The idea was born in the autumn of 2018, when photographer Ar\u016bnas Balt\u0117nas visited the USA and met New York\u2013based artists K\u0119stutis Zapkus (b. 1938), \u017dilvinas Kempinas (b. 1969), Vytenis Jank\u016bnus (b. 1961), and Julius Ludavi\u010dius (b. 1969). Later in Paris he also visited Paris-based artists R\u016bta Jusionyt\u0117 (b. 1978) and the duo SetP Stanikas (Svajon\u0117 b. 1961 and Paulius b. 1962) and had a chat with them.<\/p>\n
Visitors attentive to the contemporary art exhibitions will not find these artists a novelty. Yet this event brings into museum space not only artwork, but the people behind it, the individualities, life stories and careers of the famous artists living outside Lithuania. Among them, only K\u0119stutis Zapkus experienced an enforced exile, he left Lithuania at the age of six and received his art education abroad. Most of these artists, though, are voluntary experts of migration who chose to live in foreign countries seeking a broader context, attracted by the power of the international art centres, traditions and influences, inspired by the prospects different from their home country. Their art is now produced \u2018between\u2019 the two, ancestral and their current, worlds. The artists live in \u2018parallel time\u2019, both here and there, as once was put by \u017dilvinas Kempinas. Or \u2018neither here, nor there\u2019, but in their studio, according to R\u016bta Jusionyt\u0117.<\/p>\n
This group of exiles, surely, has no common stylistic nucleus, but is a rainbow of different idioms, detached from the dialect of the exiles of the first half of the 20th century who guarded the national style and theme. These artists avidly observe the thriving reality around them, recording the cosmopolitan exotics of New York subway (Jank\u016bnas) or designing completely original forms of intellectual abstractions (Zapkus), indulging in exuberant baroque forms (SetPStanikas) or installations of conceptual minimalism (Kempinas), marrying in unique ways the image and abstraction (Ludavi\u010dius). Their conversations with the photography artist Balt\u0117nas, together with his photographic images, take the viewer backstage of these artists\u2019 persona encountered at exhibitions. In contrast to an art critic, reporter or theorist, he approaches his colleagues with the feeling of empathy and the sense of kinship, encouraging them to share their ideas and the nuts and bolts of their artistic practice. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The exhibition includes contemporary work from the collections of the Lithuanian<\/em>\u00a0Expatriate\u00a0Art Foundation<\/em>, Lewben Art Foundation, MO Museum, the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, the Arts Bridge (Men\u0173 tiltas) Gallery and Gallery Vartai. The agglomeration of different media \u2013 texts, interviews, documentary photography and visual works functions as a multi-layered narrative about Lithuanian artists in the world and sets the scene for revisiting of the concepts of \u00e9migr\u00e9 and exile, of diaspora and new traditions. These traditions are no longer linked to the dramatic historical narratives of the first half of the 20th century, but still perform the function of communicating experience despite of it being only a fragmented, varied and ephemeral whole.<\/p>\n Organizer Vytautas Kasiulis Museum of Art<\/p>\n Partners: Lewben Art Foundation, Lithuanian Expatriate Art Foundation, MO Museum, Art Gallery \u2018Arts Bridge\u2019<\/p>\n Curator Birut\u0117 Pank\u016bnait\u0117<\/p>\n Architect Povilas Vincentas Jank\u016bnas<\/p>\n Translator Irena Jomantien\u0117<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The idea was born in the autumn of 2018, when photographer Ar\u016bnas Balt\u0117nas visited the USA and met New York\u2013based artists K\u0119stutis Zapkus (b. 1938), \u017dilvinas Kempinas (b. 1969), Vytenis Jank\u016bnus (b. 1961), and Julius Ludavi\u010dius (b. 1969). Later in Paris he also visited Paris-based artists R\u016bta Jusionyt\u0117 (b. 1978) and the duo SetP Stanikas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21288,"template":"","tags":[],"department":[81],"parodos-zymos":[195],"class_list":["post-21287","paroda","type-paroda","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","department-vytautas-kasiulis-museum-of-art","parodos-zymos-paroda"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n