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”. S
ix Latvian artists will come together in a joint project “ROTKHO. Made in Latvia”, based on the famous play by the Dailes Theatrem and 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 thru May 19.
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, says advance material.
In visual terms, the exhibition has developed from a single artefact – a flaming cannonball.
To quote from the artist herself: “My Bastion is about defense 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."
“Let’s Die Together” by Romāns Korovins sees the artist return to Daugavpils with a solo exhibition in which 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.
“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," he explains.
“Rotkho. Made in Latvia” is an intriguing exhibition project inspired by the famous 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.
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 called “When the Cannons Are Silent” covering different visual mediums and curated by Aivars 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/
