September

(Joint exhibition of Kaunas and Vilnius artists “101,3 km: Competition and Cooperation“: CAC, Kaunas Picture Gallery, Gallery Meno Parkas) Kotryna Džilavjanaitė
www.kamane.lt, 2006 09 25

R. Antinis presented a mysterious laboratory in the glass cubes of which threatening creatures are being cloned.

Installation of Dainius Liškevičius “High Culture Unexplored Dream“ does not function without the audience. It is the first sign that the artwork wants to be important not only to itself.

The puzzle created by Audrius Novickas from all three-colour flags of the world, which has the role of the exhibition herald, does not remain unnoticed – it testifies directly that the real place of Lithuania is in Africa.

The gum airship of Kristina Inčiūraitė flying near the ceiling of the Picture Gallery may be called a laconic generalisation of Vilnius artists' presentation in Kaunas – the golden thought of the CAC cashier Ala is written brightly on it “When you do not think, perhaps you have nothing to say, right?“.

In brief: The idea to compare the art fields of Kaunas and Vilnius cherished by the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) for quite some time has been implemented finally. The title of the exhibition “101,3 km: Competition and Cooperation“ reveals the attempts of the supervisors (Linara Dovydaitytė, Kęstutis Kuizinas) to establish colleague-like relations and to provoke a kind of competition between the two cultural centres of Lithuania.

The principle to divide the Lithuanian contemporary art into two camps is partially motivated that Kaunas and Vilnius has different artistic traditions. Still, the attitude is surprising as the attempt to define “Kaunas” and “Vilnius” art does not correspond the mobile and universal character of contemporary art. Still, artists made use of this opposition, stereotypes related with one or another city and different cultural phenomena.

What we see in expositions is not a thorough reflection of contemporary Lithuanian art; still, the exhibition reflects the majority of phenomena prevailing in Lithuanian artworks. It is photography, installations, video, multimedia, new technologies art, and post-modern painting, one of the most perspective and interesting tendencies (the term is not the same as post-modern art).

The painters Agnė Jonkutė, Patricija Jurkšaitytė, Konstantinas Gaitanži, Kęstutis Grigaliūnas keep the relation with traditional art but rephrase it originally, use it for individual creative thoughts. The works of Vytenis Jankūnas and Sauliaus Paliukas may be attributed to this group as well.

Video art is still popular in Lithuania – a separate article would be needed after viewing all of the video works. Video works exhibited in Kaunas only last about 10 hours. The genre of installation has a rather strong position in the exhibition. The works of Robertas Antinis, Dainius Liškevičius, Audrius Novickas have already arisen many resonances. Special attention should be paid to authors who justify the topic of the project and emphasise the actual topics of own city. “Surnames” by Naglis Baltušnikas and “Position Kaunas” by Jurga Juodytė and Saulius Leonavičius stress the painful problem of Kaunas – migration towards Vilnius.

In general, it may be stated that the supervisors succeeded to prepare an interactive exposition arising discussions, even though there are some weak works in the exhibition spaces of both cities. Perhaps it is one of the minutes of CAC – the belief in recognised authors and admiration of fashionable directions of creation.