Love and Silk
Iveta Laure
Love has many faces. It connects people, families and generations. It can bring pain, hurt and oppression just as readily as empowerment, freedom and joy. In Iveta Laure’s work, these contradictions take tangible form.
The exhibition presents the artist’s earlier work alongside pieces produced specifically for the museum. Personal stories appear against a broader historical and social context, touching on women’s rights and self-determination, family and inherited roles, the body, sexuality, violence and freedom. Creative impulses emerge from the Latvian poet Aspazija’s defiant “NO” and the suffragists’ struggle for women’s rights, rural life and craft traditions in interbellum Latvia, war and deportation, Latgale’s Catholic cultural code, Eastern motifs and beliefs about women and love, as well as the everyday sexism that persists today. The artist’s grandmother Veronika’s personal history, the legendary origins of Latvia’s national flag and quietly charged scenes from daily life become points of departure for reflection on duty, choice and the right to shape the course of one’s life.
Silk weaves these diverse stories into a coherent visual language. Its sensuality and softness speak of the body and intimacy, while the material’s resilience suggests endurance through time. Painted, embroidered and folded into spatial objects and installations, silk absorbs both deeply intimate experiences and traces of collective history.
Ultimately, “Love and Silk” embraces love in many forms – from eroticism and partnerships to love for life, art and oneself. The exhibition’s thematic weight is balanced by irony and visual appeal, guiding viewers through layers of women’s experiences, where tenderness meets strength, vulnerability becomes resistance, and duty clashes with the courage to choose oneself, even when the world seems to know better.
Farida Zaletilo, Rothko Museum
Artist and art educator Iveta Laure (b. 1962, Rīga) is an active presence in Latvia’s contemporary cultural scene, known for a multimedia practice that pairs social critique with provocative artistic choices.
A graduate of the Environmental Art Department at the Art Academy of Latvia, Laure holds a Master’s in Art and works across installation and environmental art, textiles, painting, collage, photography and video. Active in exhibitions, art projects and residencies since the 1990s, she is represented in the collections of the Rothko Museum, the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, the Rīga Porcelain Museum and other public collections in Latvia and abroad.
Curated by Farida Zaletilo
Supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia and the Daugavpils City Council
11 September – 29 November 2026
Publicity image: Iveta Laure, “Hail, Mary” (detail), linen and silk, mixed media, 1.60 x 1.45 cm, 2024/2025
