"Sheets and Splashes. Leisure in 20th and 21st century Lithuanian art"
On 14th July exhibition "Sheets and Splashes. Leisure in 20th and 21st century Lithuanian art" was opened at the National Gallery of Art. In the exhibition these matters were revisited as the curators looked through almost thirty public and private collections in search of images of leisure in the artefacts of Lithuania’s modern visual culture: painting, graphic art, sculpture, photography, applied art, contemporary art, advertising, feature and documentary films, and amateur art. Seven artworks for the exhibition were loaned by the the Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE.
What do people do when they don't have to do anything? When they are no longer limited by office walls, not obliged to work to cover their basic needs, and when business hours are officially over? Whatever we choose - to stay at home, to hang out in the neighborhood, to go out, to escape into nature, to immerse our feet in the sea or to travel abroad, this choice is determined not only by our personal wishes, but also by social and economic possibilities and the available infrastructure.
In Lithuania, which has lived through long years of oppression and hardship, leisure is a complicated concept. After long decades of denying ourselves so many things, what do we envisage when we hear the word "leisure"? The images that come to mind - are they memories of our experiences, or do they come from art, cinema, advertising? We revisited these questions as we were looking through almost thirty public and private collections in search of images of leisure in the artefacts of Lithuania's modern visual culture: painting, graphic art, sculpture, photography, applied art, contemporary art, advertising, feature and documentary films, and amateur art.
Works by more than a hundred creators and archival material allow us to observe how the ways of maintaining mental and physical health were shifting in this country during the last century, which activities remained unchanged, and which motifs did not cease to pique artists' interest despite political and ideological shifts. The panoramic view offered by the exhibition shows the activities that are presumed to arouse only positive emotions, and alongside, attention is drawn to personal and collective tensions inside or around the exhibited works.
Exhibition curators: Goda Aksamitauskaitė, Eglė Juocevičiūtė, Austėja Tavoraitė
On 14th July exhibition "Sheets and Splashes. Leisure in 20th and 21st century Lithuanian art" was opened at the National Gallery of Art. In the exhibition these matters were revisited as the curators looked through almost thirty public and private collections in search of images of leisure in the artefacts of Lithuania’s modern visual culture: painting, graphic art, sculpture, photography, applied art, contemporary art, advertising, feature and documentary films, and amateur art. Seven artworks for the exhibition were loaned by the the Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE.
What do people do when they don't have to do anything? When they are no longer limited by office walls, not obliged to work to cover their basic needs, and when business hours are officially over? Whatever we choose - to stay at home, to hang out in the neighborhood, to go out, to escape into nature, to immerse our feet in the sea or to travel abroad, this choice is determined not only by our personal wishes, but also by social and economic possibilities and the available infrastructure.
In Lithuania, which has lived through long years of oppression and hardship, leisure is a complicated concept. After long decades of denying ourselves so many things, what do we envisage when we hear the word "leisure"? The images that come to mind - are they memories of our experiences, or do they come from art, cinema, advertising? We revisited these questions as we were looking through almost thirty public and private collections in search of images of leisure in the artefacts of Lithuania's modern visual culture: painting, graphic art, sculpture, photography, applied art, contemporary art, advertising, feature and documentary films, and amateur art.
Works by more than a hundred creators and archival material allow us to observe how the ways of maintaining mental and physical health were shifting in this country during the last century, which activities remained unchanged, and which motifs did not cease to pique artists' interest despite political and ideological shifts. The panoramic view offered by the exhibition shows the activities that are presumed to arouse only positive emotions, and alongside, attention is drawn to personal and collective tensions inside or around the exhibited works.
Exhibition curators: Goda Aksamitauskaitė, Eglė Juocevičiūtė, Austėja Tavoraitė