Archive

Marco Giannotti. Interwoven

In Marco Giannotti’s recent paintings there unfolds a dialogue at least as venerable as the High Renaissance when the art of Florence opposed Venice’s. Namely, between drawing/line and color (disegno and colore). These contending elements were long germinal in Giannotti’s work – at least since the “Facades” series (“Fachadas”, 1993). However, the artist has continued to lend them strikingly modern forms appropriate to the New World of his Brazilian homeland, as well as our increasingly dark times. By no coincidence, too, the American Abstract Expressionist Mark Rothko famously described his haunting images as “facades”. Giannotti thus aims to synthesize tradition with the example set by one of the past century’s greatest masters of abstraction.

International Painting Symposium “Silva Linarte 2019”

The universe is an endless interaction. Phenomena, objects, signs and humans are deeply interconnected. At times, this link is short-lived, ephemeral, seemingly transient, but ever so often, it becomes something lasting, creative and stimulating. Silva Linarte (1939-2018), artist and art educator, had and continues to have a special connection to Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre. Not only because she was born in Daugavpils district and inherited a familial connection to Latgale region, but also because she has been constantly present in its activities and undertakings ever since the centre opened its doors to the public. In August 2013, one of the all-time largest solo exhibitions of Silva Linarte’s paintings, “Reflections”, was unveiled at the Rothko Centre, followed by further cooperation in multiple art projects. Silva also loved to pay the centre a casual visit, drop by to see the new exhibitions, talk to the staff and give her own take on what she had seen. She used to say that the centre had a particularly creative and artistically rousing environment.

AIR

Marietta Patricia Leis   Air begins at our feet and lifts upwards as it swirls around the planet touching each of us with life.  AIR, an exhibition of paintings and photos, is intended make the beauty of air, whether dark or light, visible to our eyes. As we all breathe Earth’s air communally we are both the recipients and the guardians of the air that we share.

BASICS

Exhibition of Baltic contemporary ceramics On July 5, 2019, as a part of Latvian Centenary programme a number of meaningful events to explore the emergence of professional ceramic art in the Baltic States with a view to outlining the historical stages of its evolution and tracing their impact on the current global image of contemporary ceramic art will take place at Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre. The events are organised in cooperation with Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics.

BASIC ELEMENTS

Kirsi Kivivirta The surrounding urban landscape and its different spaces inspire Kirsi Kivivirta. She uses geometry, perspective and visual illusions when creating her imagery. The references to landscapes in the artworks speak about the relationship between urban humans and nature, with wildlife assigned only to memories. Kivivirta’s works are always based on a clear concept. To emphasise this, Kivivirta tends to leave her work white in colour. Drops and Flow II, however, include a modest palette of tones. Kivivirta is drawn to minimalist ideas that enable the medium to speak for itself. In Kivivirta’s porcelain wall compositions, one can experience movement and rest, dynamic force and contemplation. She plays with displacement and trompe l’oeil effects as well as distorted perspectives and horizons.

CILICIA BREEZE

The geography/culture encompassing the meanings, values, identities and subjectivity signifies the place where the “self” is re-discovered, experienced and re-produced. The artists who are after creating their own myths are nourished by the light, colours, textures/patterns, history and culture of the geography they are surrounded by, no matter how much they are influenced by the surprising aesthetics of artists around the world. Artwork in this exhibition points to the need to build a shared reality through individual voices of the artists. Each piece of art reflects the artist’s sensitivity. As a whole, the exhibited work represents a reality far beyond the culture of the artist as experienced.

Maibritt Ulvedal Bjelke “CHROMATIC MATTERS”

While Maibritt Ulvedal Bjelke’s art is all about painting, she has never been afraid – indeed rather eager in fact - to challenge her own medium of choice. The original dialogue she subtly introduces between the support, the canvas, and the actual “painted presence” (rather than a static given image) that is presented to the viewer, is both instantly seductive and intriguing for a good reason. The artist paints as a dancer dances, taking into her stride all the visible and invisible particulars, re-configurating the open space that she subtly demands for her art, by the way of determined moves and unexpected dynamics. With Maibritt, canvas surface, frame borders, paint strokes, drips, are deftly submitted to an unwritten law: that of the specific artwork in the make, in which they all are to play an equivalent active role, and more and more in volume, though without eclipsing the core of their identity: paintings.

LOCATION/ DISLOCATION. BETWEEN REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING

The exhibition looks at time and space as well as memory and the principles of organising space as a field of investigation. Here, space, relates not only to geographic size, but also includes psychological, cultural and social contexts. Finding themselves in perpetual motion, people form their relationships and determine their trajectory of movement with close attention to the spatial conditions. Whereas the perception of space in fact varies according to the place from which it is viewed; experience, social and cultural context, perspective and countless other factors.

EXHIBITION OF VIII INTERNATIONAL LATGALE GRAPHIC SYMPOSIUM

The eighth iteration of the International Latgale Graphic Art Symposium in Daugavpils has brought together eight participants who, in their own individual ways, all continue the rich traditions of past generation of graphic artists. Now the outcomes of two packed weeks of creative work are presented to the public. The graphic art symposium has proved its sustainability and relevance in the global community of graphic art. It can certainly be called a successful and valuable graphic art tradition in Latgale region. The symposium has provided a fertile ground for discussion and creative work in the cultural space of Latgale region by bringing together Latvian and international artists who have similarities and differences in the way they conceptualise and approach graphic art. These conditions have enabled a unique form of dialogue which does not require verbal speech, but rests on transfer and comparison of technical nuances and individual growth.

SOLARIS

Prof. Dr. Remigijus Venckus Exhibition: 18.05.2019 ‘Solaris’ is an art exhibition of a well-known Lithuanian media artist Prof. Ph. D. Remigijus Venckus. The exhibition will be opened at 7 p.m. at Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre.  Idea: On the Solaris Ocean. Lately I have not had much time for reading fiction, but I am actually missing the period of bookworming, which happened in my life some years ago. Thus, in the summer of 2017, I went back to my already forgotten reading activities. I spent half of my vacation near some Lithuanian lakes with a few interesting books, having nothing to do in my academic life. While there, I read ‘Solaris’ (1961), one of the most memorable Sci-Fi books ever written. The author of this impressive masterpiece was Stanislaw Lem, Polish intellectual and philosopher, winner of multiple international awards. I had never read anything by him before, but I had seen some films based on his books.