Kaunas Artists' House Lithuanian art news website
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In brief: Kaunas State Musical Theatre started the 67th season in a rather unexpected manner. The collective of the theatre presented the sacral music piece by L.van Beethoven performed in the monumental Christ’s Resurrection Church on September 9. The Mass C major, the work encouraging spiritual concentration, sounded like a counterbalance of serious music for the promised merry premieres of the new season.
It was hot, the country roads looked white and dusty, the Lithuanian frontier was not far already. We turned to an old village. The graveyard appeared first, then – an old monumental pine in the middle of the village. Napoleon soldiers prayed at it once. The village was famous for its barn theatre.
I remember the painting “Old Hay and a Hoof” which I painted in Bikuškis estate of Dalia Gruodienė during the plein air in 2003. I could not understand why Arūnas kept saying to me that the work was like his: “You painted just like me here.”
“Such is the smell of life”. Sorrow clenches the throat. I feel Arūnas standing on the left during the mass – he is smiling and nodding at me. I know this smile: “That’s it, oms*.”
In brief: Even a bat-eyed person will notice that Kaunas has changed remarkably during the last decade – old buildings are being restored, renovated and adapted to the present-day needs, new buildings of contemporary architecture are arising nearby. The face of Kaunas getting modern receives much criticism of specialists, especially regarding the intrusion of new architecture into the New Town and Old Town.
In brief: We have one bright dominant in Kaunas in regard to the height at the moment – the monumental Christ Resurrection Church (the height of the main tower reaches ~ 63 m). However, there are several signs that the situation may change in a short while. The special plan of locating high-rise buildings in Kaunas was approved of in spring of 2007 after long considerations which lasted almost a dozen of years. The plan grants the possibility to Kaunas to carry out the construction of untypical high-rise buildings in various places of the city.
In brief: Useless things in the exhibition “Talking of Useless Things” are objects of waste art created by fourteen artists from the Republic of South Africa. At the same time these objects represent the details of daily life from the distant land, signs of culture which causes curiosity. The content of the exposition reflects the situation of African art well. The traditions of local crafts are alive in the African continent, and professional art is poorly developed.
