Mark Rothko 2025
The 21st International Painting Symposium Exhibition
From 12 to 26 September, the Rothko Museum hosted Mark Rothko 2025, the 21st edition of its international painting symposium. Over the course of two creative weeks, Daugavpils welcomed artists from France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Malaysia, Poland, South Korea, and the United States. They gathered in Rothko’s native city to create new works inspired by his legacy and share experiences shaped by different cultures, languages, and artistic traditions.
The international painting symposium at the Rothko Museum has become a vital part of cultural life in Latvia and the wider Baltic region. Held each September to mark the birthday of Mark Rothko, the 20th-century modernist master born in Daugavpils, the symposium honours his memory and maintains a living dialogue between Rothko’s artistic vision and the contemporary practices of today’s painters.
Now in its third decade, the symposium remains a popular platform for exchange and collaboration among Latvian and international artists, drawing an ever-growing audience. Interest in participation continues to rise, with 234 applications from over 60 countries received this year. Following a careful selection process, the museum’s expert panel invited ten artists whose original styles and approaches best embodied the symposium’s concept.
The 21st International Painting Symposium featured Hazrii Kin (Malaysia), Ludovic Fleury (France), Joy Kloman (USA), David Guez (Israel), Heike Kelter (Germany), Weronika Teplicka (Poland), Kaori Fukuyama (Japan/USA), Yoonjee Geem (South Korea), as well as Anna Silabrama and Paula Zariņa-Zēmane (Latvia).
The culminating exhibition brings together the results of this dynamic creative fortnight. It shows how artists of different generations, backgrounds and traditions respond – through colour, texture, form, and composition – to the creative impulses of Rothko’s legacy and his childhood home. Ultimately, the works will enter the Rothko Museum’s collection, joining the output of the previous instalments and further enriching the museum’s evolving repository of contemporary artistic expression.
Put together for the 21st time, the Mark Rothko Symposium exhibition reaffirms that art remains a universal language, transcending borders, languages, and experiences. Here, Rothko’s name continues to inspire new creative visions, placing Daugavpils firmly on the global cultural map as a city of vibrant artistic energy and open exchange.
The symposium was supported by the Daugavpils City Council, the State Culture Capital Foundation and its Development Programme for Historical Latvian Lands, and Caparol.
Curated by Tatjana Černova and Māris Popovs, the exhibition is on show until 23 November 2025.
