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Algis Lankelis, Audrius Novickas, Paul
Rodgers and SEAS presents Location: Installations:
Didžioji Street 3, 5, Vilnius Dates: Symposium:
August 5 - August 25,1996
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"And what is actual is actual only for one
time Unquestionably, the most significant exhibit of the international visual arts symposium was a ruined house on Didzioji St. (in a state of exitus letalis) and the main participant was the all-devouring and ruminating time. Therefore, it is no offence that the twenty four (not the "24") European artists who came to Vilnius in August, in search for the forgotten present, have been likened by me to bag-like coelenterates - polyps, "which, by one of their ends (base) are attached to a substratum" (see, Dictionary of International Words). Such collective art may be called an installation, but then the field of vision would be much narrower and it would not reveal its ritual character. Significant is not only the place itself. Of great importance is the process of entering it, moving up and down (in Skema rhythm) to the left- and to the right-, circulating round the house through the gate. Accompanied by sound (ohos in the cellar) and light effects, the action creates a situation which can be experienced exclusively by the participant himself. Animate art is experienced without mediators. Thus, there is no sense in describing the ritual of bringing the House No.3 back to life (resurrection); it is worthwhile just to define the space, the time and the thought flashing across them.
THOUGHT. Conceptual one of the most impressive works is "The Communicating Vessels" by Algis Lankelis. Especially those parts of the work which are torn off from the direct meaning of a vessel (e.g. a bottle of liquid): a clock with its face half-filled with blue liquid, a bulb, a thermometer, a face in an old book. These objects mark different spheres, the symbolic meaning of which dominantes over the functional one: the clock does not go, the bulb does not work, the book is just a frame for a portrait. But at the same time they are all linked by invisible ties. By the author's attentive eye, which meets and sees you off, the artist, the work and the perceiver are united into one chain. In this work, the postmodernistic move "from object to meaning and from object to subject" (E.Gellner) is most obvious. Just the opposite to the volatile dream-like surrealistic visions of Lankelis, is an iron "bed" of Gediminas Akstinas. Although trivially expressed, the title of the work defines the existential and philosophical dimension of this object: "Begins with a bed, and ends with a bed". When the room is furnished just with a huge bed, I think, there is no need to confirm this twice in written form. The metaphysical formula of birth and death is expressed not only by a homelife image but also by a homelife spell. Perhaps, this was the aim of the author. I cavilled at the title, but there is nothing to find fault with the work itself - Akstinas is skilfully fixing iron horseshoes onto archetypes. Surely, any classification is a matter of agreement. Everyone groups in hid own way. All works reveal themselves in space and time, and it is the thought that gives birth to all of them. A staged intervention (Paul Rodgers' caricatures of policemen in the cellar), if a slide project gets out of order, is even more impreceptible then subtle encrustations. "It is like children playing with scissors, paper and stone: the scissors cut the paper, the paper wraps the stone and the stone makes the scissors blunt. None of them is steadily dominating - it is instability that essentially dominates" (E. Gellner). This is why I shall go on playing as TIME follows my heels. Temporary art (such is installation) lacks and yearns for eternity, therefore, it desperately attempts to get hold of objects and places buried by time and to climb up a little on a pile of dust as if on stilts. Of desperation, temporary turns into temporal - important is not only the scene but its duration as well. Temporariness of such art is its pride and despair. We are proud while saying that we do not create monuments to our megalomania. Important to us is the process itself, associating with people and voices of sirens in a barrel of wine. But later we hurry to cover our works with coloured photographs because such art really exist in catalogues: the volume loses to the plane, visual variant - to the photogenic one. It seems so when you stare at the two-dimensional fragments of ruin in a publication issued Post factum. Say three times "pelesiais ir kerpem" ("overgrown with lichen and mould", a line from a famous poem by Lithuanian poet Maironis on the ruin of a castle in Trakai) and kiss the paper through a handkerchief. As smudge of the catalogue smells of typographical paint which does not come off with rain. Laima Kreivytė _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
An International visual arts symposium in the old Town of Vilnius Participants: Gediminas Akstinas, Heather Allen, Augusustinas Beinaravičius, HF Blondeau, Samuel Brown, Philip Coy, Tomaš Hlavina, Martine Hoyas, Martin Janiček, Caroline Jupp, Kaisu Koivisto, Algis Lankelis, Patrick Lebret, Leila Luukka, Tomasz Matuszak, Frederick Meynier, Vytautas Mikšionis, Audrius Novickas, Paul Rodgers, Paul Kuzemczak, Tiina Vainio, Maria Wasko, Theres Weackerlin, Agata Zobrist. Organizers: Algis Lankelis, Audrius Novickas, Paul Rodgers and SEAS. This symposium was made possible by the generous support of the following persons and organizations: Lithuanian Ministry of Culture, Municipality of Vilnius, Soros center for Contemporary arts - Lithuania, Art Academy of Vilnius, Lithuanian Artist's Association, French Embassy in Lithuania, Centre Culturel Francais Oscar Milosz (CCCL), AFAA, Foundation of Sports and the Arts, Finnish Embassy in Lithuania, Nordic countries Information Bureu in Vilnius, Lithuanian Airlines, Vilnius Teachers House. The artists taking part in the symposium "Forgotten Present" will be working on two nonfunctioning residences buil in 17-18th centuries. In addition to the preparation of the installations, there will also be informal roundtable discussions and preservations on each of the artists work. All lectures and discussions are free and open to the public, and will take place on Latako Street 6. For more information, please contact Algis Lankelis or Audrius Novickas. Contact: Audrius Novickas SEAS |
"Old,
abandoned, run-down buildings possess a kind of semantic openness in addition
to their physical emptiness; this openness to meaning and definition is
a temporarily blank fragment emerging amongst the more colourful tesserae
of other cultural forms and patterns. Sooner or later, however, the tranquillity
of these quite buildings will be dispelled; the emptiness will be filled;
the buildings will become luxury hotels, money-making offices, modern stores.
SPACE.
Rarefied: no things, no people, just a bare carcass with orifices. Constustions,
shaking with senility, are neither by thick-skinned atlantes, nor by thickheaded
caryatids but by openwork "Laces For Exterior and Interior" (Audrius
Novickas). Indeed, the inner and outer space freely merge not only at the
opening of doors and windows (horizontal, everyday plane) but also at "the
gate of heavens" (vertical line) in Martin Hoyas' room (France). The
artist, however, did not strive to reach the beyond - the heaven has descended
upon the white hall by itself. It is not a mystical vision - nature is
forcing an entry into culture by its smell and clots of time. The ruins
resemble a creature, breathing hard, shedding its hair, emptying its bowels
and licking its sore knees. Plaster scurf is flaking from its hair, its
chapped and blistered skin is coming off and its body parasitically reproduces
moulds, cats and artistic ideas. Wet with rain, the paper peels off and
creations under the dripping roof are subject to the rhythm of nature.
It is cold and wet in the house as well as outdoors - a symbolic boundary
between the town and the wood disappears. Thus, "Šilelis"
(a small pinewood and also a name of a TV set) by Augustinas Beinaravičius,
grown up vigorously between classical literature and Post-Modernism, is
a creation, symptomatic of this symposium, swinging between this world
and the beyond. In a grove of television sets the Lithuanian mourns over
other people's lives and breathes the fresh air of the other nature.
Depending
on the way works of art have settled in the porous - stopped up space,
they may be likened to encrustation, intervention or scenery staging. Encrustators
display neither masterpieces, nor repliques, but craquelures. It is most
essential for them to preserve the split, weak and flaking off existence,
fragility of which (i.e. temporariness) gives it human dimension. Minimalistic
works, though simple in their form, are deep in their contents: Martin Hoyas
overlays the premises with white paper, purposefully leaving some places
uncovered, to attract the visitor's attention to the multi-layered "mural-painting";
Martin Janicek (the Chech Republic) encrusts wooden joists with glittering
foil. The meaning of encrustation is revealed in the title of Philip Coy's
work (Great Britain): "Brushing up the Hidden Knowledge". Dusting,
washing and polishing a circle in a parquet surface, reading past (future)
lives like imprints of photographs on the wall (Heather Allen, Great Britain).
Simply writing on the window: "The Forgotten Present" (Poul Kuzemczak,
Great Britain). Filled with sacred reverance to the (given) place, all
these works as if say: how poor is the language of contemporary arts and
how deep is the meaning of time. Some of the artists dare not intrude the
place and wish to remain invisible, focusing the essence of work in the
title (hardly perceivable "Sketches of an Egyptian Coffin").
Surprising indeed, is the "high-voltage" link by Kaisu Koivisto
(Finland): "A Heating System" interlaced with cow horns. It resembles
hollow serpents that have hatched out from primeval chaos. Maybe they symbolize
an attempt to trick the deconstructing mind?
The authors
of scenes "stage" the surroundings by "dressing" the
premises in new clothes - old books (Theres Waeckerlin, Agatha Zobrist,
Switzerland) or dried herbs (Marija Wasko, Poland, "Maria's Room").
Some authors use light effects: "the Blue Room", by Tiina Vainio
(Finland) and "Absolute Realism - Blue Sky" by Vytautas Mikšionis.
The rooms resemble a stga before action or a film slip. Sometimes the first
gesture can only be guessed (unfinished cardboard "sky" of Mikšionis);
walking on the beams between hanging mirrors one may easily lose his balance
(HF Blondeau "Houla"). A perfectly performed stage is Caroline
Jupp's (great Britain) "Beauty Salon": an empty shell-like hairdresser's
chair with a helmet-like fan in one hall and an antique arm-chair in another
one. At this throne, in front of a large mirror, a professional hairdresser
is working, realizing renovation ideas and rejecting the out-of-dates ones.
For encrustors
it is most essential to adapt themselves to the surroundings, for stage-makers
- to change it by giving it new features and creating a certain mood. For
interventionists the surrounding is just the background. Their works (most
often three-dimensional objects) might exist in another place as well -
coherence between them and the surroundings is not extremely vital, although,
formally, they are well put together. Such attitude towards space is determined
by a special accent put on the work's form and its meaning. Relatively,
to this group may belong: Audrius Novickas, Paul Rodgers ("Future
Perfect"), Frederick Meiner, Samuel Brown, Gediminas Akstinas and
Algis Lankelis.