The Rothko Centre is about to host the 10th International Latgale Graphic Art Symposium
The Rothko Centre is about to host the 10th International Latgale Graphic Art Symposium – the most significant international event in the graphic medium held in the Latgale Region. The symposium is produced by the SIVIA association, and this is its eighth iteration in the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre symposium framework. So far, this creative forum has brought together more than a hundred graphic artists from thirty-five countries. Today, it continues to revitalise the graphic medium in Daugavpils and raise the international visibility of Latgale through various printmaking activities, drawing new visiting artists to the region and maintaining other kinds of targeted efforts that keep shaping Latgale into an excellent space for creative work with an attractive international profile.
The symposium will run in Daugavpils from 13 to 27 May 2022. The list of participants includes eleven artists from eight countries: Tommy Schneider (Austria), Michael Schitnig (Austria), Inga Heamägi (Estonia), Lembe Ruben (Estonia), Vaidotas Janulis (Lithuania), Vaiva Kovieraite-Trumpe (Lithuania), Elisabet Alsos Strand (Norway), Hongge (Mary) Zhang (China), Charlotte Dorn (Germany), Robert Rabiej (Poland) and Dana Vasiļjeva (Latvia).
The symposium fortnight will offer discussions and workshops for practising artists and non-professional art lovers and will culminate with an exhibition opening and a symposium catalogue, demonstrating the diversity of formal solutions and themes pursued by symposium artists.
The symposium will formally start at 3 p.m. on 14 May 2022 at the Daugavpils Culture Palace, with the opening of Myth, Symbol and the Universe – an exhibition by Gunārs Krollis from the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre collection. The new show is a tribute to the master of Latvian graphics on the verge of his upcoming anniversary – a comprehensive visual record of how personal impressions and discoveries derived from lived experiences and extended studies of the world’s religions and cultures have continuously framed his reflections and creativity. Krollis’ refined artistic style rests on a rich creative vocabulary brimming with diverse and expressive imagery and rhythmical patterns of lines and fields, arranged into stately compositions and polished to perfection by the artist’s consummate touch. Myth and symbolism are the principal contexts for his imagery, and it is equally true for individual images and their constellations. Krollis balances them with visual references to the Universe and the subconscious, revealing his profound reflections on the meaning of life and today’s moral and ethical values and norms.
Krollis’ impressive exhibition record is one of the longest across the entire field of Latvian graphic art. Dating back to the first public display in 1956, it includes hundreds of exhibition projects in Latvia and beyond – in Europe, the States and the Middle East – and several family shows with Izabella Krolle and Inguna Krolle‑Irbe. The artist’s work is held in numerous public collections, most notably at the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre, the Latvian National Museum of Art and other leading museums in the country, the Tretyakov Art Gallery and the Pushkin Art Museum, Russia and in multiple private collections domestically and beyond.
