Daugavpils, the Latvian birthplace of artist Mark Rothko, opened a new museum dedicated to the artist yesterday.  The Mark Rothko Arts Center is the first permanent collection of the artist’s work in Eastern Europe, and includes six works from the collection of the artist’s son and daughter.  “This centre, I think, is going to become an important archive, an important resource for Rothko scholars to draw on, and also for Rothko’s public.” said Rothko’s son Christopher. (more…)

Blackboard Tableau #1, Vija Celmins, 2007-2010. 3 found tablets, 7 made tablets, wood, paper, string, acrylic, alkyd oil, and pastel. Image via McKee Gallery.

Vija Celmins’ first gallery show in nine years features paintings, prints, and sculptures.  At the core of the exhibition are Celmins’ assemblages of neatly arranged objects that recall an outmoded and cerebral academic youth: globes, maps, tablets, and books, are bronze-cast or painted. Celmins presents 16 such objects, in addition to 4 paintings and 9 new prints.  Her exhibition at the McKee Gallery characteristically combines the personal and terrestrial with the cosmic.

More text and images after the jump…

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