The Summer Vocation of a Teenage Bee Contemporary Art Centre Vilnius Be

Vilnius Contemporary Art Eye exhibition "Vilnius Pavilion" in Moscow Contemporary Art Eye

In fact, I do not believe that exhibitions of Vilnius Contemporary Art Heart (at least in recent years) are worth much discover. However, when it comes to presenting the contemporary fine art scene of "Lithuania" or "Vilnius" abroad, 1 is justified in taking a look at how our (?) image is being constructed. Hence the following remarks about "Vilnius Pavilion", an exhibition organized by Vilnius CAC at Moscow Land Contemporary Arts Centre.

"Vilnius Pavilion" is dominated past young-generation artists from Lithuania (Vilnius?) who mostly piece of work within dematerialized aesthetics and engage extensively with the motif of "memory". According to the exhibition catalogue, even though the art of objects gets dematerialized, is dissolved, the idea of an object is even so at that place, it returns in the guise of "neomaterialism". That, too, must have something to do with the Lithuanian sculptural tradition of the 1980s and 1990s, just mostly with the "policies" adopted in the Department of Sculpture of Vilnius Academy of Fine art over the last ii decades, whereby object- or installation-based sculpture is gradually transformed into ideas, discursive and mental (retention, imagination) forms. Perhaps Mindaugas Navakas, an older-generation sculptor who recently presented his "Sideboard" in Vilnius, is therefore a good incarnation of this "tradition of conceptualization" in the Academy, especially since many of the young participants in the exhibition are graduates of the department. Meanwhile Deimantas Narkevičius must exist at that place to correspond the onset of Lithuanian contemporary fine art's preoccupation with "retentivity"…

At the same fourth dimension, the immature ones seem to turn down the monumentality, critical and unmasking intentions, the sheer "messianism" that characterized interdisciplinary artists of the 1990s. In their aesthetic organization, the notion of retentiveness is stripped of credo, it functions less as an "analytic" discourse than a "fairy tale", a "myth". This generation consists generally of people who were built-in in the Soviet Union only have no (or footling) first-hand retentivity of it, therefore for them, the Soviet era is a terra nova sprinkled with "nostalgia" and "romanticism" of fragmented recollections. Sometimes what you go is a socio-architectural background which is not equally much "analyzed" as only interwoven into the material of quasi-fantastic reality.

"Report of a Flowerpot" by Liudvikas Buklys is a shelf that resembles standardized Soviet furniture designs, but at the same time a reference to the 1960s-70s American minimalism. In fact, the "report" is less nigh the shelf than an (abstruse) imaginary flowerpot. The piece creates a context, an intimation, which gives a gentle push to the viewer's (sub)consciousness towards visualizing a particular object, i.eastward., a flowerpot. At the same time Burklys is engaging with images of historical (sub)consciousness, studying the mechanisms of their reactualization.

Unlike her colleagues, Laura Kaminskaitė puts tangible objects into contexts of alternative interpretations, understanding, reading by not and so much offering to construe an additional mental object as past transferring it into the discursive plane. Thus a square-shaped sugar lump becomes an image of the "white cube", i.eastward., contemporary fine art gallery. Every bit we all know, a carbohydrate lump can blot liquids (be they art shows, kinds of art, discourse, etc.) or, on the contrary, dissolve therein, yet continue its existence every bit a flavour.

Similarly, the artist hyperbolizes a translucent rectangular glass vase filled with water and a rose. A vase, some water and a rose (with multi-coloured petals – a metaphor for the unabridged exhibition) can thus also go a symbol of the exhibition, art or curatorial system. In her own manner, the artist thus recodes seemingly banal everyday objects in society to speak about the ephemeral character of art and the art organization, their diffusion within the social (or perhaps mental) milieu.

Elena Narbutaitė's slice "Lady of Dust" speaks about "objects" and, indirectly, near "thingness" and "retentivity", perhaps the affair-ness of retentiveness. On the other hand, we only larn about some objects, their consistence (e.grand., dough), phenomena via sound recordings. At the same time, the idea is one of mediating retentiveness. Thing-ness is spoken, narrated.

Despite a rather interesting explanation that accompanies Antanas Gerlikas' "A Stroll", it does not really stick to the piece itself. To be certain, having an creature run around in a gallery does provide for a capacious metaphor of a man equally a tamed beast. And Gerlikas' piece itself would be top-notch, if information technology weren't for an virtually identical creation by the Belgian artist Francis Alys, who, in 2006, let in a play tricks to "stroll" in a London museum.

Gerlikas' catalogue description does not mention if his piece is a commentary on the Belgian one or whether he simply had not known most the similar piece by his better-known colleague. It might well be a commentary, since young-generation artists are so keen on playing with quotations, replies, remakes, appropriations – in short, they often acquit like DJs.

On the other hand, both the Lithuanian and international contemporary art markets regard emulating celebrated antecedents (often verbatim) in a very positive light. If a young artist's slice cannot compare to one by a amend-known colleague, how is i to read information technology, categorize it under one "style" or another? For Vilnius fine fine art critics and curators that might present an irresolvable dilemma.

In the exhibition, Juozas Laivys represents the generation of Lithuanian contemporary artists "sandwiched" betwixt interdisciplinary artists of the 1990s and the immature "neominimalists" of today. In his video performance, he "addresses" Barbora, a statue by the famous Soviet sculptor Vladas Vildžiūnas (an example of Soviet folk-modernism) erected in Vokiečių Street, Vilnius, in 1982. Laivys reads out a verse form, inviting her to have a walk, to go to a café… The artist "dissolves" the situation by way of dissimilarity – the colossal monument, a silent piece of bronze vs. the artist (himself a sculptor, past the manner), his body, vox and psychologized language that brings Barbora to life. In a sense, Laivys transfers some of his life to the sculpture, condign, to an extent, one himself. Simultaneously, nosotros are on a quasi-historic level, witnessing two different eras trying to talk to 1 some other.

The Coro Collective came up with a video that shows, co-ordinate to the catalogue, people voguing in the 1980s style. Moreover, the dance has been shot against the background of Vilnius Sports and Culture House, a showpiece of Soviet modernist compages. Once again, history undergoes "dematerialization", information technology loses all recognizable socio-political and/or upstanding reference points and becomes an element of a new pattern.

One could take a different await at the exhibition, though. For example, I could venture to say that the young ones are less interested in exploring "memory" or dematerialization than – consciously or not – in emulating the international career of Deimantas Narkevičius (arguably one of the most internationally-recognized Lithuanian artists) that, as we are well enlightened, has been mostly congenital on speculations around "(post)soviet history". Despite efforts of the CAC and the National Gallery to turn Narkevičius into an official idol, within our local discourse there are increasingly many voices proverb that he is a rather mediocre member of his generation who built a career for himself by partying with the correct people. Simply put, Narkevičius is but a successful apparatchik.

In this sense, having Narkevičius himself accept part in the exhibition is conceptually unnecessary, but institutionally – absolutely imperative. The official institution is doing everything possible to maintain the "bubble" of its leading official creative person – to proceed his status high at all costs.

Consciously or not, therefore, the young artists emulate the career model (and style) of Narkevičius, thus infecting themselves with the same virus of institutional establishment.

Secondly, when it comes to "dematerialization", we must talk about another product of the CAC, the "Tulips & Roses" gallery and its frontman Raimundas Malašauskas, Lithuania's "almost famous" fine art curator. This gallery is, in fact, the main champion of the "dematerialized aesthetics" that often takes the grade of romanticized reflexions on the Soviet flow. Certainly, the aesthetic itself is non the indicate hither, what matters is that this gallery has, via various institutional simulations and manipulations, created an aristocracy of a small group of people and extolled a particular blazon of aesthetics. This exhibition (much similar almost all more official CAC shows, in fact) is dominated by the "Tulips & Roses" people. Not because they have proven worthy in some "contest", just because they accept "patronage".

In a nutshell, "Vilnius Pavilion" is dominated past the majority of Narkevičius and "Tulips & Roses" emulators (or followers). This socio-aesthetic amalgamation can exist called the official style or neonomenclaturism. And as we know, those who are "in" with the "official manner" have always had access to sure privileges and better avenues towards (international) career. Simply like in the Soviet times, "going abroad" with institutionally-endrosed exhibition is a privilege granted to the loyal.

On the other hand, the "official fashion", bearded though information technology is under lofty slogans and sophisticated commentaries, often succumbs to triviality. Such is the case with "Vilnius Pavilion" – a typical example of two functionary institutions, the CAC of Vilnius and the CAC of Moscow, engaging in rather trite form of cooperation. The impression one gets is that its curator Julija Fomina is an extra in this spectacle who has no views or vision of her ain, but simply follows the directions of the "famous curator" Malašauskas. The latter must have felt he could non be bothered to organize a prove for his protégés himself.

Two conclusions beg themselves. First, Vilnius CAC is persistently building an "official style" that consists of the "select few". On the one hand, the style is not, in itself, a bad ane (despite being a rather straightforward emulation of the American neoavangard). The bad matter is that Vilnius CAC and i gallery are building an elite status for a group of artists, thus giving a false impression to the international public that their art is all there is in Republic of lithuania (or Vilnius). In this sense, the CAC's "exhibition policies" bring us back to the late Soviet period when (official) art was completely subjected to the whims of the officialdom and had itself, to a great extent, get an institutionalized institution.

For more than information come across: echogonewrong.com

Forepart image: Laura Kaminskaitė "Untitled (4 walls and an exhibition)"
©Moscow Contemporary Fine art Centre

Laura Kaminskaitė "Carbohydrate Entertainment"

Marija Olšauskitė "Optimist"

Mindaugas Navakas "Sideboard"

Juozas Laivys "Cleopas" (left) and "For Barbora from Vokiečių street" (correct)

Coro Collective "Vocabularly Lesson"

Elena Narbutaitė "Lady of Dust"

©Moscow Contemporary Art Centre

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