“From Stardust to Lush Sprouts” – the Latvia Ceramics Biennale Returns in 2025 with Its Fifth Edition
In 2025, the Latvia Ceramics Biennale will make its highly anticipated return to the Rothko Museum in Daugavpils and cultural venues across Latvia. Headlined by the prestigious Martinsons Award, the Biennale’s fifth edition will bring together today’s leading artists in a vibrant programme of exhibitions and other events designed to celebrate contemporary ceramics in all the medium’s extraordinary diversity.
The Latvia Ceramics Biennale 2025 comes with an enigmatic theme – “From Stardust to Lush Sprouts”, designed to spark reflection on the many forms of matter, their resilience, and shifting value over time. Armed with discoveries in physics, chemistry, biology, and other life sciences, we now know that for billions of years, nothing existed – except for everything that somehow already was. The fundamental elements of matter smashed into each other at extraordinary cosmic speeds, eventually forming nebulae of gas and dust. These early clusters of primaeval matter coalesced, creating all we know today: innumerable stars, our Sun, and planets. On some of them, on one for sure, life as we know it has emerged and then evolved into innumerable forms, from lush palms rising up towards the sky to chubby hippos churning sunlit waters.
Through its impressive exhibition programme, the Latvia Ceramics Biennale attempts to pin down the elusive points of reference that transform material into something that has added value and new meaning. This time, it asks the question: is the almighty, all-controlling human hand the only one that holds the power to create, or do entirely independent processes unfold in parallel to its activity, transforming an initially amorphous mass of clay into creative output capable of holding information? The works selected for the Biennale’s exhibitions will reflect this spectrum of engagement with and impact on the matter – from full control and detailed exploration of material to pieces where the artist allows the matter to express itself while staying in the shadows as a curious observer.
In ceramic art, perhaps more than in any other material art form, there is a strong awareness that we all are nothing more than stardust. And yet, within this dust, complex and compound forms have come to be whose force enables luscious sprouts to shoot from lumpy earth. The same creative force is carrying forth the ever-growing trove of information about the progress of our civilisation in one of its most ancient and enduring mediums – the testimony of ceramic works.
Until 30 April 2025, individual artists and collectives from Latvia and beyond are invited to submit their entries for the 5th Latvia Ceramics Biennale’s headline event – the Martinsons Award international juried exhibition, which is to be unveiled at the Rothko Museum on 5 September 2025. The opening ceremony will also announce the competition’s Gold, Silver, and Bronze award winners in national and international categories. Details on the open call are available on the Rothko Museum’s website: www.rothkomuseum.com.
About the Biennale: Founded in 2016, the Latvia Ceramics Biennale is a flagship event for contemporary ceramics in Northeast Europe, renowned for its ambitious scale and high artistic quality. Organised by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics (LCCC) in cooperation with the Rothko Museum, the Biennale offers a platform for exhibitions in solo and group show formats. The forum’s innovative spirit is best embodied by the Martinsons Award – an international juried exhibition and competition that showcases contemporary ceramics in all its shapes and forms, from stunning design objects and elaborate sculptural pieces to large-scale installations and performative contributions. Held at the Rothko Museum, it celebrates the incredible vitality of ceramic art while commemorating the world-renowned Latvian ceramicist, Pēteris Martinsons.
About the Rothko Museum: The Rothko Museum in Daugavpils is one of the most ambitious 21st-century cultural projects in Eastern Europe – a multifunctional hub for contemporary art, culture, and education, located in a majestic heritage building – the historic artillery arsenal of the Daugavpils Fortress. The pride of the museum’s permanent display is a curated selection of original paintings by the world-renowned artist Mark Rothko, a native son of Daugavpils. As Europe’s only permanent Rothko retrospective, it traces the artist’s entire creative journey. The museum’s dynamic rotating exhibition programme is structured into four seasons, offering up to about 30 quality art projects each year. Spanning 2,500 square meters of gallery space, these exhibitions – presented in solo and group show formats – highlight current artistic trends and developments in Latgale, Latvia, and beyond.
About LCCC: The Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics is a vibrant creative hub for professional ceramics and the driving force for long-term projects that have reshaped the image of Latvian contemporary ceramics and continue to elevate Latvian artists on the international stage. Since 2013, its CERAMIC LABORATORY symposium has hosted over 150 artists from around the world. The Centre runs a residency programme for ceramic artists, curates international exhibitions, and owns an open-air gallery, 4 METRI. Its growing contemporary ceramics collection spans nearly every region worldwide, featuring today’s leading artists engaged with the ceramic medium.
Foto: Rotko muzejs (autors – Didzis Grodzs)
