Long Night of Museums 2024 at the Rothko Museum
From 7 to 11 p.m. on Saturday, 18 May, the Rothko Museum will welcome visitors to the Long Night of Museums 2024 with inspiring contemporary exhibitions, engaging creative activities and a fiery performance by Polish ceramic artists.
The Rothko Museum has condensed Latvia’s national theme for the international Long Night of Museums – “Exploring and Acquiring, Studying and Understanding” – into a compact Latin saying, DOCENDO DISCIMUS, or “We Learn by Teaching”. The motto underlines that every exhibition season, project and event at the museum, however big or small, is an important milestone in an unbroken path of betterment and progress, where teaching, showing and presenting go hand in hand with mindful institutional learning.
On 18 May, the veil of darkness will be pierced by luminous art from local and international artists. Visitors will be able to see “Let’s Die Together” – a conceptual one-man exhibition by the Purvītis Prize nominee Romans Korovins, hear the blessed silence of cannons in a sweeping juried group show by artists with ties to the Latgale region and contemplate sustainable design and art in “Re Rag Rug” – a thought-provoking duo-exhibition by two Swedish textile artists, Birnitis and Evans. The visitor experience will also include the 12 International Ceramics Symposium output.
On top of that, the Long Night of Museums will bring an exclusive one-time opportunity to witness “Hope through Children’s Eyes” by Ukrainian artist Viacheslav Pasynok. The multiple ceramic objects featured in this exhibition were made under the artist’s mentorship by Ukrainian children hiding from Russian air strikes in a Kharkiv metro station. This moving and evocative collection has already travelled to Turkey, Norway and the Netherlands, spreading the message of the artist’s personal wartime impressions and countless children’s experiences. Next to the exhibition site, the younger visitors of the museum will have the option to engage in guided creative activities.
Meanwhile, the Rothko Museum courtyard will offer a digital artistic experience. Museum night visitors will have the opportunity to explore ceramic artworks by Pēteris Martinsons in augmented reality on their personal smart device, such as tablets or mobile phones.
The night will finish in the Martinsons House garden, where Alicja Buławka-Fankidejska and Dmitri Buławka-Fankidejski from Poland will deliver a kiln firing performance with a large-scale ceramic sculpture.
This year, the Long Night of Museums will also throw open the doors to the 7th bastion casemate of the Daugavpils Fortress, which houses the Rothko Museum’s impressive contemporary ceramics collection.
The Long Night of Museums at the Rothko Museum can be experienced free of charge.
