Gregorio Botta is the first Italian artist to exhibit at the Rothko Museum, Latvia

From Feb. 20 to May 24, 2026, the Rothko Museum in Daugavpils, Latvia, is hosting the exhibition La pittura porta a casa by Gregorio Botta (Naples, 1953), curated by Bruno Corà. The exhibition is organized by the publishing house Il Cigno Arte, which accompanies the exhibition with the publication of the catalog, enriched by a critical essay by Micol Forti, director of the Mart in Rovereto.

Botta is the first Italian artist to exhibit at the Rothko Museum, in the hometown of the master ofAbstract Expressionism and a place symbolically identified as the “home” of non-figurative, intense, silent and meditative painting. A spiritual legacy that has always been a fundamental point of reference for the Neapolitan artist’s research.

Although many of his works take the form of installations and three-dimensional sculptures, the matrix of his language remains profoundly pictorial, preserving its introspective dimension. Botta uses natural and delicate materials, such as wax, rice paper, water, glass, leaves, stones and blood, to construct a poetic and collected universe. In Noli me tangere, for example, bougainvillea leaves and drops of blood create a symbolic garden that welcomes suffering in order to transform it. In Ophelia, on the other hand, a large horizontal table of wax is traversed by four thin streams of water that flow as tears, but also as springs of rebirth.

In Latvia, the artist presents about thirty works, some of which were made especially for the occasion. Over time his language has become increasingly essential, moving toward a formal rarefaction that evokes emptiness and silence through a few signs. Emblematic is Horizon, composed of a thin horizontal sheet of glass, a cup and two or three pigmented wax tablets. Similarly, sheets of watercolor and waxed rice paper, which Botta calls “solid glazes,” have the ability to conceal and at the same time reveal the underlying material.

Gregorio Botta has exhibited in numerous galleries and museums in Italy and abroad. Recent solo shows include 2025 at MAN in Nuoro and at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome. He is also the author of essays such as Pollock and Rothko, gesture and breath (Einaudi) and Paul Klee, genius and regulation (Laterza). A new volume devoted to Rothko and his relationship with Florence is scheduled for release by Electa in March 2026.

Gregorio Botta is the first Italian artist to exhibit at the Rothko Museum, Latvia

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