Soul in Close-Up
From the Rothko Museum Collection
Our complex humanity has fascinated thinkers from ancient philosophers to modern psychoanalysts. Physical and spiritual, conscious and unconscious, individual and social dimensions continually intersect in who we are. This complexity has also kept the human being at the heart of artistic enquiry.
A pioneer of Colour Field painting, Mark Rothko looked beyond outward appearances. He was drawn to our inner world and to art’s capacity to create a space for a deeply personal, spiritual experience. This same interest in what lies beneath the surface shapes the exhibition’s concept – the close-up as a metaphor for reaching beyond outward form towards the subconscious and the soul.
“Soul in Close-Up” is the latest instalment in a sequence of collection exhibitions the Rothko Museum began in 2021. It approaches the collection as a space of cultural memory where the human being is both the subject of art and its creator. Alongside portraits that present identity as layered and constructed, the exhibition explores traumatic memory, subjective experience and the subconscious through figurative art, abstraction and conceptual works, drawing thematic and philosophical parallels with Rothko’s legacy.
For the first time, a Rothko Museum collection exhibition brings contemporary art into a deliberate dialogue with the region’s cultural heritage. Works from the art collection of the Daugavpils Museum – now a new structural unit of the Rothko Museum – extend the exhibition’s perspective into the history of art in Latgale.
Zane Melāne
curator of the exhibition
Featuring:
Diāna Adamaite, Maija Bērziņa, Sergejs Djomins, Inta Dobrāja, Laima Eglīte, Miķelis Fišers, Ivo Folkmanis, Una Gura, Ieva Iltnere, Ritums Ivanovs, Haralds Jegodzienskis, Rasa Jansone, Līga Jukša, Vineta Kaulača, Romāns Korovins, Linda Kozule, Grigorijs Mihejevs, Jānis Mitrēvics, Ludmila Procenko, Ilona Romule, Skuja Braden, Teodors Rudāns, Māris Subačs, Kaspars Zariņš and Mārtiņš Zitmanis (Latvia), Daina Dagnija and Aleksandrs Karpovs (Latvia/USA), Andres Adamson (Estonia), Ioannis Anastasiou (Greece), Roger Ballen (USA/RSA), Elizabeth Barenis (USA), Srinia Chowdhury (India), Víctor Manuel Hernández Castillo (Mexico), Hazrii Kin (Malaysia), Joy Kloman (USA), Mon Kwan (China), Joanna Mankiewicz (Poland), Yuriy Musatov (Ukraine), Vitalija Petraitytė (Lithuania), Pascal Pignon Jaf (France), Diana Rudokienė (Lithuania), Jan Švankmajer (Czechia), Maria Torp (Denmark) and Rose-Mari Torpo (Finland).
Curator: Zane Melāne
Scenography: Māris Čačka
Graphic design: Irina Bogdanova
Communication: Inga Gedžūne
Technical support: Viktors Pētersons, Ivo Folkmanis
Support: Daugavpils City Council and the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia
02.10.2026–29.10.2028
Publicity image: Linda Kozule, “Breathe In” (2025). Oil on canvas, 165 x 140 cm (detail), Rothko Museum Collection
