Archive

Latvian contemporary ceramics

Latvian contemporary ceramics   Continuing the Latvian contemporary art exhibition cycle started by Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Center in 2014, this year viewers are offered the opportunity to acquaint themselves with Latvian contemporary ceramics. The choice of ceramics as this year’s art medium is, most likely, a natural occurrence – in 2015 the Daugavpils Ceramics association marks its 35th anniversary from its foundation. Furthermore, Latvian contemporary ceramics exhibition is a continuation of sorts to the view upon development of Latvian ceramic art that was begun this year in Rothko Center by a large-scale exhibition of Ķīpsala Ceramics thus outlining the process of creating contemporary ceramics. The aim of Latvian contemporary ceramics exhibition is to bring into light the significance of ceramics as a contemporary art medium and its place in the Latvian current art and culture scene. Therefore the greatest Latvian ceramic artists were invited to participate in the exhibition. They represent various generations of ceramics overall and have been successful in Latvia as well as are internationally recognized Latvian ceramic artists. Latvian ceramic artists Sanita Ābelīte, Skuja Braden, Valda Podkalne, Juta Rindina, Ilona Romule and Elīna Titāne, participate in the exhibition.

Le moment supreme photography artwork by Manuel Schroeder

Often puts the mundane, the long familiar only through unfamiliar perspectives and selection in a new light. In concert contest is memory and reality mix, particularly intense in places that are currently undergoing a change of meaning in their function. It is the phenomenon of different qualities of perception that drives the artist Manuel Schroeder in his work. His main focus is the symbolic power of the seemingly self-evident. The project focuses on special places, whose meaning has changed in recent years. In appearance they are still marked by their former function as well as by the time their characteristic design. The selected locations are atmospheric compressed by the tension of their past and present appearance. They provide inspiration and trigger associations. In the photographic work Le supreme moment Manuel Schroeder is dealing with the reality of these places and works of expressions that match the volatility of our memories.

International Ceramic Art Symposium CERAMIC LABORATORY Final Exhibition

International Ceramic Art Symposium CERAMIC LABORATORY Final Exhibition   Traditionally, the International Ceramic Art Symposium CERAMIC LABORATORY ends with the opening of the closing exhibition of the symposium, at which the creative facets of each symposium participant are extensively revealed in the content, form and innumerable experiments. The symposium assembled well-known ceramists from Egypt, Israel, Poland, Rumania, Latvia, Finland, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine, who have created unique ceramic compositions and by their work have enhanced the development of the processes of contemporary ceramic art. This time, the artists depict the world’s breath and what they have experienced in this region through different ideas, through frequently dominating stylized and also direct features of fauna and flora, and, naturally, man and things essential for a human as well as ceramic art forms are not neglected either, which all can be interpreted as philosophical touches implemented in a ceramic material. The exhibition in Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Center will be on view from August 29 to October 10, 2015. The exhibition is supplemented with photos taken by Tatjana Pedčenko (Ukraine), thereby documenting the process of the symposium. Since August 29, 2015, the fire sculpture “The Gate” created by Andrejs Sobjaņins (Ukraine) can be seen in the courtyard of the Rothko Center.  

Bent Holstein exhibition „FERNWEH”

  Bent Holstein exhibition „FERNWEH" Bent Holstein uses a German word to describe the main drive in his art: Fernweh. The English translation is Wanderlust, but the combination of the two words is a perfect guide to understanding the art of the 73-year old Danish artist. He constantly wants to be somewhere else and his lust to wander into different places is insatiable. These places must have water or mountains and they must have light. Interesting or dramatic light. ”Why are we always attracted to water? Why do you sail?” he asks and adds ”My art is always coming from somewhere else. My paintings are always painted in my Studio in Copenhagen, but my visions come from The Caribbean, Mexico,. Water is a key element. My best moments are when fishing ”The Flats” in The Florida Keys. The water is a few inches deep. I cannot see the coast. It’s like standing inside a huge soap-bubble. You cannot distinguish water from land – it’s a blurry transition and it fascinates me.” Bent Holstein points at several new paintings, ready for shipment to Latvia and repeats ”They are not naturalistic. I’ll go mad, if I painted nature.” But he does depict nature. His very own interpretation of natural elements. ”Why does water and mountains fascinate me” he asks and answers his own question immediately ”We Danes are originally lowland farmers. We are strangely attracted to dangerous places like mountains. Both mountains and water demand great respect. There are life-threatening cliffs, ravines, sharks and violent currents. And the difficulties of painting this array of challenges and threats are enormous”.

Leonid Tugalev exhibition „FotoGrāfs”

Leonid Tugalev exhibition „FotoGrāfs"   Leonid Tugalev FotoGrāfs   I, Leonid Tugalev, was born in Riga, on the 8th of August, 1945. My Byelorussian grandmother was a witch. My mother was engaged in witchcraft, too. My father had a snake's wisdom, but the war made him nervous. They are all now in the Kingdom of heaven. I am a heathen. I believe in Nature.   I have been a workman in a sawmill, an engineer in the Institute of Design, a photographer for a magazine... Now I have a bureau of architects. I have, as long as...   The first pictures I took were of rugby games. They were followed by portraits, or images, to be more exact. Vera - my wife - was modelling for me. Later came celebrities of Latvian arts. Reportages. Lots of exhibitions. Many awards.

Maria Maier exhibition „BLOSSOM TIME”

Maria Maier Blossom Time Photographs and Paper Works Maria Maier was born in 1954, Amberg (Germany), and has studied pedagogy and history of art. Since 1992, after a lasting period of pedagogical activity and many study and job trips while staying in South-East Asia, Central America and Africa, M. Maier is a free-lancer. She lives and works in Kofering and Regensburg. During her long experience of exhibitions she has arranged several solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions held in museums, art societies and galleries in Germany and abroad. Her works are seen in many collections and are exhibited in several public places. In 2005, the artist was awarded the scholarship of Virginia Center for Creative Arts in the USA, but in 2011 – the scholarship of Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland.

Inese Āboliņa, Skaidrīte Cihovska, Violetas Jātniece, Izabella Krolle, Kornēlija Ozoliņa un Silvija Šmidkena exhibition „CERAMICS OF ĶĪPSALA”

Inese Āboliņa, Skaidrīte Cihovska, Violetas Jātniece, Izabella Krolle, Kornēlija Ozoliņa un Silvija Šmidkena exhibition „CERAMICS OF ĶĪPSALA" Ceramics of Ķīpsala – the phenomenon of Latvian art and culture of the second half of the 20th century, that has formed several generations of ceramists and has enabled strengthening of Latvian traditions in ceramics and the contemporary ceramics in Latvia in general. This was a bridge that linked the traditional and professional ceramics, taking the best from both sides, and this bridge was built by people, by artists.

Pēteris Martinsons “MY CERAMICS”

Pēteris Martinsons "MY CERAMICS" Pēteris Martinsons (1931 – 2013) is the best-known Latvian ceramist in the world. For more than a half of a century, his art and personality have impressed and inspired ceramists of different generations both in Latvia and abroad; his achievements in international competitions have regularly attested to the excellence of his art; the radiance coming from his personality has given a creative charge to his colleagues during workshops and symposiums, to his students, to the participants in his master workshops and to those simply encountered on his way. The personality of Pēteris Martinsons is amazingly versatile – he is an architect by education, has been professionally engaged in mountaineering, a teacher of Riga Applied Art Secondary School and Art Academy of Latvia, has been a stage designer for several theatre performances in Valmiera theatre, and has been filmed in several roles. He has traveled a lot, mainly to work there, but has always come back. Back to his own country, which he always called – the most beautiful. In 2013, Pēteris Martinsons donated the selection of his creative life works to Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre. The exhibition “Pēteris Martinsons. My Ceramics” shows large format compositions of this collection.

Māris Grunskis „GHOSTS”

  Māris Grunskis „GHOSTS" This photo series is about abandoned buildings including factories, bomb-proof shelters, communications bunkers and nuclear missile bases in Latvia. It makes the spectator to think not only about problems that are connected with maintenance of these buildings but also lets to see the unusual beauty of these places. The author tells: “In the exhibition I would like to show the attraction of desolation. These used to be places that were secret and important, places that could destroy whole cities thousands of kilometers away or – on the contrary – save peoples’ lives. Nowadays almost all of them are ghosts of political systems and conflicts from the past. The buildings are halfway torn down, looted by metal thieves, but the signs on the walls, instructions for staff and sometimes even old documentation still remain. Sometimes these ghosts are frightening, sometimes amusing, but mostly we do not even notice them on the way to our job.” After a thorough urban researching the author has come to a conclusion that these places are changing very fast, some of those that can be seen in the photographs don’t exist anymore. One of such places is the bunker of Kadaga (which used to be the command post of the Baltic Military District) “After visiting or at least seeing these places in photographs one can gain a more complete notion of the recent past. I wanted to see the elements, compositions, colors and how light acts in these very dynamic surroundings,” says the author.

CYBERNETIC PAINTING OF SIGURDS VĪDZIRKSTE THE LOST CODE

Sigurds Vidzirkste- New York Avant-Gardist exhibition „BLACK SUN".                 I am not inclined to attach great value to words. Works created from words are only a performance but not a creation. They are limited. They are only mere reflections of the direct perception. I would rather value works that grow out in the direct process of work. Painting should take place just in the physical world. The first creative idea lacks form. It is a pure essence that does not contain means of expression in itself. But then there is a second created stage of the idea with form and development which can be expressed in symbols. The idea per se is not creative, but it possesses magnetic attraction and aura which suit for a further development of new ideas.