Other events in Baltic States

Daugavpils City Council today appointed Maris Cacka as the new head of the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Center. 

In order to increase the Rothko Art Center's revenue, it would be necessary to develop and sell outsourced services, Cacka said after the city council appointed him to the job.

Cacka, who used to be deputy of the Rothko Art Center's previous head Aleksejs Burunovs, was nominated to take over as the art center's head without organizing a competition. Cacka told members of Daugavpils City Council that he has the necessary education and experience to qualify for the job, which requires promoting the center in Latvia and also internationally. Cacka described the art center's team as great.

Asked by councilor Livija Jankovska (Our Party) how he intends to increase the center's revenue, considering that it is heavily reliant on municipal funding, Cacka said that the center might provide outsourced services such as transportation of artworks.

The city council voted unanimously to appoint Cacka as the Rothko Art Center's new head.

As reported, on January 31, 2020 Daugavpils City Council approved the resignation of Aleksejs Burunovs, the long-standing head of the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Center who had been heading the center since its foundation.

Burunovs said that it was his own decision to leave the position, adding that this will present an opportunity for younger candidates to prove themselves.

"As years go by, I need to think about the second half of my life and resting rather than working. Now, I will be able to go to exhibitions, concerts... I have children and grandchildren," the outgoing head of the Rothko Art Center said.

Burunovs made no secret that he would like his deputy Maris Cacka to take over as the next head of the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Center. Cacka has been the center's acting head after Burunovs' resignation.

The Rothko center, a multi-functional contemporary art and culture center, opened in the Artillery Arsenal building (1833) of the Daugavpils Fortress, in September 2013.

Mark Rothko (Markus Rothkowitz) was born in 1903 in Daugavpils (then Dvinsk, Russian Empire), and died in 1970 in New York. He emigrated to New York in 1913, and in 1940 changed his surname to Rothko. He is classified as an abstract expressionist.