N-16) (Cinema)

August 1, Thursday

6:00 PM | Santarves aikste / Klaipėda Puppet Theater / About Fish and People (Puppet/Object Theater)

7:00 PM | Amphitheater near VKC “Sedulina”, Vilties g. 5 / Vilnius Dance Theater “Low Air”

Just the Two of Us (Urban Dance)

8:00 PM | VKC “Sedulina”, near Skatepark, Vilties g. 5 / Open Visaginas Wall (Opening)

9:00 PM | VKC cinema theater “Draugystė”, Parko g. 7

Dir. Kristoffer Borgli (Norway, Sweden)

Scanorama Summer Night Cinema: Sick of Myself (95’, N-16)

Cinema

August 2, Friday

11:00 AM | VKC “Sedulina”, Vilties g. 5 / Solemn session of Visaginas Municipal Council

1:00 PM | Vilties g. 1 / Visaginas Social Services Center / Exhibition of archival photographs (City Builders)

3:00 PM | St. Apostle Paul Church, Santarvės g. 1 / Service for Visaginas

4:30 PM | Visaginas City Museum, Tarybų g. 23 / Museum opening

6:00 PM | “Atgimimo” Gymnasium Amphitheater, near Tarybų g. 23 / Rhizome (France)

Bleu Tenace / Circus/Physical Theater

7:00 PM | VKC “Draugystė”, Parko g. 7 / Kauri Honkakoski Company (Finland/Sweden) / The Desk / Paid (Physical Theater)

9:00 PM | VKC “Banga” terrace, Parko g. 16 / Jazz Trio Elpo (Latvia) / Quiet Treasures (Jazz)

10:30 PM | VKC cinema theater “Draugystė”, Parko g. 7 / Dir. Julia Ducournau (France)

Scanorama Summer Night Cinema: Titane (N-18) (Cinema)

August 3, Saturday

10:00 AM | Santarves aikste / Fair

12:00 PM – 3:00 PM | Sedulinos al. (outdoor, near Visaginas Public Library branch) / Visaginas Public Library / Cookie Truck / Digital education in the little train

3:00 PM | Santarves aikste / Made in Visaginas (Fair)

3:00 PM | VKC “Banga”, Parko g. 16 / Children’s program (For children)

4:00 PM | Santarves aikste / Discovery Meadow

6:00 PM | Santarves aikste / Community Stage (Multidisciplinary event)

7:30 PM | Santarves aikste / Inga Briazkalovaitė (Klaipėda) / Flight (Vertical Dance)

8:00 PM | Santarves aikste / Noize MC / Swan Lake (Music)

10:00 PM | VKC “Banga” terrace, Parko g. 16 / DJ Class Party (Disco)

12:00 AM | VKC “Banga” terrace, Parko g. 16 / DJ SKAI (Denmark/Lithuania) / Night Disco(Disco)

Organizer: Visaginas Cultural Center

Sponsors: Lithuanian Council for Culture, Visaginas Municipality, Kogus, American Corner Visaginas, Viada, Visagino linija

Partners: Christopher Summer Festival, Tytuvėnai Festival, Scanorama, Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre (LNOBT), ConTempo Festival, Alexsandre Vassiliev Fund, Meno Avilys, Art Residency “Taškas”, Visaginas Academy of Arts and Creativity, Visaginas Social Services Center, Visaginas Public Library

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The 7th International Living History Festival “Dinaburga 1812” will be held in Daugavpils Fortress on July 13^th.

On Saturday, July 13th, from 10:00 AM, there will be a flea market, a market of homemade products, and cafes on Mihaila and Nikolaja Streets. There will be a children’s attraction area and an exhibition of military equipment and weapons from the National Guard and Latvian Riflemen near “Martinsons House”. In additional, the inner courtyard of the Engineers’ Arsenal will be open for visitors until 7:00 PM. Free entrance.

At 11:30 AM, the ceremonial opening of the Nicholas Gate will begin.

At 12:00 PM, the noon shot will sound, and the march of historical reenactment clubs will start towards the Commandant’s Garden, where flowers will be laid at the monument-fountain dedicated to the construction of the fortress.

From 12:00 PM until 2:00 PM, a workshop “Try Ancient Hand Tools” will take place in the courtyard of the Engineers’ Arsenal.

At 1:00 PM, the folklore ensemble “Rusiči” (Daugavpils Russian Culture Centre) will perform near the Nicholas Gate.

At 2:00 PM, a duel – reenactment performance will take place in the fortress moat.

At 3:00 PM, the main event of the day will take place: the reenactment of the battle of the fortress defence.

At 4:00 PM, living history clubs will be honoured, and a commemoration will take place near the stage in the courtyard of the Rothko Museum.

At 5:00 PM, in the premises of the gunpowder storage in the 8th bastion on Nikolaja Street 15, the opening of the photo exhibition “Forts: Invasion of Colours” (Lithuania) will take place.

At 6:00 PM, on the wooden deck behind the Daugavpils Fortress Visitor Centre, an Empire Ball will take place, and the folklore ensemble “Rusiči” will perform historical romances.

At 10:00 PM, on the stage in the courtyard of the Rothko Museum, there will be a concert by the post-folklore group “Rikši”.

The festival is organised by the Daugavpils City Municipality and the Daugavpils City Municipal Institution, “Daugavpils Fortress and Museum Administration”.

Photography and filming will take place during the event.

For more information: phone 28686331, e-mail: cietoksnis@daugavpils.lv

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This year, Latvia’s second largest city – Daugavpils – celebrates its 749th anniversary. To celebrate this event and to offer a varied programme of festivities to the citizens and visitors of Daugavpils, the Daugavpils State Municipality has started work on the development of the City Festival programme. The main events of the Daugavpils City Festival will take place from 31 May to 2 June.

As usual, residents and visitors will enjoy a varied programme of festivities with concerts by different artists, as well as performances by local collectives and artists. The Family Park will invite young visitors to enjoy unforgettable adventures and thrilling attractions. Outdoor cafés and the Festive Market on Rigas Street will delight you with special tastes. Sports enthusiasts will be able to watch athletes in action and take part in various activities.

For the first time in the history of Daugavpils City Festival “Tūrisma iela” (Tourism street) will take place. In this event, everyone will be able to get new ideas for vacation right here in Daugavpils, elsewhere in Latvia, as well as in Lithuania and Estonia. For two days- on May 31 and June 1, representatives of the tourism industry of the Baltic States will gather at Gimnazijas Street to give the best advices and recommendations for your vacation.

On June 1, in celebration of International Children’s Day, activities for children, youth and families will take place in Dubrovin Park.

One of the biggest and most magnificent events of City’s Festival celebration is traditional march of Daugavpils companies, organizations, educational institutions and other collectives that will take place on June 1, at 13.00 from the Rail Station.

Special music surprises are expected on the evenings of May 31 and June 1, when the biggest musical guests of the Festival will take the big festive stage in Unity Square.

Special thought has also been given to sports activities. On June 1 in the Esplanade Park, little champions will be able to test their athletic straight at the “Get to know athletics”. On June 2, the Youth and Sports Festival will take place near to the Daugavpils Olympic Centre.

The Daugavpils City Festival will end on June 2 with historical atmosphere of Daugavpils Fortress. Visitors of the Festival will be able to rediscover pages of the history of the Fortress and participate in the ceremonial opening of the Nicholas Gate, and raising of the Fortress flag.

This year’s City Festival promises to be especially colorful and unforgettable!

DAUGAVPILS CITY FESTIVAL 2024 PROGRAMME

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European Museum Night is an international museum events which has been held in many European countries since 2005. In addition to regular exhibitions, many museums also organize special events – creative workshops, concerts, theatrical performances etc. The event is usually held on Saturday.

15 objects will be open in Daugavpils, awaiting Museum Night 2024 visitors!

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On 1 March, the Rothko Museum will open its all-Latvian spring exhibition season featuring four exciting visual projects. The leading contemporary Latvian painter Frančeska Kirke will present her solo show “Bastion”. Romāns Korovins, known for his work in painting and photography, will offer his one-man show “Let’s Die Together”. Six Latvian artists will come together in a joint project “ROTKHO. Made in Latvia”, based on the famous play by the Dailes Theatre. Finally, “When the Cannons Are Silent” will bring together a large and diverse group of artists associated with the Latgale Region into the museum’s annual juried exhibition. The spring exhibition season will be on show through 19 May.

“Bastion” by Frančeska Kirke – taking a stand against ignorance and prejudice

In her latest solo show called “Bastion”, Frančeska Kirke draws from the history of the Daugavpils Fortress and the current war in Ukraine to talk about art as a form of creative activism for social causes. Her “Bastion” is also a compelling metaphor for every artist’s inner struggle with themselves, their inner doubts, their triumphs and defeats. In visual terms, the exhibition has developed from a single artefact – a flaming cannonball became the one creative spark for the entire series.

To quote from the artist Frančeska Kirke: “My Bastion is about defence and safeguarding. In humanity’s ongoing battle with Darkness, the Rothko Museum is an enduring Bastion of light, a stronghold in a line of many other cultural beacons that guard the flame of free creative spirit while standing up to ignorance and prejudice. Seen through this lens, the Bastion is an appropriate umbrella term for the historical significance and function of the Daugavpils Fortress as well as for the current warfare raging right next door and the associated standpoint of a caring activist-creator whose only form of personal resistance is through art. The exhibition narrative unfolds in three thematic lines across three correlated and successive spaces: the Hall of Fame is all about victorious triumph; the Hospital is both a reference to a former military medical facility and a compelling archetype for our essential fragility and being ever-vulnerable to defeat; lastly, the Wounded Landscapes deal with the inevitable consequences of aggression.”

“Let’s Die Together” by Romāns Korovins – a visual reflection on time and married life

Romāns Korovins first showed his work at the Rothko Museum in 2018 alongside other artists in an intriguing group show, “Looking Out, Looking In”. Today, the artist returns to Daugavpils with a solo exhibition titled “Let’s Die Together”, where he offers his latest paintings, a spatial installation and writings on the recurrent issues of existence – such as the course of life and the passage of time – as well as on the painting medium itself and its capacity for abstraction.

“Let’s Die Together” is emblematic of the author’s method – Korovins delves into his hallmark themes of life, time and relationships. “My focus is on couples and family ties. My subjects are two individuals after a lifetime together, who shared special occasions as well as countless little tasks and ordinary routines in the prosaic day-to-day. Their common past has episodes of work and hope, the heights of joy and depths of disappointment. These are ostensibly the same experiences, all faithfully encountered hand in hand – home renovations, children’s graduations and restful summers out of town. But are they really all effectively the same? After all, one and the same thing can be experienced very differently and trigger vastly different feelings and emotions. And even dying together – the final act whereafter no one has the dubious advantage to revise the shared past – can well turn out to be beyond compare. Yes, there will be some overlapping and resemblance, but never all the way through,” explains the author.

From theatre to museum – “ROTKHO. Made in Latvia”

“Rotkho. Made in Latvia” is an intriguing exhibition project inspired by the famous half-eponymous production “ROTKHO” at the Dailes Theatre, which has earned broad recognition in Latvia and beyond. This extraordinary exhibition project is the collective effort of six heavyweights in Latvian painting – Frančeska Kirke, Aleksejs Naumovs, Sandra Strēle, Helēna Heinrihsone, Ritums Ivanovs and Kaspars Zariņš. The exhibition takes the drama off the stage and way beyond the theatre walls into an art museum setting with multiple shifts in perspective – from a digital image to its creative representation in a new hard copy and back to the original artwork.

To quote from the exhibition curator, Aivars Baranovskis: “Just like the play that sparked it, the exhibition is at once an imitation of world-famous artworks and an exciting visual parade of authentic creative output by eminent Latvian artists, who have produced a deeply stirring and evocative body of work. Its greatest asset – to borrow from the play that was the project’s inspiration – is the capacity to build a strong emotional connection with the viewer. Each artist took months to replicate one original Rothko. Until the project ended and the latest showcase of originals opened to the public in the Rothko Museum’s exhibition space, the only way to encounter the painting each artist was working from was through a digital copy. While this was clearly a considerable challenge, the situation also offered some interpretative leeway – rather than merely producing a replica, the artists had room for manoeuvre and ample scope to demonstrate their own creative touch.”

“When the Cannons Are Silent” – when the cannons speak, the muses are silent; when the cannons are silent, the muses can be heard

This spring, the Rothko Museum’s annual juried exhibition featuring artists associated with the Latgale Region received 199 submissions. A jury picked 47 artists to appear in a sweeping museum display covering different visual mediums.

Curator Aivars Baranovskis applauds the artists’ civic engagement in the shaping of public opinion through their art. With this exhibition, the Rothko Museum appeals to the world to keep creating and building a robust society armed with critical thinking regarding both domestic issues and more global, international concerns.

““When the cannons are heard, the muses are silent.” Way too often in the past couple of decades, people have had the reason to bring up this phrase. Way too often, muses have had to keep silent and step aside simply because there were more important things on the current agenda. Fortunately, today’s ideology has liberated art from having to serve the decorative needs of whatever regime happens to be in power. And in societies that honour such artistic freedom, the mouths of cannons remain tightly shut. Their cannons have taken their rightful place in museum courtyards, and the actual horrors of war stay firmly on screen,” says Baranovskis.

The Rothko Museum’s new exhibitions have been supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation, the Daugavpils City Council, Devona and Caparol.

For more information, please visit the Rothko Museum website: https://rothkomuseum.com/

Additional information:

Sintija Priedeslaipa

media coordinator

sintija@repute.lv

29456053

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The hen party is an old and beautiful tradition before the wedding. Exciting, fun and original ideas for the hen party will make it unforgettable. Here are some ideas for a party scenario in Daugavpils.

Painting masterclass under the guidance of a professional artist
Painting masterclasses are organised in the “Albrecht Art&Wine” Gallery. Painting classes are an opportunity to acquire basic knowledge and skills in painting in order to further develop yourself in one of the painting techniques and styles.
For more information and to apply, call +371 26627031.

A visit to the Shmakovka Museum and shmakovka tasting experience
The Shmakovka Museum offers a fascinating story about the process of making shmakovka and the features of the drink. You will see the authentic and impressive production equipment and taste the drink during the tour.
For more information and to book a visit, please call +371 25666201.

Enjoy the thrill of the quest
“Escape room” – a quest in reality. Intellectual entertainment for teams. At the beginning of the game, participants will be locked in rooms from which they will have to get out within 60 minutes. Here you can celebrate birthdays, corporate events or even bachelor/bachelorette parties.
For more information and to register call: +371 20337130.

Visit a unique exposition dedicated to the history of medicine
The medical exhibition with an exposition of birth control items invites you to familiarise yourself with the medical history of Daugavpils, the most outstanding doctors, and medical institutions that used to be in Daugavpils.
For more information and to apply call: +371 28872898.

Enjoy a bright and interesting adventure at the Daugavpils Innovation Centre
The Innovation Centre offers to get to know the magic of the kitchen in the kitchen laboratory. It offers to learn how to cook: NAAN – Indian bread, Palak paneer – spinach main course, pea flour sweets (candies). Groups up to 25 people are accepted.
For more information and to apply call: +371 29 411 895.

Apply for educational, active and creative master classes
The House of Traditions in Daugavpils offers various kinds of master classes.
For more information and to apply call: +371 29118992.

Enjoy delicious and exciting entertainment at the “Orange Bowling”
The entertainment and leisure complex “Orange Bowling” in Daugavpils offers bowling – with 10 lanes and equipment from the world-famous bowling company “Brunswick”. There is an opportunity to play air hockey, billiards, and non-gambling games. The complex has four pool tables certified by the European Billiards Federation.
For more information and to apply call: +371 65427102.

The Clay Art Centre is always inquisitive and creative!
Daugavpils Clay Art Centre invites everyone to creative ceramic workshops. The Daugavpils Clay Art Centre has a Folk Applied Art Studio “Latgale”, and the participants have their own creative workshops where the working process takes place – shaping, turning, glazing and firing.
For more information and to apply call:  +371 65425302.

Horseback riding is a way to enjoy peace and see the world from a different perspective!
The horse stable in Mezciems offers horse riding, a chance to get to know and cuddle a stately animal and go for a nice ride with an instructor.
For more information and to apply call +371 28480332.

An exciting cruise on the Daugava River on the boat “Sikspārnis”
During the trip, passengers have the opportunity to see the Vienibas Bridge, Daugavpils residential districts, Daugavpils Fortress and get to know the biodiversity of the river and its banks. Passengers can enjoy a picnic on the water, take food or a hot drink and admire the beauty of the Daugava River.
For more information and to apply, call +371 29839631, +371 29965098.

Cocktail masterclasses at the “IGGI” Bar to learn new skills
The cocktail masterclass is an opportunity to make cocktails in a fun and friendly atmosphere, accompanied by a professional bartender, and enjoy them in the company of friends. It’s a great addition to a celebration or just a good start to a fun evening.
For more information and to book call +371 25428500.

Come and paint at the Rothko Museum!
Let your imagination run wild, learn painting techniques under the guidance of an artist and create your own painting in one masterclass!
For more information and to apply call +371 22471925, +371 26564817.

Creativity in cocktail making at the “D.O.M.bar” Cocktail Bar
The masterclass will teach you step by step the basics of cocktail making, the history of cocktails and, of course, how to enjoy your drinks at the end.
For more information and to register, call +371 26178575.

Want to learn the secrets of sushi making?
Book a sushi making masterclass at “VĒSMA” Gastrobar, learn about the sushi culture and get the sushi-making skills.
For more information and to register, call +371 22009991, +371 29298093.

The city has a wide range of caterers and a varied food offer – there is something to suit everyone’s taste. Check the website for more information: https://ieej.lv/ZPcKa

After a long and emotional day, stay overnight in one of Daugavpils’ accommodation options. For a more extensive list of accommodation, please visit the website: https://ieej.lv/7z1eI

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As December begins, the countdown to the New Year starts. This year, the city’s decorations and lights will bring a new spirit, while events and festive activity will take place not only in cultural institutions, but all over the city. 

In the run-up to Christmas, Daugavpils city invites both big and small Daugavpils residents and visitors to indulge in the joys of winter. To fill every day of December with an activity and use it as a source of inspiration in your everyday life, take a look at the calendar where we have written down ideas for a fulfilled December!

The festive spirit in Daugavpils

This year, in Latvia’s second largest city, Daugavpils, you can experience a real Christmas miracle! When the festive season comes, it will be lit up with the tale of a Christmas train, which has left behind scattered presents, sweets and even a small Christmas tree as it makes its way from Daugavpils train station to the city’s main festive tree. Riga Street will be filled with these glittering surprises, as will the centre of the Unity Square, where the big Christmas tree will be dressed in colourful Christmas bow. Events, a market and creative workshops will held in Unity Square throughout December.

 For the first time at Daugavpils Fortress, the Santa Claus Residence will open its gates to visitors, where the elves and Santa Claus will have prepared many surprises for visitors big and small. On Advent Sundays, 3rd, 10th and 17th December, the Santa’s Residence will host Christmas readings, creative workshops and activities for adults and children. In addition, on 25th December, Santa invites everyone to a disco under the stars. 

Winter’s offer at tourist and leisure attractions

Don’t miss the opening of the Winter Exhibition Season in Rothko Museum’s on 8th December, which will complement the previously opened projects – the exhibition of the international contemporary ceramics competition “Martinsons Award” and the solo exhibition of Lithuanian ceramicist Agnes Šemberaitė “Fear whispering. A journey within”. Also visit the Centre of Technics and Industrial Design “Engineering Arsenal”, where a new unique car has just been added to the retro technical and industrial design exhibition. In the same fortress, visit the exhibition “Medical exhibition with an exposition of birth control items”, dedicated to the history of medicine. In the Salon Antique “Housevintage” showroom, you can see and buy historic furniture and other interior elements from the late 19th and 20th centuries. The World War I Museum “Pie Komendanta” offers to see the objects and documents reflecting everyday military life in the First World War. The “RetroGaraž-D” exhibition will enrich your horizons with a private collection of retro cars and Soviet-era objects. In addition, the fortress will look back into the past with the exhibition “Nicholas Gate – Door to the Past”, a small historical exhibition with a large number of artefacts. 

In the city centre, visit the Latgale Zoo, home to tropical and various other animals. At the Daugavpils Innovation Centre, located near the zoo, you can learn about different technologies, attend classes and watch experiments that will help you explore the world around you in a fascinating way. In the museum “Jews in Daugavpils and Latgale”, accompanied by local guide and local historian Josifs Rocko, you can learn about Jewish culture, Jewish life and traditions in Latgale and Daugavpils since 1935. Discover the hospitality and culinary traditions of Latgale at the Latgale Culinary Heritage Centre “Šmakovka” in Daugavpils. The Daugavpils Museum of Regional History and Art offers an insight into the history, culture, art and nature of Daugavpils and the region. The museum houses permanent exhibitions of history, nature and an art hall. The Daugavpils Clay Art Centre offers information about the cultural heritage of Latgale – the traditions of ceramics and pottery, and the works of potters.

Active recreation

If you are a fan of active recreation, visit the Stropu Active Recreation and Sports Track, where you can rent the necessary equipment for winter activities and enjoy the winter delights. Meanwhile, the Daugavpils Ice Hall offers ice-skating sessions throughout the year. Enjoy winter walks by visiting Daugavpils squares, parks and promenades, which in the evenings are lit up with festive decorations.

Get in the festive spirit by attending performances and events

Exciting productions, premieres and masterful acting characterise Daugavpils Theatre, where every performance is emotionally charged. If you want to spend your evenings in an entertaining way, head to the Daugavpils Palace of Culture or the concert hall of The Unity House, where a wide variety of musical concerts and performances take place.

Experience the variety of tastes

Daugavpils restaurants and cafés offer a wide variety of food, and of course, in winter you can’t do without a warm cup of tea or coffee to warm you up after a stroll around the city. Restaurants and cafés offer music nights during the holidays and at weekends, so book early to enjoy an evening in great company. 

 Take care of your health and well-being

 As the thermometer dips below zero in winter, you’ll want to enjoy spa treatments and the warmth that restores energy and inner balance. Take a look at the range of offers in the Beauty and Health section of our website and treat yourself!

Calendar of ideas for December

It’s easy! This December 2023 calendar can be downloaded kids calendar, adult calendar printed (or saved in digital format only) and used as a source of inspiration throughout the month.

You can find out more about the December events organised in Daugavpils on the visitdaugavpils.lv website and follow the news on the Daugavpils.Events Facebook page.  

See you in Daugavpils 

Happy holidays in Daugavpils! The above are just a few of the ideas for things to do in Daugavpils. Get more inspiration at www.visitdaugavpils.lv.  We will be happy if you share this year’s winter photos taken in Daugavpils on social media with the hashtag #visitdaugavpils and #winterindaugavpils, so we can enjoy the magic of winter together! If you have any further questions about recreational opportunities in Daugavpils and the region, please do not hesitate to contact us: 

Information was written by:

Daugavpils State Municipality 

Department of Public Relations and Tourism 

Tourism Department

E-mail: turisms@daugavpils.lv

Tel. 26444810

www.visitdaugavpils.lv

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Today, on 15 September, the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre starts the International Mark Rothko Painting Symposium 2023.

Each year, the Mark Rothko Symposium attracts the artist’s followers and admirers – painters who continue to embody his ideas in their own artistic practice, filtering them through their individual stylistic prism. The artists spend two weeks away from their regular setting, mingling and interacting, finding inspiration and creating new artworks for the symposium exhibition and the Rothko Centre collection.

The symposium always brings together a mixed group of participants from multiple countries. This year, the jury panel selected nine artists: Sue Beyer (Australia), Kevork George Kassabian (Armenia), Ruth Philo (UK), Zbigniew Olszyna (Poland), Ann Tarantino (US/Italy), Ritums Ivanovs (Latvia), Krista Autio (Belgium), Agata Borowa (Poland) and Inguna Liepa (Latvia).

The 20203 symposium is a tribute to Mark Rothko on his 120th birthday. It will be accompanied by other satellite events tied to the artist’s name and creative philosophy.

For two days, at 3 p.m. on 21 and 22 September, the Rothko Centre will host public artist presentations. The symposium will conclude at 4 p.m. on 29 September with the opening of an exhibition displaying the participants’ latest output.

Admission to artist presentations and the symposium exhibition opening is free of charge.

Supporters: Caparol, Devona. The symposium is produced with REACT-EU funding and support from the Daugavpils City Council.

Publicity photo:

• International painting symposium

Contacts:

Aivars Baranovskis

aivars.baranovskis@daugavpils.lv

+371 654 30279

Follow us online:

WWW.ROTKOCENTRS.LV

FACEBOOK / Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre

DRAUGIEM / Daugavpils Marka Rotko mākslas centrs

TWITTER @rotkocentre

INSTAGRAM / markrothkoartcentre

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At 4 p.m. on Friday, 8 September, the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre will launch its autumn exhibition season with the awards ceremony for the Martinsons Award 2023 International Juried Exhibition.

This year, the tone of the autumn season at the Rothko Centre, the Daugavpils Fortress, the city of Daugavpils and elsewhere in the country is set by the 4th Latvia Ceramics Biennale, bringing together world-class artists and tracing the latest tendencies in contemporary ceramics worldwide.

The star event of the autumn exhibition season and the 4th Latvia Ceramics Biennale is the Martinsons Award 2023 International Juried Exhibition. This year, the award received a record 685 applications from artists representing 71 countries, including 68 submissions from Latvia – the largest number to date and a solid testament to the platform’s global outreach and eminence. The prize fund of 20,000 EUR will be split among Gold, Silver and Bronze Prize winners in National and International categories. All the artworks on display will be featured in the exhibition catalogue, and all participant artists will be welcome to all the events in the biennale programme.

The autumn season at the Rothko Centre also includes “Fear Whispering” – the new solo exhibition by the distinguished Lithuanian ceramicist Agnė Šemberaitė, Gold Prize winner of the Martinsons Award 2021 at the 3rd Latvia Ceramics Biennale. Her work represents an ongoing exploration into human nature through a bold re-imagining of fairy-tale and sci-fi themes and characters, ritual practices, mythical beliefs and archaeological totems. Another highlight in the autumn season’s offer is “Elements” – a memorial solo show of Kaspars Geiduks, Bronze Prize winner of the Martinsons Award 2018. The artist’s work covers acute social issues and questions about the body, its structural setup and self-awareness, along with instinctively shaped objects through which he contemplates the diversity of natural forms, creating his individual interpretation of the microcosm, space and its structure.

Besides ceramics, the autumn season at the Rothko Centre offers an exciting solo project in Latvian contemporary painting – “The Grounded Moment” by Uldis Čamans. In his approach to the medium, the artist draws from messy, visceral sensations and juxtaposes dynamic episodes that capture his imagination. Although it is no easy task to isolate the most distinctive features of his art, one thing stands out above all else – the finely balanced pastel lustre of the morning that softly gleams in nearly all his work.

The grand launch of the Rothko Centre’s autumn season on 8 September is only one episode in a long day of events within the 4th Latvia Ceramics Biennale. At 2 p.m. near the open-air 4METRES Gallery, 8 Hospitāļa Street, Elīna Titāne and Una Gura will open their duo exhibition “3+4”. At 3 p.m., an open-storage chamber for contemporary ceramics will be unveiled at the Daugavpils Fortress 7th Bastion Casemate. Martinsons House will host “Visualising Gravity”, a public performance by the internationally renowned Latvian artist Dainis Pundurs, two-times winner of the Martinsons Award, and open a memorial catalogue on Pēteris Martinsons.

Admission to all the events is free of charge.

The autumn exhibition season will be on show through 19 November 2023.

The autumn season at the Rothko Centre still includes the Ceramic Laboratory International Symposium Exhibition along with “Doors of Perception” by the British painter John Hoyland and Mark Rothko’s originals. On top of that, from the end of September, visitors will be able to see the Mark Rothko 2023 International Painting Symposium output.

 The exhibitions are produced with REACT-EU funding towards Europe’s post-pandemic recovery. The autumn exhibition season is supported by the Daugavpils City Council, Caparol.

The Latvia Ceramics Biennale and the Martinsons Award 2023 are supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation, Development Programme for Latvia’s Historical Lands and the Latgale Region Development Agency, Keramserviss Ltd., Lighton International Artist Exchange Program and Daugavpils City Council. Some biennale activities are supported by the European Union through Project No. LVIII-060, Heritage.lv.

Additional information and exhibition details:

https://www.rothkocenter.com/en/exhibitions/upcoming-exhibitions/

Publicity photo:

• Agnė Šemberaitė (LT) “Nightmare”, stoneware, porcelain, engobes, glazes, pigments, 40x37x16 cm, 2023;
• Exhibition “Martinsons Award 2021” at the Rothko Centre.

Contacts:

Inita Paegle

+371 654 30273

inita.paegle@daugavpils.lv

Follow us online:

WWW.ROTKOCENTRS.LV

FACEBOOK / Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre

DRAUGIEM / Daugavpils Marka Rotko mākslas centrs

TWITTER @rotkocentre

INSTAGRAM / markrothkoartcentre

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Do you want to know all the secrets of Engineering Arsenal? Explore what is hidden from the eyes of other visitors? To inspect closed eastern building?

Center of Technics and Industrial Design invites you to participate in the pilot guided tours “Secrets of the Engineering Arsenal” on 15 July (13:00, Latvian language) and 16 July (13:00, Russian language). On both dates groups of max 25 people are formed. Together with the guide, you will see:

– casemates, which are still waiting for their restoration;
– preserved old elements of the building;
– 10-meter-long artifact from the 19th century;
– exhibition of industrial posters.

! After guided tour (approx. 40 min) group members can freely visit all four exhibition areas in the Center of Technics and Industrial Design!

Price – 10 EUR.

Application for a tour by phone (+371) 28033133 or by e-mail inzenieruarsenals@daugavpils.lv until 14 July (including).

* Taking into account the specifics of excursion, we do not recommend participation for people with movement disorders and children under 7 years old.

The post Are you ready to figure out all the secrets of “Engineering Arsenal”? appeared first on VISITDAUGAVPILS.

Latgale is proud not only of its craft traditions, but also of its culinary heritage. In the very heart of Daugavpils, in the Vienibas Nams, one can get acquainted with the wide and comprehensive history of the traditions of Smakovka. Come to the Smakovka museum! Use the Go4Bonus spring offer to visit it for free (normal price for an adult – 5 euros)!

What to do? Follow the instruction:

• Download the Go4Bonus mobile app, register, visit tourist attractions and scan QR codes.
• Enjoy Daugavpils’ diverse tourism offer and receive bonuses!

To get your bonus, you must visit 4 tourist attractions in Daugavpils:

Daugavpils Innovation Center (Vienības iela 30)

Daugavpils Fortress Culture and Information Center (Nikolaja iela 5)

Nicholas Gates a door to the past, the historical exposition in Daugavpils Fortress (Nikolaja iela 3a)

Daugavpils Art and Regional and Art Museum (Rīgas iela 8)

After visiting all the indicated tourist attractions, come to the Smakovka Museum! (Rīgas iela 22a) and receive a free entrance ticket for visiting the centre!

The offer is valid from 12.06.2023. until 31.08.2023.

Information: go4bonus.daugavpils.lv

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From 22 to 28 April, the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre will celebrate its tenth anniversary with concerts, exhibitions and a new display of original paintings by the world-renowned artist Mark Rothko.

In April, it will be ten years since an ambitious cultural project was completed in the former artillery arsenal of Daugavpils Fortress – the historical structure built for army needs in 1833 was repurposed into a home for the newly established Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre – a multifunctional hub for art, culture and education and a strategic landmark on Latvia’s regional cultural map.

The Rothko Centre was officially opened on 24 April 2013, but it took a massive group effort from multiple stakeholders to make it happen and materialise the idea first voiced in the distant 2002 about a unique tribute to the world-renowned artist Mark Rothko, perhaps the greatest native of Daugavpils. This milestone event opened new opportunities for the Latvian viewer to see Mark Rothko’s original paintings worth millions of dollars, which remains possible due to strong cooperation ties with the artist’s family. The display is updated every few years, so the past decade has already given the viewers a total of seventeen Rothko originals.

Besides Rothko, the centre offers up to 30 exceptional exhibition projects per annum in solo and group show formats, tracing current trends and developments in the work of regionally, domestically and internationally based artists. The centre hosts international symposiums and residencies, maintaining a growing network of friendships, partnerships and connections with creators, institutions and venues in Europe and beyond. All these efforts contribute to a strong international profile for Daugavpils and Latvia, giving the city and the country broad visibility and a solid competitive edge on the global cultural scene.

In the first decade since its establishment, the Rothko Centre has acquired an impressive art collection of great material and immaterial value on national and international scales. The acquisitions are due to the centre’s dynamic cultural programme, targeted donations from individual artists and generous support from patrons of the arts. Choice artworks from the collection are featured in permanent displays on the Rothko Centre’s premises and frequently shown in other cultural venues in Daugavpils, Latvia and beyond.

The anniversary programme will start on 22 April with the piano concert “Allusions” by AnNo – a creative duo of Normuds and Antra Vīksne, laureates of the Latvian National Grand Prix for Music. The day will continue with a focus on ceramics. Visitors can look forward to the opening of several exhibitions and open-air objects of contemporary ceramics and the unveiling of a new open-access storage facility for the Rothko Centre’s contemporary ceramics collection in the freshly renovated 7th Bastion casemates of Daugavpils Fortress. All these events will mark the first anniversary of the latest structural addition to the Rothko Centre – the Martinsons House for contemporary ceramics, which opened its doors to the public in April 2022.

On 23 April, the chamber hall of the Rothko Centre will keep reverberating with piano music. Andrejs Osokins, one of Latvia’s most popular piano virtuosos with broad international fame, will give a recital of the 19th-century star composer Frédéric Chopin. Meanwhile, in Rīga, Dailes Theatre will receive a customised exhibition project with an intriguing title – “Rothko, made in Latvia”.

On 26 April, the anniversary celebration will spill outside the Rothko Centre’s walls, bringing exhibitions from its collection into other cultural venues of Daugavpils.

On 27 April, the Rothko Centre’s chamber hall will receive the solo recital of the opera singer Ilona Bagele.

The anniversary week will culminate on 28 April with its central event – the formal opening of a new display with Mark Rothko’s originals with guests of honour from the artist’s family.

The day will conclude in the Rothko Centre courtyard on the grand open-air stage with a Latvian premiere of SPLEEN MACHINE LIVE – a conceptual audio-visual show by the Italian multimedia artist Alex Braga. Braga will also mint in real time special limited edition NFTs of the show. The first will be donated to the Rothko Centre, while the other ones from the series will be available for sale right after the show for collectors.

On the anniversary day, 28 April, the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre will be open to visitors free of charge from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. The other events in the anniversary programme will also be available free of charge.

ANNIVERSARY PROGRAMME:

22 April MARTINSONS HOUSE TURNS ONE

3 p.m. Chamber Hall of the Rothko Centre, Daugavpils, 3 Mihaila Street (entry by invitation)

“Allusions” by AnNo (creative duo of Antra and Normunds Vīksne): a piano recital for four hands

4 p.m. near the Martinsons House, Daugavpils, 3 Mihaila Street

– “Rita Einberga /1921–1979/”: exhibition opening

– “Meteorite” by Solveiga Vasiļjeva: art object opening

– Elīna Titāne: ceramic sculpture opening

– Open-access storage for the Rothko Centre’s contemporary ceramics collection: unveiling of the facility and the ceramics display

– “Safe Insecurity” by the Panevėžys International Ceramics Symposium: exhibition opening

6 p.m. near the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics, Daugavpils, 8 Hospitāļa Street

“Études” by Sanita Ābelīte: exhibition opening

23 April

2 p.m. Dailes Theatre, Rīga, 75 Brīvības Street

“ROTKHO, made in Latvia”: exhibition opening

4 p.m. Chamber Hall of the Rothko Centre, Daugavpils, 3 Mihaila Street (entry by invitation)

“OSOKINS – FOR CHOPIN”: a concert by Andrejs Osokins

26 April

2 p.m. Saules School (New Campus), Daugavpils, 8 Saules Street

“PERSON. GENIUS. Daugavpils”: exhibition opening

4 p.m. Daugavpils Local History and Art Museum, Daugavpils, 8 Rīgas Street

“Rothko spring”: exhibition opening (featuring works from the Mark Rothko International Painting Plein Air, 2005–2012, the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre Collection)

27 April VIP PREVIEW

4 p.m. Conference Hall of the Rothko Centre, Daugavpils, 3 Mihaila Street

Press conference

5 p.m. Sector A of the Rothko Centre, Daugavpils, 3 Mihaila Street

Press tour

6 p.m. Chamber Hall of the Rothko Centre, Daugavpils, 3 Mihaila Street (entry by invitation)

Solo recital by Ilona Bagele

28 April ROTHKO’S ORIGINALS

11 a.m. Video room of the Rothko Centre, Daugavpils, 3 Mihaila Street

– How to assess the Rothko Chapel in the light of the 21st century – a public talk by Annie Cohen Solal (France)

– Rooted and routed: The art of John Hoyland – a conversation between Philip Dodd and Sam Cornish (UK)

2 p.m. Conference Hall of the Rothko Centre, Daugavpils, 3 Mihaila Street

The Rothko Centre on its tenth-anniversary threshold: Opportunities and challenges – a round-table discussion moderated by Toms Treibergs

5 p.m. Conference Hall of the Rothko Centre, Daugavpils, 3 Mihaila Street

– Opening the new display of Mark Rothko’s originals

– Opening the exhibition “Doors of Perception: The Paintings of John Hoyland” (UK)

7 p.m. Rothko Centre courtyard, Daugavpils, 3 Mihaila Street

SPLEEN MACHINE LIVE – an experimental audio-vidual programme by the multimedia artist Alex Braga (Italy)

8 p.m. Rothko Centre courtyard, Daugavpils, 3 Mihaila Street

Music performance by the artist Gatha (France)

Cooperation partners and supporters: Italian Embassy to Latvia, US Embassy to Latvia, Polish Embassy to Latvia, the French Institute, Daugavpils City Council, Dailes Theatre, Latvian National Museum of Art, Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, Daugavpils Local History and Art Museum, Saules Skola, Axon Cable, Caparol, NEMO, Mea Via foundation, Ulma, Valmiermuiža Brewery. Media support by TVNET.

Contacts:
Inita Paegle
maris.cacka@daugavpils.lv
+371 29114596

Follow us online:
WWW.ROTHKOCENTER.COM
FACEBOOK / Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre
DRAUGIEM / Daugavpils Marka Rotko mākslas centrs
TWITTER @rotkocentre
INSTAGRAM / markrothkoartcentre

The post The Rothko Centre Turns 10 appeared first on VISITDAUGAVPILS.

At 4 p.m. on Friday, 3 March, the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre will open its spring exhibition season, featuring works by the world-renowned native of Daugavpils, Jacques Chapiro, alongside five other impressive projects.

The air is alive with sprouting green, and the sun feels perceptibly warmer – spring appears to be on the way, although winter refuses to give up its ground and still rules supreme in the Latvian landscape. Eager to speed up the change, the Rothko Centre offers its visitors the spring exhibition season.

Painter Jacques Chapiro, né Yakov Chapiro, was born in Dünaburg, Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire (present-day Daugavpils, Latvia). He moved to France in 1925, settling in “La Ruche”, the famed Parisian artist colony, home to geniuses like Modigliani, Picasso, Chagall and Leger throughout the 1920s and 30s. Together, they developed the so-called Parisian school, while Chapiro evolved a clearly individual approach that helped him create a distinct artistic world. Rich in unusual shapes and bright colours, it keeps drawing the attention of art lovers, collectors and galleries to this day. The Rothko Centre’s new exhibition, “Coming Home: Jacques Chapiro”, is produced in cooperation with art collector Shmuel Tatz (NYC, USA) as a testament to Chapiro’s immense historical role on the global art scene and a nod to his local roots.

The Rothko centre’s curatorial interest in Jacques Chapiro dates back to the acquisition of two his original paintings a few years ago, one of which was immediately displayed in the exhibition “Found in the Collection”, which cast the spotlight on the most prized artworks in the Rothko Centre’s possession. The spring exhibition season brings a new select display in this line – “Rational Creature”, made to highlight other pearls in the institution’s growing collection.

New artistic gems are regularly seen in the annual Juried Exhibition of Artists from the Latgale Region. This year, it runs with the title “Hit the Ten”, marking the tenth iteration of this ongoing project and kicking off the Rothko Centre’s tenth-anniversary programme. Artistically, “hitting the ten” hinges on the artist’s ability to reach such a degree of freedom in creative expression that the artwork becomes a new point of reference, a spark to trigger discussion, disagreement, imagination, satisfaction, fury or any other emotional reaction. This year, the jury selected 48 artists who proved they are free from the bonds of external or self-inflicted censorship and can simply be who they are – prophets of their time “hitting home” with all their intellectual impulses.

“Interferences” by Polish artist Piotr Skowron is composed of graphic works the artist calls an abstract form of representation and invites the viewer to reflect on how one event can impact on another; how even minor disruptions can interfere with an entire image or situation.

The artist isn’t confined to traditional print forms and often explores space with his graphic objects. These spatial experiments largely stem from his earlier education in engineering.

Australian artist and photographer Ralph Kerle joins the spring exhibition season with his solo show “The Intermediate Sublime”, where he argues that abstraction is not an unconscious act of visualisation by an artist, as some might suggest. Rather, it forms as the result of an artist’s subconscious observation, with the image being the creator’s manifestation of what their brain has perceived. Kerle’s medium is photography, and his primary subject is the waterways of Sydney Harbour. His focus is on capturing images created by and in nature and conceptualising those into fine art abstract photographic artworks. Studying these over time, the visual language shifts and changes from the purely abstract to one where elements of the tangible world are brought squarely to mind.

An interest in abstraction and architecture fuels the work of the French photographer Ouriel Morgensztern. He is deeply fascinated by the use of light in the art of two creative geniuses, Mark Rothko and Pierre Soulages, and the profound properties of black as a reflective colour. His exhibition at the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre, “On Rothko and Soulages: The Colour of Silence”, is the result of the encounter between and with the two artistic greats. From New York to the Chapel in Houston (Rothko), to Rodez and the Abbey in Conques (Soulages), and through photos of more personal places in Los Angeles, Tel-Aviv, the French countryside – where Morgensztern is from – and Daugavpils, it emerges a force nourished by the power of the image in its raw state, where the work of Ouriel Morgensztern becomes the link between these two great contemporary artists.

The spring exhibition season will be available through 21 May 2023.

On opening day, starting at 4 p.m., the new season’s exhibitions will be available free of charge.

The exhibitions are produced with REACT-EU funding towards Europe’s post-pandemic recovery. The spring exhibition season is supported by the Daugavpils City Council, Caparol and Devona.

Additional information and exhibition details:

https://www.rothkocenter.com/en/exhibitions/upcoming-exhibitions/

Publicity photo:

Jacques Chapiro “Wedding” (fragment), gouache on paper, 1920s-1930s.

Contacts:

Inita Paegle

+371 654 30273

inita.paegle@daugavpils.lv

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At 4 p.m. on Thursday, 10 November, Martinsons House in Daugavpils will open an anniversary exhibition “Breakout Light” by the internationally renowned Latvian ceramicist Ilona Romule and hold a public meeting with the artist.

During a prolific artistic career spanning three decades, Romule’s creative record has swelled to 28 solo shows, over 50 international juried competitions, over 30 group exhibitions and 10 awards, including Grand Prix at the 6th International Small Teapot Competition in California, USA (2014) and Gold Prize at the 1st World Ceramic Teapot Art Competition in China (2019).

Ilona Romule was born in Rīga, Latvia, in a family of artists and has worked in the field of ceramics since graduation from the Art Academy of Latvia in 1985. She works as a freelance artist at her studio in Rīga, in the International Ceramics Studio in Kecskemet, Hungary, and in China, mostly with high-temperature porcelain.

Her artworks are represented in numerous public and private collections in Latvia and internationally. To date, Romule has given over 60 lectures and presentations and led numerous plaster mould-making, lithophane and porcelain-painting workshops at universities and art centres worldwide.

Romule has been a member of the International Academy of Ceramics in Geneva, Switzerland, since 2001 and its board member from 2016 until 2022.

Ilona Romule’s exhibition “Breakout Light” will remain on show at the Martinsons House through 20 April 2023.

Publicity photo:

• Artist Ilona Romule;
• Ilona Romule’s lithophanes;

Contacts:

Valentīns Petjko

+371 654 30279

valentins.petjko@daugavpils.lv

Follow us online:

WWW.ROTKOCENTRS.LV

FACEBOOK / Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre

DRAUGIEM / Daugavpils Marka Rotko mākslas centrs

TWITTER @rotkocentre

INSTAGRAM / markrothkoartcentre

The post Ilona Romule an anniversary exhibition opening at the Martinsons House appeared first on VISITDAUGAVPILS.

At 4 p.m. on Friday, 28 October, the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre will launch its new exhibition season with five bold, bright and expressive projects that promise to quench the thirst of every visitor for light and colour in the gloomy months of autumn and approaching winter.

For all their apparent differences, the five new exhibition projects outline some shared contemporary tendencies in the Eastern European art space. The highly original project by Ukrainian artist Kolya Novikov is a sweeping retrospective that uncovers the lesser-known pages in the life book of this talented rebel artist, whose work demonstrates a strong folkloric presence and profound awareness of ancient cultures and myths.

Mysticism and numerous references to cultural history in contemporary form through a minimalist approach to material illuminate – quite literally – the solo exhibition of Jarosław Perszko (Poland). “Titans Dancing” is his latest experiment with the ephemeral subject of neon lights. The matter of his art, dynamically circulating in the tube-like lamps, resembles pulsating blood and is associated with life and creative drive. The project is ably curated by the Polish art critic and curator Eulalia Domanowska.

Her other project in this season’s exhibition offer is a joint effort by eleven artists on “New Spirituality” and the meaning of sacred experiences in creative practice, understood as something personal and intimate and referring to the power residing within. This perspective on spirituality emphasises the role of sensations and psycho-spiritual exercises. It treats the human body as filled with inner, spiritual meaning and a manifestation of the creative power of the spirit.

In “Afterlife: Dying to Get There”, Estonian artist Sander Raudsepp is looking for “answers” to humanity’s eternal questions about the otherworld, summing up his thoughts on the inevitable certainty of death.

Meanwhile, “Toponyms” by Aleksejs Naumovs (Latvia) emphasise colour and brilliance as the two constant hallmarks of the artist’s style, invariably present in every piece he creates, whatever the geography of each particular site he has visited and captured in his preferred alla prima technique.

Besides the new season’s projects, visitors can still enjoy the Mark Rothko 2022 Painting Symposium group show featuring ten international artists.

The new exhibition season at the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre will remain on show through 19 February 2023.

The exhibitions are supported by the Daugavpils City Council and produced with REACT-EU funding towards Europe’s post-pandemic recovery.

Publicity photo:

• Aleksejs Naumovs “Canee” (fragment) acrylic on canvas / 70 x 100 cm, 2021;
• Sander Raudsepp “It’s a Dog Eat Dog World”, 2020;
• Jarosław Perszko “Titans Dancing”.

Contacts:

Inita Paegle

+371 654 30279

inita.paegle@daugavpils.lv

 Follow us online:

WWW.ROTKOCENTRS.LV

FACEBOOK / Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre

DRAUGIEM / Daugavpils Marka Rotko mākslas centrs

TWITTER @rotkocentre

INSTAGRAM / markrothkoartcentre

The post Five new exhibition projects at the Rothko Centre appeared first on VISITDAUGAVPILS.

At 4 p.m. on 8 July, the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre will launch its summer season with new exhibitions in painting, ceramics and photography. Each medium is represented with two shows, resulting in a balanced artistic experience for all types of visitors, from seasoned art critics to casual explorers touring the city.

“Tender is the Night: The Art of Kang Haitao” is a large retrospective and the artist’s first display on Latvian soil, introducing the local public to one of the most important artists of the 70s Generation in China. The artist’s work radiates tension – a yearning for a world beyond the everyday one, but, paradoxically, the lexicon used to explore this spiritual world is largely in his earlier paintings, the world of everyday provincial life: old factories, old schools, walls, isolated trees. More recently, the lexicon of the paintings has shifted, and there is now a complex interplay between inner and outer, between light and shadow, substance and reflection, and the colour palette is higher. From the Rothko Centre, the exhibition will travel to Cromwell Place, London.

“Chambers of Tales. Lithuanian Ceramic Art of the 21st Century” is the Rothko Centre’s most comprehensive exhibition of Lithuanian ceramics to date, featuring 65 artists in a symbolic digest of the trends and developments in the country’s ceramic art across the past two decades. The collection reveals unexpected, sometimes paradoxical juxtapositions between different ceramic works, ranging from the idea of a decorative vessel to sculptural objects incorporating conceptual and action-based art forms. The exhibition is structured to offer a personal stroll through eight chambers, with the interconnected narrative of the works on display rooted in Lithuanian folk tales. On the one hand, the tales emphasise the archaic beginnings of Lithuanian ceramic art, highlighting the “natural” properties of clay and its versatility. On the other hand, the genre of folk tales is usually perceived as reflecting the primordial Lithuanian mythical worldview. In a sense, it is still going strong today, with historical facts, fantastical elements in personal interpretative accounts of actual events, and universal human experiences meshed in a single complex reality.

The major solo exhibition by the Australian-born Paris-based artist Anthony White, “Mobilising Material”, is another first appearance on Latvian soil. It contains previously featured artworks that formed the inaugural exhibition “The Curious Eye Never Runs Dry” of the United Kingdom-based gallery “Informality” in 2019. The 30 works across 380 square metres of the Rothko Centre exhibition space see the artist reflect upon the effects of Western capitalist civilisation on our modern environment by revisiting themes of involuntary detention, injustice and migration. White’s artistic work revolves around the notion of reclaiming the act of dissent through the production of cultural objects.

Photographer Eduards Kapša is a true master of motion photography, blessed with a keen and perceptive eye and a generous heart that gladly shares the frozen moments with the viewers. To quote the artist: “I photograph creators, and I work on an equal footing with my models, aiming for freedom of expression and giving them space to really build a character and step into its shoes. When my model works in front of a camera, does all the jumps and exercises and forgets the photographer is even there… Now that is my moment because that’s when the person is true and unaffected. Motion photography is also an intricate technical process. The model can’t simply fake it or strike a pose just for the camera.” The artist’s work is seen in his solo show “Movement. Ballet”.

The “Moments” photography series by Norwegian artist Anja Carr was created over an extended period, from 2013 to 2017, and each image documents a single moment from one of Carr’s different performances where the artist has wittily challenged the toy industry by transforming its colourful characters. She is aware of the impossibility of documenting a performance with a single image but reminds us that this is how processes of identity construction work in social networks – through fragmented image “feeds”. The toy industry stereotypes involving a strict division of roles between children and adults, girls and boys, are twisted in these performances, featuring original costumes and scenography made by the artist.

The solo show of Rūdis Pētersons, aka Del Ruden, “You Are Welcome to My Garden of Love”, has a title carefully chosen to bring together all the exhibits, in this case – paintings and ceramics. When the author was getting ready with the concept and the works, his thoughts revolved around nature and its almighty power on the one hand and porcelain on the other – this delicate, sophisticated and often highly demanding material. The first works were made three years ago, before the concept was fully developed. It clicked as the artist was working and listening to some background music – the moment he heard the lyrics “You’re welcome, you’re welcome. To my garden, my garden of love”, he felt they were a perfect fit for his vases. As the creative process was nearing the end, the war broke out in Ukraine. It had a strong impact on the artist’s creativity and gave a new poignancy to the concept – the flowers growing from porcelain vases as a silent cry for a seemingly utopian Garden of Eden where everyone is welcome to sow their seeds of love.

The new season’s exhibitions are on show through 16 October 2022.

About the organiser:

https://www.rothkocenter.com/

https://www.facebook.com/DaugavpilsMarkRothkoArtCentre

https://www.instagram.com/markrothkoartcentre/

Exhibition details:

https://www.rothkocenter.com/en/exhibitions

Supporters:

Daugavpils City Council, State Culture Capital Foundation, Caparol.

Opening hours:

Monday: closed

Tuesday: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Wednesday through Sunday: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Publicity photos:

Anja Carr, From the “Moments” series (Act 14), 2016, photographic capture;

1. Rūdis Pētersons, “The Tree of Life”, 2021, paper porcelain, pigment, glaze, gold, h – 49 cm.

Contacts:

Aivars Baranovskis

aivars.baranovskis@daugavpils.lv

+371 65430273

Follow us online:

WWW.ROTKOCENTRS.LV

FACEBOOK / Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre

TWITTER @rotkocentre

INSTAGRAM / markrothkoartcentre

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On 22 April, a new exhibition space – the MARTINSONS HOUSE – will open on 1 Nikolaja Street to commemorate ceramicist Pēteris Martinsons (1931–2013) and his creative legacy.

Pēteris Martinsons was born in Daugavpils and made history as the best-known Latvian ceramicist worldwide. Consistent and outstanding creative performance made him a true credit to Latvian art and culture and a major contributing force to Latvian contemporary ceramics, which he brought to a whole new level of quality and acclaim. As a leading member of the famous Ķīpsala Ceramics group and a longstanding participant and creative director of artist symposiums in Dzintari, he was the beating heart behind two major phenomena in Latvian culture that transformed national ceramics from an applied craft into a legitimate art form and inspired generations of ceramicists in Latvia and beyond.

At the close of his most ambitious retrospective exhibition in 2013, Pēteris Martinsons donated a substantial part of his life’s work to the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre. The collection includes some of his first moulded and wheel-thrown objects, reliefs depicting literary characters, monumental figures, series of functional and stylised vessels, brittle porcelain pieces, representations of living beings such as crows, lions and dogs and tectonic structures such as towers and cages in different materials, other assorted figures and multiple sketches. The artist’s ceramic work is impressively diverse in terms of ideas and forms of creative expression, materials, techniques and places of origin. Meanwhile, his ink drawings are striking examples of artistic meditation and essential practice drills for hand and mind.

The Martinsons House is being opened with a permanent exhibition of the artist’s work called The City of Dreams. Having trained as an architect, Martinsons spent his entire creative life building his city of dreams, populated by fantastic creatures and filled with distinct architectural forms. We hope his city of dreams and its citizens can finally find a true and permanent abode that really feels like home – something the artist kept missing throughout his life.

The first display to fill the temporary exhibition zone of the Martinsons House will be Ķīpsala Ceramics from the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre collection. To quote from curator Valentīns Petjko: “Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Ķīpsala Ceramics made the name of Latvia known all over Europe – its artists earned honours and awards in international exhibitions and participated in creative symposiums and other events. More than forty ceramists have worked in the Ķīpsala Ceramics Studio since its foundation. In the information vacuum of their Soviet reality, each artist, to a greater or lesser extent, focused their individual efforts on shaping the image of Latvian professional ceramics, which developed into a fully competitive field.”

In addition to the two exhibitions, the Martinsons House will offer an open stock of contemporary ceramics and several reproductions of graphical works by Pēteris

Martinsons, marking the transformation of the former gunpowder magazine at 1 Nikolaja Street, Daugavpils Fortress, into a fully functional repository for professional art. Nine years ago, a neighbouring building – the former artillery arsenal – was reborn into a premium art space that carries the name of Mark Rothko. The latest repurposed structure follows in its footsteps – from now on, it will be known as the Martinsons House, guardian to the memory and legacy of the brilliant ceramicist.

Information: www.rothkocenter.com

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On 22 April, the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre launches the spring exhibition season with six new projects and a brand new exhibition space – the MARTINSONS HOUSE.

Traditionally, the spring season brings together artists from the Latgale Region into a joint exhibition of their latest work. This year is no exception, which is also the title of the show – No Exception. The latest developments worldwide have re-emphasised the global connectedness of all people on Earth. This was seen in the economy, politics and healthcare, and the art world was no exception. Naturally, the trend hasn’t bypassed the Latgale Region, where art life has continued with individual creators producing new artworks. The exhibition features 44 artists from the Latgale Region and their latest work, where they have captured their emotions and impressions from the past few years, recorded the changing reality and reflected on eternal values still keeping the world together through a common language of the arts.

Multiple layers of substance and material stand out in the installations by Valda Podkalne (Latvia) seen in her new exhibition – The Essay Arena. To quote from the artist: “I work with ‘islands of thought’. Each exhibit has its own message, vision, dream or recollection that’s been transformed into an installation reflective of my lived experience. My perception and interpretation of events are tied to the themes of past and present, privacy and publicity, intimacy, childhood and loss.” The show balances the need to be ‘here and now’ with contemplative memories of the past – a necessary condition for reclaiming the capacity for this state of being.

For Harald Hegodzienski (Latvia), creativity is an ongoing and unstoppable process, and his show, Like a Rolling Stone, addresses an active and engaged viewer – one who can work with the artist’s imagery through alteration and amplification, much like a cloud‑gazer who keeps seeing new multiforms in the creator’s original piece, above and beyond what the author may have intended. So visitors to the show should prepare for a fascinating experience not unlike an experimental music recital and come with an open heart to embrace the unknown and perceive the irrational.

The historical dimension is highlighted by the Rīga Jewish Community and the Jews in Latvia Museum in their show called Jewish Artists in the Interbellum Latvia: In Pursuit. It is both an attempt to reflect on pre-war shows by Jewish artists and to bring the work of some lesser-known creators to a broader audience. Some of them lacked even basic biographical data, so the exhibition was a joint and equal effort of curators and art historians. The title references not only the artists’ attempts to find their own identity but also the research process initiated by the curators.

The nature-inspired installation Reflections by Anne Türn and Toomas Tuul (Estonia) applies the concept of reflection to human relations. This may explain the appeal of the exhibition – the dreamlike woodland mysteries manifesting as illuminated formations, coming forth from the giant photos on the wall and from the gallery floor, create mystical, magical spaces, with darkness and light touching similar reflections in the hiddenmost places of our soul.

Martynas Gaubas and Arvydas Martinaitis (Lithuania) take the Rothko Centre by storm with their ironic show It Won’t Get Any Better than This! Brilliance, scope and an infinite symbolic vocabulary are the shared signature elements in the toolkit of both Lithuanian artists, even though they are applied to different materials. The bright, dense and grounded colours of Arvydas Martinaitis submerge the eye of the beholder into the plane of existence beyond time and space, where the line between reality and fantasy ceases to exist, where the world as we know it is turned upside down, and the impossible becomes possible. Meanwhile, Martynas Gaubas, stands out as an ironic artist. Whatever the chosen medium, his work is consistently brimming with humour through grotesque, caricature or parody.

The new season’s exhibitions are on show through 26 June 2022.

Photo: Valda Podkalne, Three Clouds, installation detail.

Information: www.rothkocenter.com

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On Friday 18 March, the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre will open the catalogue of its exhibition “Found in the Collection”.

 “Found in the Collection” is the most ambitious exhibition from the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre collection to date. It displays art and cultural values collected in the nine years since the centre was created and confirms its active presence on the contemporary art scene. In a sense, the exhibition is a visual diary featuring stories of symposia and exhibitions, offering evidence of vibrant communication and cooperation towards exciting art projects and recording meaningful dialogues and monologues about current developments in the art world where the human touch takes centre stage – that of the artist, the curator and the collector.

The exhibition catalogue features Latvian and international artists from the Rothko Centre’s vast and excellent collection totalling almost three thousand artworks in different mediums. To reaffirm the unbreakable bond between art and its creator, the publication also outlines the artists’ creative biographies and stylistic trajectories.

“Found in the Collection” is the first publication about the jewels in the Rothko Centre collection. It highlights each artist’s special bond with the institution and the importance of each contribution to its emergence, existence and continued development. The catalogue also leaves the door open for further artistic research because the collection contains plenty more surprises and keeps growing into the largest and most significant assemblage of professional art in the Latgale region.

At 4 p.m. on Friday 18 March, the Rothko Centre is organising an official opening event for this seminal publication and invites featured artists and local and visiting art lovers to join the celebration.

The exhibition and its catalogue are another step for the city of Daugavpils towards the European Capital of Culture 2027.

#Daugavpils2027

#kopīgavaloda

#EKG2027

#ECoC2027

About the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre:

https://www.rothkocenter.com/

https://www.facebook.com/DaugavpilsMarkRothkoArtCentre

https://www.instagram.com/markrothkoartcentre/

Exhibition synopses:

https://www.rothkocenter.com/izstades

Supporters

The Slovak Republic embassy in Latvia

Other exhibitions at the Rothko Centre:

Mark Rothko’s originals

“Found in the Collection” – finest pieces from the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre

Agra Ritiņa (Latvia) “The Crown” (painting), solo show

Milena Pirštelienė (Lithuania) “Water” (ceramics), solo show

Andres Adamson (Estonia) “The Sea of a Thousand Dreams” (photography), solo show

“Mycelia” group project from a Latvian-German artist residency (installation), group show

“X: Free Space // X: EGO” international projects (Lithuania) (painting and other media), group show

Jana Machatová and Peter Machata (Slovakia) “Echo of the Mind” (jewellery art)

“In a Draught” – Ukrainian artists in the Rothko Centre collection

Opening hours:

Monday: closed

Tuesday: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Wednesday through Saturday: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Sunday: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Address:

3 Mihaila Street, Daugavpils

Publicity photo:

Santa Suhanova

Contacts:

Aivars Baranovskis

aivars.baranovskis@daugavpils.lv

+371 65430273

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On 28 January, the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre launches this year’s first exhibition season with five very different projects featuring Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian and German artists.

Diversity in means of expression and varying degrees of directness in address. From charming natural elements in delicate colour fields to unmistakably textual representations. From serene classical painting to impulsive installations. These different descriptions all fit the latest artistic output available at the Rothko Centre’s temporary exhibition rooms from 28 January.

Although such diversity might seem puzzling at first glance, a perceptive viewer should appreciate the latest change in scenography and the opportunity to get an almost theatrical experience, as one space prepares the visitor for entering the next, as tension switches to contemplative nostalgia, whilst expressiveness gives way to profoundly individual self-reflection.

“The X Project” is a continuous art event where creators from different fields are invited to work in pairs on a joint work of art, sharing different creative and technological experiences and ideas and being given free space to interpret the theme. This is a great challenge, but it offers an invaluable experience to creators who often come up with truly unexpected, intriguing works. Through this project, Lithuanian curator Albinas Vološkevičius brings together his country’s leading artists, lately also attracting participants from abroad. In this exhibition season, the Rothko Centre receives two latest instalments of “The X Project” – “X: Free Space” and “X: EGO”.

In “Mycelia”, five German artists teamed up with another five from Latvia to work in tandems and produce their small creative ecosystems. In the Latvian version of the title, “Micēlija”, the biological term is used in an altered, feminine form, “-a” being a typical inflexion for Latvian nouns in the feminine grammatical gender. This was a deliberate choice to highlight the feminine connotation of the project. The artists interpret the biological concept of mycelium through the prism of interpersonal interactions, communications and relationships on the broader social level. Another goal was to reference their own cooperation within the project when they were looking for common grounds and points of intersection that would bring together different views, ideas, geographical backgrounds and concerns into site-specific art made expressly for this exhibition in this particular setting.

In “The Sea of a Thousand Dreams”, Estonian photographer, illustrator and graphic designer, Andres Adamson, depicts water – the mystical primordial environment from which we all, all life on Earth, originated. In his images, the author tried to express the human desire for peace, lightness and tranquillity.

A markedly different take on water is proposed by Lithuanian ceramic artist, Milena Pirštelienė. Her work integrates diverse techniques, which makes it sculptural, graphic, ceramic and illustrative, all at the same time. The title and the principal theme of the exhibition is “Water”. It is also the central object of the artist’s reflections, featuring drowning cities, floods, anxiety and a sense of looming threat.

“The Crown” by Agra Ritiņa balances the power and softness of nature. At the start of her painting career, the artist was capturing natural processes, and she has remained faithful to nature to this day. She still goes there to seek inspiration, observe the play of light and colour, and capture moods, shapes and ideas. These impressions she then transforms into art, focusing on the essentials and producing endless studies of floating or low-hanging clouds, frequently shaped like giant tree crowns.

The new season’s exhibitions are on show through 10 April 2022.

The new season’s exhibition projects are another step for the city of Daugavpils towards the European Capital of Culture 2027.
#Daugavpils2027
#kopīgavaloda
EKG2027
#ECoC2027

About the organiser:
https://www.rothkocenter.com/
https://www.facebook.com/DaugavpilsMarkRothkoArtCentre
https://www.instagram.com/markrothkoartcentre/

Exhibition details:
https://www.rothkocenter.com/en/exhibitions

Supporters:
Daugavpils City Council, State Culture Capital Foundation, Caparol.

Other exhibitions on show:
Mark Rothko’s originals;
“Found in the Collection” – finest pieces from the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre;
“Talk to Me!” – group show by the Ceramic Association of Latvia at the Rothko Centre courtyard.

Opening hours:
Monday: closed
Tuesday: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Wednesday through Saturday: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Sunday: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Publicity photo:
Miglė Kosinskaitė, Peeter Krosmann, Gertrūda’s dream, oil on canvas, 120×180 cm, 2021
Andres Adamson, Quadrivision, giclée print on satin canvas, 100 x 180 cm, 2020;
Milena Pirštelienė, The Anxiety diptych, white clay, porcelain, pigments, glazes, metal, 1020 °C, 1250 °C, h – 117 cm, 2021;
Agra Ritiņa, Autumn palette, oil on cavas, 120 x 100 cm, 2021.

Contacts:
Aivars Baranovskis
aivars.baranovskis@daugavpils.lv
+371 65430273

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On Sunday, 16 January, all temporary exhibitions currently on show at Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre will be available at a discount price.

Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre enters the final preparation stage for its new exhibition season. This means ongoing week is the last chance for the public to see the current temporary exhibitions before they are gradually replaced by new projects. For this reason, the upcoming Sunday, all temporary exhibitions will be available at a discount price – 2.00 EUR for pupils, students and senior citizens and 4.00 EUR for all the other visitors.

Opening hours on discount day (16 January) – 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Please be reminded that, in keeping with government stipulations, admission to the art centre shall be contingent upon the demonstration of a valid Covid-19 certificate of recovery or vaccination.

17 through 27 January, visitor access shall be limited to the permanent exhibition with Mark Rothko’s originals and “Found in the Collection” – the finest pieces from the Rothko Centre collection.

Currently on show:
Michael Kidner (UK) “Love Is a Virus from Outer Space”;
Ilze Lībiete (Latvia) “Road to the Sea”;
Jānis Kupčs (Latvia) “Cruel Romances”;
Daniel Fuchs (Germany) “Creation”;
Elissa Marchal (France) “The Space Between”;
“Mark Rothko 2021” – closing exhibition of the 17th International Painting Symposium.

Publicity photo:
Santa Suhanova

About the organiser:
https://www.rothkocenter.com/
https://www.facebook.com/DaugavpilsMarkRothkoArtCentre
https://www.instagram.com/markrothkoartcentre/

Address:
3 Mihaila Street, Daugavpils

Information:
Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre

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At 3 p.m. on Tuesday 21 December, a new site-specific art project, “what can’t we just create” by Kristaps Ancāns, will be opened on 2 Nikolaja Street, Daugavpils Fortress.

Latvian-British artist Kristaps Ancāns works across multiple media, integrating sculpture, painting, photography, text, and installation. He studied painting and environmental art at the Art Academy of Latvia and holds an MFA from Central Saint Martins, London, having graduated with distinction in 2016. He has received the Cecil Lewis Sculpture Scholarship and the Helen Scott Lidgett Award in addition to having been nominated for the Clifford Chance Sculpture Prize, the Arts Foundation Fellowship, UK, and several other awards.

In “what can’t we just create” (2021–2022) – Ancāns’ first large-scale project in Daugavpils – his practice has grown both formally and conceptually. The project combines monumental banners with site-specific sculpture: texts in black font on a white background (written in Latvian, Russian and English), colour photography, and a lone palm tree sculpture. Located on and around a disused building that once housed former air pilots and war machinery, the piece addresses the city and population of Daugavpils directly – its histories of perpetual war-readiness and traumas from national self-determination, including those who still live among the vestiges of the past, in an area that’s developing quickly. Ancāns’ project in the former military fortress refers to constructions and confluences of language and context mechanisms inherited by and inherent of the site that is actively transforming into a vibrant cultural hub and administrative centre for the region.

“The written word still is one of the main triggers for our imagination in a time when digital image culture suggests the game of comparison and creation of narrative through it. The potential of imagining is always present. I hope that we are not the hostages of the structures we built and unconsciously trapping ourselves in flat worlds where only one dimension is acknowledged,” remarks Ancāns.

“Altogether, the artist’s project visualises the nexus of identity, language and geography – from integration to otherness, verbal to nonverbal, corporeal to immaterial, tone to shade. At this time in history, they offer a glimpse of the shape, complexity and “colour” of the context and affect they surround. Such witty ambiguities are key to the artist’s repertoire; transforming the site into a ludic realm of self-conscious laughter, viewers can only reflect on the realities that are portrayed, contributing to their own sense of questioning, discomfort and awe. Ancāns juxtaposes seemingly dissimilar elements that both surprise and humour our expectations and beliefs in identities and heritage. And we laugh nervously, recognising that we – collectively – face these difficult and complicated questions together,” observes project curator Corina L. Apostol.

The art project “what can’t we just create”, combining monumental banners that include both trilingual text (Latvian, Russian and English) in black letters on white background and colour photography, as well as a site-specific sculpture will be opened at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 21 December, 2 Nikolaja Street, Daugavpils Fortress. The event will be attended by the artist Kristaps Ancāns and the project curator, PhD Corina L. Apostol.

About the organiser:

https://www.rothkocenter.com/en

Publicity photo:

Kristaps Ancāns, what can’t we just create (detail) 2021/2022, site-specific installation

Contacts:

Aivars Baranovskis
aivars.baranovskis@daugavpils.lv

+371 65430273

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Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre hosts the third international painting symposium “Silva Linarte”, conceived to commemorate the distinguished Latgale artist and long-term art educator Silva Veronika Linarte (1939–2018) and her creative legacy. This year, the symposium fortnight brings together artists from four countries.

The painting symposium in memory of Silva Linarte traces its roots to 2019, when Latvian and international artists were first invited to come together in a shared creative space to explore Linarte’s life story and legacy and paint in the unique atmosphere of Latgale and Daugavpils fortress. This year, Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre teams up with Inspairum Association to host the international painting symposium “Silva Linarte” for the third time. Covering the fortnight between 20 August and 3 September, it is held to promote interest in Daugavpils as an artistically stimulating city and keep steering meaningful creative processes in the Latgale Region.

Linarte’s creative legacy resonates across space and time. Her energy keeps inspiring Latvian artists to this day. Blessed with incredible strength of character, she withstood all the hardships of her era and kept her dignity even in the most trying times, with unwavering perseverance and focus on uncompromising artistic excellence. These character traits earned Linarte broad national acclaim and became the underlying theme for the international painting symposium that bears her name. Conceived to commemorate the generation of artists who shaped the Latvian art scene, it creates a whirlwind of emotions and reflections that throw open mental doors and windows, encouraging new creative achievements and providing stimulating artistic experiences.

Over the symposium fortnight, painters from four countries will work in a shared creative space and engage through conversations and experience exchange in artist talks, lectures and workshops. The symposium will culminate with an exhibition to be available at the Rothko Centre from 4 p.m. on 3 September. After its conclusion, the symposium outputs will add to the Rothko Centre’s painting collection.

The 3rd international painting symposium “Silva Linarte” is organised within the Latgale Cultural Programme with support from the State Culture Capital Foundation, JSC Latvia’s State Forests, Association “Latgale Region Development Agency” and Daugavpils City Council.

Symposium participants:
Elga Grīnvalde (Latvia)
Eimutis Markūnas (Lithuania)
Petra Heitkötter (Germany)
Anna Szprynger (Poland)
Zigurds Poļikovs (Latvia)

Publicity photo:
Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre

Author:
Aivars Baranovskis
aivars.baranovskis@daugavpils.lv
+371 65430273

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Daugavpils Fortress Culture and Information Centre presents a new historical exposition. The new exposition is called “Nicholas Gates – a door to the past” and is located in Nicholas Gates in Daugavpils Fortress.

Historically four gates were built in Daugavpils Fortress but only Nicholas Gates differs from the others with their unique external appearance and the presence of side rooms. In the past, these side rooms were used as guardhouses and short-term prison rooms.  But nowadays they have also found applications. A souvenir shop and a Bat Centre have been located at the gates for several years.

The other empty rooms of the gates were turned into a small historical exhibition where a large number of artifacts can be seen. History enthusiasts will be able to find many interesting things there. The exhibition includes fortress plans, Soviet army uniforms, a collection of historic bricks and trim, historic windows and doors of civilian buildings and fortifications, and more.

The exhibition is available from 10 am to 7 pm.  In order to visit the exhibition please visit Daugavpils Fortress Culture and Information Centre (5 Nikolaja street) and purchase a ticket.

The entrance fee: 1 EUR for adults; 0,50 EUR for pupils, students, seniors, and persons with special needs.

Information is written by:
Daugavpils Fortress Cultural and Information Centre
Phone: +371 65424043; +371 28686331
Email: cietoksnis@daugavpils.lv
Web: www.daugavpilscietoksnis.lv
www.facebook.com/Daugavpils.cietoksnis

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For the past week, Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre received a group of experts in ceramics who convened to select the winners of Martinsons Award 2021, an international juried exhibition of ceramics with a prize fund of 20,000 EUR.

Martinsons Award 2021 is the international juried exhibition of the 3rd Latvia Ceramics Biennale, featuring artists from 38 countries. Out of nearly five hundred applications, an international jury picked the top 120 works from Latvia and other countries worldwide. Over its three iterations, the exhibition has become a leading competitive event in the international ceramics domain with a truly global outreach and standing confirmed by the jury of experts and the great artistic quality of the featured works.

The Latvia Ceramics Biennale was instituted in 2016 and has always featured a dynamic series of events. Although it runs a little differently this year, without loud openings or vast public gatherings, the programme has retained its hallmark scale and quality. It stands a testament to the immense potential of Eastern and Northern Europe as regards contemporary ceramics and represents the ceramics domain worldwide as a field with the broadest and most incredible scope of opportunities. Alongside the habitual decorative objects and sculptural pieces, the exhibition also offers impressive spatial installations and performative works.

The experts invited to work in the jury spent two days assessing the artists’ contributions on site, debating their artistic and technical qualities and distributing a prize fund of 20,000 EUR. Whilst the Tokyo games reward the best athletes, Daugavpils celebrates art and its creators:

Gold Prize

AGNĖ ŠEMBERAITĖ (Lithuania) for “Mimicry”

DAINIS PUNDURS (Latvia) for “Plato’s Dream”

Silver Prize

MARTA PALMIERI (Italy) for “Cloud Mountain 2”

ELĪNA TITĀNE (Latvia) for “Drops”

Bronze Prize

BARNABÁS MÁDER (Hungary) for “Coronation Lace”

UNA GURA (Latvia) for “Mutual Harmony”

Commendation and special prize from Keramserviss Ltd.

LĪGA SKARIŅA (Latvia) for “Coastal Construction”

Commendation

YURIY MUSATOV (Ukraine) for “Ancient Alien”

ATIS ŠNĒVELIS (Latvia) for “Dour”

ELEONORA PASTARE (Latvia) for “Untitled”

Jury:

• Claudia Casali (Italy), art historian, director of the International Ceramics Museum in Faenza.
• Ilona Romule (Latvia), artist, board member of the International Academy of Ceramics.
• Steve Mattison (UK), artist, international coordinator at the International Ceramics Studio in Kecskemét, Hungary.
• Arina Ailincai (Romania), artist, curator at the Cluj International Ceramics Biennale.
• Kaspars Geiduks (Latvia), artist, MARTINSONS AWARD 2018 bronze winner.
• Irina Razumovskaya (Russia/UK), artist, teacher at the London Royal College of Art.
• Misun Rheem (South Korea), board member at Korea Craft & Culture Endowment Committee under the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism; museum counsellor for the Seul Crafts Museum under Seul Metropolitan.
• Valentīns Petjko (Latvia), artist, curator, Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics;
• Pille Kaleviste (Estonia), artist, curator.
• Rūta Šipalytė (Lithuania), artist, MARTINSONS AWARD 2018 bronze winner.

Supporters:

Daugavpils City Council, State Culture Capital Foundation, Latgale Culture Programme, Lighton International Artist Exchange Program, Keramserviss Ltd.

Organisers:

Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre and Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics

Publicity photo:

Winning artworks

About the organiser:

https://www.rothkocenter.com/

3 Mihaila Street, Daugavpils

For additional details, please contact:

DAUGAVPILS MARK ROTHKO ART CENTRE

https://www.rothkocenter.com/ 

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