The best works of the international plein air "Mark Rothko" are presented in Vitebsk

July 11, Vitebsk /Olga Bogacheva - BELTA/. The best works selected based on the results of the international plein air "Mark Rothko" were brought to festival Vitebsk by the Latvian delegation, the head of the Daugavpils Culture Department, Miervaldis Brodovs, told a BELTA correspondent. More than 30 works by Latvian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian artists, created during the plein air in 2005-2008, are presented at the exhibition, which opened today at the Vitebsk Regional Museum of Local Lore. All works are dedicated to the outstanding master of abstract expressionism Mark Rothko and are connected with his hometown Daugavpils, where an art center named after him is currently being created in the city's fortification fortress. The exhibition introduces contemporary art of Latvia. To cope with this task as fully as possible, an exhibition of photojournalists from Daugavpils newspapers, whose photos reflect the holidays and everyday life of their hometown, opened today at the House of Cinema, and on July 12, an exhibition of students from Daugavpils University will open at the Museum of Local Lore, and a youth concert program with the participation of the pop choir "Arma", the quartet Simply4, Ilona Bagel, and representatives of the "Saules skola" art school will gather friends. It should be noted that Latvia approached the participation in the XVIII International Festival of Arts "Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk" very seriously, as its delegation is one of the most numerous this year. And on July 12, media representatives covering the festival events have already designated it as the unofficial Latvia Day. Mark Rothko (English Mark Rothko, birth name Markus Yakovlevich Rotkovich; 1903-1970) is an American artist of Latvian origin, a leading representative of abstract expressionism, one of the creators of color field painting. He was born and raised in an educated Jewish family where Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian were spoken. From 1913 he lived in the USA, from 1923 in the avant-garde art scene of New York. He deeply absorbed the works of German expressionists, as well as Klee and Rouault, that he saw. Rothko's creative peak falls on the 1950s-1960s. The main content of the mature and late Rothko's work is color as an emanation of his emotional state and expressive, dramatic perception of the world. With the help of color, the artist sought to express the majestic flight of the human spirit. Critics consider the cycle of 14 paintings for the chapel of the ecumenical church in Houston, Texas (1967) to be Rothko's most significant work. -0-