Programme 2022
21:00-22:00
During the evening the artist will perform Tarot card readings
Karolina Ūla Valentaitė solo exhibition Diaries of the Witches.
Curators: Marija Martinaitytė and Monika Pakerytė
Witchcraft is the main interest of the exhibition “Diaries of the Witches”. “Diaries of the Witches” searches for an authentic bond with witchcraft, while using not only personal experiences and childhood memories, but also exploring other people’s similar practices. Talking with witches, met on the internet, and recording those interviews helps to capture opinions, memories and traditions that are disappearing yet are being revived at the same time. On the sheets made from kombucha, that exude specific smell, settle down diaristic fragments, sketches and photographs. They weave together into a memory blanket which tells the artist’s family history filled with the occult, bewitched traditions and looking back at them with the present eye. From personal experience comes the curiosity for the whole history of witchcraft.
Karolina Ūla Valentaitė is a second-year student of the Vilnius Academy of Arts (VAA) Sculpture master’s study program. Marija Martinaitytė and Monika Pakerytė are third-year students of VAA Fine Arts Studies and Curatorship bachelor study program.
24/7
Mindaugas Reklaitis’s single-work exhibition MORPH.
Curators – Milena Černiakaitė and Aušra Trakšelytė.
What would happen if a house could be rebuilt every month or every day using the same existing materials? If every new house could “learn” and become more and more suitable for its inhabitant, or the two of them shaped each other in a never-ending performance of “measurements and fitting”? Would this lead to better living environments, cities, communities?
The main focus point and discussion theme of the exhibition is changing, adaptive and performative architecture. The exhibition aims to go beyond conventional architectural boundaries and, with the help of evolving technologies, enter new dimensions of critical architecture, a discipline that has not been widely practiced in Lithuania so far. The work on display (available 24/7 and viewed through the showcase window) is a device perpetually creating an architectural form in the space of the gallery—a robotic manipulator inviting the viewers to reflect on new possibilities for architectural practice. Using this live-creating device and a supply system of cyclic wax as a material, the author aims to subvert the usual features of architecture, such as stability or materiality, and to speculate on alternative realities of dynamic, performative and variable spatial forms.
The MORPH manipulator will shape—in real time and through cyclical processes—an ever-changing architectural object. In other words, like a living organism, the piece will become a prototype for future architectural scenarios.
Mindaugas Reklaitis is an architect and cofounder of the architecture studio Sprik. He is currently working as an exhibition architect at the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius, studying for a PhD in art at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, and researching performative architecture as a critical spatial practice. Besides more than ten years of experience in designing award-winning buildings in Lithuania and abroad, Reklaitis has also been involved in projects organised by various NGOs. Moreover, he has extensive experience working with Lithuanian national pavilions at the Venice Art and Architecture Biennales: in 2018, he was the project manager of the Lithuanian Pavilion at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale; in 2019, the co-producer and architect of the Lithuanian Pavilion at the 58th Venice Art Biennale (the piece won the prestigious Golden Lion); and in 2021, the producer of the Lithuanian Pavilion at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale.
Vidmantas Samuolis exhibition Anatomy of Light.
Abstract and figurative painting are presented in the exhibition at AP Gallery. Contrasting, graphic spaces opens up in extremely large format canvases, rich in changing textures. They exude cosmic and mystical energy, cross-cultural symbolism.
20:00
Tour through scenography exhibition
21:00
Exhibition Relocation tour
Two exhibitions:
Linas Liandzbergis and Arturas Valiauga exhibition Relocation.
The exhibition Relocations is a study of public, important places and objects in the past, what their fates were, and how and in what forms they were inscribed in people’s consciousness. It is also a study of the present, how public opinion, Instagram, Facebook, and virtual life are changing our lives. The authors ask: to what extent does this culture influence privacy? The exhibition would consist of installations, photographs, paintings, and videos.
The scenography exhibition presents part of the collection of the Lithuanian Pavilion, which will be displayed at the Prague Quadrennial (2023).
The exhibition is created in response to the changed reality, the lost sense of stability, reality, time, the search for security and survival, and the fragile boundary between carefree life and death in an extreme situation. The exhibition seeks to reveal the proximity of the most complex search for the survival of the past and the present in scenography. The acclaimed theatre artists involved in the project seek to explore how conflicting worlds can be brought together. They assert their truth by establishing a creative communion with each other, seeking to bring the work closer to the viewer and openly engage with the worlds around them without losing their own. The installation is complemented by filmed theater plays taking place in open space, in nature.
Exhibition curated by Raimonda Bitinaitė-Širvinskienė; artists Sigita Šimkūnaitė, Julija Skuratova, Birutė Ukrinaitė, Neringa Keršulytė, Barbora Šulniūtė, Laura Luišaitytė.
Artifex. Vilnius Academy of Arts textile gallery
(Gaono g. 1)
20:00-22:00
Meetings with an artist Daukantė Subačiūtė
Daukantė Subačiūtė exhibition Community Payback.
Daukantė began her studies at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, where she studied graphic design, and later at the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands. The Eindhoven Academy, famous for its conceptual and experimental design, encouraged Daukantė to take a more concrete approach to her work and to look for inspiration in everyday, even mundane things.
Daukantė’s drawings are not some profound critique of contemporary culture, but rather a way of noticing the absurdity that surrounds us and is also present in Hollywood. The plots, arranged with lines of felt-tip pens and colored pencils (and not only), are absurd and cute, poignant and cozy, obscene and funny. Often the idea of a drawing comes from language when a word or a phrase is misread or read too directly. Sometimes the phonetic sound becomes the starting point of the plot.
Having collected her best works created during and after the quarantine, Daukantė invites you to a public viewing of the works.
Andrej Polukord’s solo exhibition Goat.
Andrej Polukord is an installation, performance, and video artist whose projects often deal with ambiguous, unpredictable, and absurd situations. His work explores various themes like everyday life, ecology, human activity in nature, and institutional critique. Andrej Polukord’s work also contains references to folk cultures, as well as certain mythical stories. This interdisciplinary artist often presents topics relevant to him through humor, adventure, and storytelling. The artist often becomes a part of the creative process itself and does not shy away from involving the audience.
In his solo exhibition Goat, Andrej Polukord will present both new and previously created works that analyse consumerism and related themes. The focus of the exhibition is the goat, the symbol of ritualism, widely described in ancient mythology, especially the motifs of goat sacrifice. The multidimensional meaning of the work itself and its connection to the old culture allows us to rethink what is becoming a sacrifice today. This is particularly relevant now, in the times when the relationship between man and nature never ceases to change. The artist explores the issue of consumerism through works made from recycled materials, while objects found in nature become a kind of trace or documentation of human activity. As lifestyles are constantly changing, so too is consumption itself, which currently manifests while striving for a quick, cheap, and fashionable product. However, this comfort costs natural resources and raises important ethical questions. The works feature the opposites, which create a tension between today’s changing life and the more sustainable old one. The author does not seek to provide already formulated answers but leaves space for the viewer to openly discuss in which direction consumerism in capitalist society is leading: towards the evolution or involution of humanity.
Andrej Polukord (1990) is a young generation interdisciplinary artist who works in Vilnius and Vienna. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and the Rupert alternative education program. The artist is well known both in Lithuania and abroad. He actively participates in solo and group exhibitions. His works have been exhibited at the 12th Kaunas Biennale (2019), The minus20degree Biennale in Flachau, Austria (2018), The Survival Kit in Riga (2017), and well-known galleries such as GAK Kunstverein in Bremen, Konsthall C in Stockholm, Warsaw in the National Art Gallery, the Lithuanian National Art Gallery, The Kunsthalle Wien exhibition space in Vienna, etc. In 2016, he received the Kunsthalle Prize Vienna award.
18:00
Exhibition opening
Making of..! Vilnius exhibition opening.
Participating artists: Jaap Klevering (Finland/The Netherlands), Simonas Kuliešis (Lithuania), Marija Marcelionytė-Paliukė (Lithuania), Christoph Mügge (Sweden), Sebastian Mügge (Sweden), Tuomas Ollikainen (Finland), Merja Pennanen (Finland), Viljami Roivas (Finland).
Eight artists from different fields, participants of the international project “Making of..!”, transformed the Aartists‘ Association Gallery in Vilnius (Vokiečių str. 2) into a creative laboratory/studio from 29 September to 7 October. During this time, the artists have been creating new works by sharing a common space with each other and processes with the audience. It is a wonderful coincidence that during the „Art After Hours“ event the opening of the exhibition will take place with the participation of all artists! We invite you to share the mood, the conversations, the inspirations and the vibes of the night surrounded by the new works created by Making of…! artists‘ during their time in Vilnius.
Making of..! is an international multidisciplinary and participatory art event. What happens when artists work in the same space, for six days without any prior planning, interacting with each other and with the audience? Making of..! is an immersion into an open collective creative process, which poses the question: What kind of world do we want to create together?
Making of..! is the new normal: an artistic collaboration that is fully improvised, spontaneous and community-oriented. Making of..! rediscovers contemporary art in the sense that art is never ready, never final, it is constantly evolving and changing, just like life itself.
Project is supported by Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike)
19:00
Exhibition tour with curators
Exhibition and symposium Politics of Space.
29 September – 16 October Atletika gallery hosts an exhibition titled Politics of Space, presented as part of the symposium under the same title, which took place at cultural centre SODAS 2123 on 29 September – 2 October 2022.
The exhibition at Atletika gallery is presented as a continuation of the symopsium, showcasing the participants’ research and artworks, including unique work produced for the event. The exhibition will run until 16 October.
21:30-23:30
Meeting with an artist Kristina Norvilaitė
Kristina Norvilaitė exhibition of graphic works Unseen Sky Signs.
“The changeable natural world triggers unseen celestial signs. For me, the sky is like a book of inspiration. I imagine how our ancestors used to read the celestial phenomena every day to help them live. They knew when to sow or reap. The sky was not like a physical reality but a mystical source of information. I used the signs of the sky to create these works,” says the artist.
Exhibition Vortex by Rimas Sakalauskas.
In the exhibition Vortex, R. Sakalauskas will seek to present the “true” reality alongside the virtual experience and to see how similar and how different these two realities are. In the two-part exhibition, visitors will see a kinetic interactive installation, which can be experienced through virtual reality headsets, and the video work Reversed. The soundtrack for the latter was composed by Linas Rimša and performed by the Kristupas Quintet (song title – 4 Ten).
Open 24/7
An open-air sculpture garden at the MO Museum awaits you at any time of the day. The companionship by the works of the well-known Lithuanian sculptors.
Artists: Ksenija Jaroševaitė, Vincas Kisarauskas, Vladas Urbanavičius, Petras Mazūras, Donatas Jankauskas-Duonis, Mindaugas Navakas.
International Exhibition A Fluid State Of Mind: Baltic Painting In The Expanded Field
Participating artists: Niklas Ingelius, Atis Izands, Agnė Juodvalkytė, Madara Kvēpa, Leelo Mai, Kristen Rastas, Ansis Rozentāls, Jurgis Tarabilda, Karolis Vaivada, Laura Veļa, Linda Vilka.
Curator: Sandra Strēle.
Since the advent of photography and the subsequent rapid development of video and digital technologies, it has been considered that painting as a medium would be exhausted. However, the formation and interpretation of images in the individual’s perception of the world is such a prerequisite that these predictions were not and are not destined to come true. If the medium of painting is perceived as a tool for the creation and re-creation of images, in contemporary times it has become an art form capable of combining and incorporating a multitude of other media, such as installation, performance, video art and others.
Today, painting addresses its relationship both as an object and as a system of images, creating hybrid artworks somewhere between painting, objects, screens and texts. Painting in an expanded field embodies the tensions that arise from the simultaneous presence and absence of painting: electronic media, performative events and theoretical texts intervene. All these elements constitute a completely new practice of contemporary painting in need of a new name.
Australian art thinker and painter Mark Titmarsh compares the term ‘painting in the expanded field’ to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s idea of family similarities. Wittgenstein’s idea is based on the observation that individuals within a family or relatives may be visually different, but the similarity of certain elements, such as body composition, features, is evident. In the same way, in the extended field of painting, the works always retain at least one of the basic elements of painting, i.e. colour, surface, undertone etc. The cases of the young Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and Finnish artists featured in the exhibition are not extreme, but they tend to constantly question painting and its historical perception.
21:00-23:00
Meetings with an artist Morta Jonynaite
Morta Jonynaitė exhibition Square Root.
“Then the wrong words slipped out, your gaze held them in mid-air, the scorpion hiding under the skin began to scratch my cheeks, crawl on my ears. There was nowhere to hide, I am white, but the blush is spreading down, and on top of that, the memory is bringing up all the other exposing eyes.
That other time you were already far away, and I stood still, measuring the distance in my mind. And so, jealous of each other, we never met again, we exchanged clothes and became stock-still, and without saying goodbye we disappeared for good.”
In the installation created by Morta Jonynaitė, Galera’s spaces will turn into two hemispheres of the brain, entangled with shame and jealousy. Uncomfortable feelings take physical form and creep out of the head and into the public domain, becoming mediators of different experiences. The elements of the exhibition, created with slow textile techniques, record the extended time, trying to uproot unpleasant stories and create new ones.
20:00
Exhibition tour with curators Ieva Babilaite and Jolita Liškevičiene
The 5th Book Art Triennial exhibition titled O imago!
What can be surprising about the 5th iteration of the traditional Lithuanian book art exhibition? New names, mastered drawing technique, professional execution, colour combinations?
What is mesmerising in the display of the Lithuanian illustration triennial, which presents works by 40 contemporary illustrators created in the recent 4 years?
We invite you to seek answers to these questions by viewing the exhibition, leafing through its catalogue and taking note of the award winners.
Artists: Dovilė Bagdonaitė, Birutė Bikelytė, Patricija Bliuj-Stodulska, Inga Dagilė, Greta Duobienė, Lina Eitmantytė-Valužienė, Vaiva Frančiakaitė, Eglė Gelažiūtė-Petrauskienė, Jokūbas Griška, Viltė Haisch, Lina Itagaki, Vaiva Jalo, Kamilė Jankauskaitė, Simona Jurčiukonytė, Agnė Kananaitienė, Kęstutis Kasparavičius, Lena Klyukina, Eglė Kuckaitė, Greta Alice Liekytė, Indrė Lubytė, Marija Marcelionytė-Paliukė, Kristina Norvilaitė, Vanda Padimanskaitė, Evelina Paukštytė, Vidas Poškus, Jūratė Račinskaitė, Emilija Railaitė, Tania Rex, Deimantė Rybakovienė, Ugnė Rudinskaitė, Ula Rugevičiūtė Rugytė, Elena Selena, Ula Šimulynaitė, Ūla Šveikauskaitė, Reda Tomingas, Laura Tulaitė, Monika Vaicenavičienė, Kotryna Zylė, Kornelija Žalpytė, Marta Žuravskaja
Curated by Ieva Babilaitė and Jolita Liškevičienė
Authors of the project’s visual identity and education programme: Group O! –
Ieva Babilaitė, Rasa Jančiauskaitė, Aušra Kiudulaitė