Summer in Five Exhibitions Rothko Museum Announces New Exhibition Season

At 4 pm on Friday, 5 June, the Rothko Museum opens its summer exhibition season, bringing together photography, painting and ceramics from Latvia, Lithuania, China and South Africa. Moving between psychological intensity, meditative abstraction, cosmic imagination and contemplative observation, the season’s exhibitions show how artists explore both inner and outer worlds.

The Other Mind: Roger Ballen. A Retrospective

Widely considered one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary photography, Roger Ballen (USA/RSA) creates unsettling, poetic and deeply psychological work that blurs the boundaries between documentary and fiction, reality and dream, human and animal, sanity and madness.

This retrospective, curated specifically for the Rothko Museum, presents Ballen’s evolution from stark documentary realism to intricately staged, psychologically charged compositions. Presenting the project to audiences in Latvia, the exhibition’s curator Aivars Baranovskis emphasises:

“Ballen’s images are not meant to be understood – they are meant to be felt. His work provokes, disturbs and lingers in the mind. The exhibition invites you to confront your own subconscious and explore your other mind – the one we often ignore, but which Ballen fearlessly exposes.”

Liu Guofu: Painting of Entropy

Liu Guofu (China) paints the rhythms of clouds, water, mountains and mist, translating them into luminous spatial fields. Through meticulous layering, washing and modulation of light, he constructs what appears to be stillness, yet is in fact a suspended state of becoming.

The artist’s exhibition at the Rothko Museum transforms a scientific concept into a poetic vision. The project’s curator, Calvin Hui, reflects:

“In an age marked by uncertainty and acceleration, Liu’s work offers a different tempo – one of attentiveness and inner equilibrium. His paintings remind us that entropy is not only a law of dissolution, but also a condition for transformation. Within dispersion lies potential; within stillness, infinite motion.”

Organised in partnership with 3812 Gallery in Hong Kong, the exhibition is supported by MGM.mo.

Romualdas Balinskas: Before and After

Long associated with figurative scenes and ironic, often sharply sarcastic narratives, Romualdas Balinskas (Lithuania) turns in his new exhibition at the Rothko Museum towards a more abstract, intuitive and immediate mode of expression – at once therapeutic, reflective and existential. The exhibition’s curator Tatjana Černova points out:

“For the artist, abstraction offers a way to reflect directly on history as it inscribes itself through events over time – be it personal struggles, war or a global pandemic. The painting becomes a kind of postscript – a note appended to a note, after the present and at once before it.”

Madara Tropa: Your Breath

Madara Tropa’s (Latvia) work grows out of attentive observation and a deeply personal engagement with the natural world. Her practice explores the relationship between artist and floral form as an interconnected and dynamic system, embodying an empathetic, contemporary approach to representation – one that recognises plants as co-creators.

The exhibition presents a series of paintings created through a layered technique, where walnut ink, graphite and collage meet in a subtle material dialogue. In her slow, meditative process, the artist explores the boundaries between inner and outer worlds and chooses to relinquish full control. Materials, pigments and forms assume a degree of autonomy, allowing the image to emerge within the ‘breath’ shared by artist, plant and viewer.

Pēteris Martinsons: Cosmic Journeys

In 2026, the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics partners with the Rothko Museum on an exhibition series at the Martinsons House gallery to mark the 95th anniversary of the Latvian ceramic artist Pēteris Martinsons (1931–2013). The second exhibition in the series presents Martinsons’s work from the Rīga Porcelain Museum.

Created in the early 1980s, Martinsons’s “Rockets”, “Planets” and “Interplanetary Stations” reveal the artist’s ability to use porcelain as a springboard for imagination. The pieces carry his signature sense of playful freedom, bold stylisation of form and a lasting interest in humanity’s place within a wider, cosmic scale.

Exhibition Dates and Opening Night

The Rothko Museum’s summer exhibition season runs from 5 June to 30 August 2026.

Admission to the new exhibitions is free on opening night.

The Rothko Museum’s summer exhibition season was prepared in partnership with the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics, the Rīga Porcelain Museum and Gallery 3812 in Hong Kong, with support from the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, the Cultural Programme for Latgale 2026, the Daugavpils City Council and MGM.mo.

Publicity images:

  • Roger Ballen (USA/RSA). “Puppy between Feet”. Photography. 1999
  • Liu Guofu (China). “Cold Mountain No. 10” (diptych). Oil on canvas, 150 x 190 cm (detail), 2021
  • Romualdas Balinskas (Lithuania). From the “Before and After” series. Acrylic on paper, 200 x 160 cm, 2024
  • Madara Tropa (Latvia). “Indefinite”. Mixed media (copying pencil, watercolour and ink on paper), 50 x 70 cm, 2025
  • Pēteris Martinsons (Latvia). “Rockets”. Porcelain, glaze, overglaze, decal, 1980. Collection of the Rīga Porcelain Museum. Photographed by Gvido Kajons