Kaunas Artists' House Lithuanian art news website
Skip to main content
The academician and public figure Leonidas Donskis compares Europe to a necklace consisting of very different parts. In his newest book ‘The Little Europe: a Map of an Aesthete’ he offers to examine the small beads of the necklace – towns that sometimes are invisible aside the large culture and power centres.
The textile artist Vita Gelūnienė’s tapestry ‘The Hunt of the Unicorn’ (2010-11) could be called a result of a monotonous work. The author chose a classical Gobelin weaving, which associates with a continuous interweaving of seams. A repetitive act becomes monotonous with clear links to the everyday. A colourful tapestry reveals domestic characters – a pregnant woman with slippers or a clockwork potbelly with a shopping bag. 5
The textile artist Vita Gelūnienė’s tapestry ‘The Hunt of the Unicorn’ (2010-11) could be called a result of a monotonous work. The author chose a classical Gobelin weaving, which associates with a continuous interweaving of seams. A repetitive act becomes monotonous with clear links to the everyday. A colourful tapestry reveals domestic characters – a pregnant woman with slippers or a clockwork potbelly with a shopping bag.
This other side of the line is the house of Audronė Petrašiūnaitė and I have been living in her ‘Red Room’ for a week already. A soft, pastel light and inhabitants of this house charmed me as Alice in the Wonderland. Playful cats, a white lamb, wine glasses, inwrought tablecloths and lush plants live in the rooms full of colours and intimacy. The everyday is sacred here and does not have the sense of boredom so usual for modern society. 7
This other side of the line is the house of Audronė Petrašiūnaitė and I have been living in her ‘Red Room’ for a week already. A soft, pastel light and inhabitants of this house charmed me as Alice in the Wonderland. Playful cats, a white lamb, wine glasses, inwrought tablecloths and lush plants live in the rooms full of colours and intimacy. The everyday is sacred here and does not have the sense of boredom so usual for modern society.
E. Balsiukaitė-Brazdžiūnienė opens the door into the world of children in her photography series ‘Homo Ludens Forever’ and painting series ‘Complex of Hamlet’. In her photographs, the artist shows moments from a kindergarten in Porto (Portugal). The author draws attention to the rules created and changed during a children’s game: roles are being set and life is being rehearsed. Adolescence becomes the centre of attention in her paintings; the painter sees every youngster as Hamlet - a young, stubborn yet fragile rebel.
The large-scale exhibition ‘Mirabile Visu’ (Wonderful to See) at Mykolas Žilinskas Art Gallery in Kaunas favours the sight and mind and allows to acknowledge the space anew. The curators of the show reveal the museum as a historical exhibit continuous in time and present the retrospective of its formation.
The biography of our prominent poet Maironis is interesting: it seems he was somehow related to many noted personalities, and Napoleon Bonaparte was amongst them. This summer a hyperbolised event will be held for Kaunas citizens and guests. Two hundred years ago the famous Napoleon and his mighty army appeared in Kaunas to jump over the river Nemunas in order to conquer Russia.
