calendario eventi  :: 




8/12/2005

Supernova

Contemporary Art Centre - CAC, Vilnius

Geometric abstraction has never ceased to fascinate by its intellectual rigour and formal purity; the exhibition 'Supernova' brings together a group of works by contemporary British artists which examines the evolution and continuing relevance of this genre in the 21st century. Largely comprising paintings, the exhibition also includes projection works. Our space is packed with various waves, not registered by our eyes; thus, we live in an invisible world. This is the starting point for the installations Gints Gabrans. 'Emission 2005: Darius Ziura', the artworks displayed were created while the artist was traveling to remote villages in Lithuania and taking the pictures of girls whom he encountered during his trip.


comunicato stampa

Supernova

Artists:
Haluk Akakce,
Philip Allen,
Keith Coventry,
Liam Gillick,
Gary Hume,
Sarah Mooris,
Dan Norton,
Toby Paterson,
Tony Swain,
Jane and Louise Wilson,
JohnWood and Paul Harrison,
Richard Wright and Toby Zeigler.

Curator: Caroline Douglas

The high-water mark of Modernist theory in the early twentieth century, geometric abstraction has never ceased to fascinate by its intellectual rigour and formal purity.

Supernova brings together a group of works by contemporary British artists which examines the evolution and continuing relevance of this genre in the 21st century.
The youngest of the artists represented in Supernova, Toby Zeigler and Dan Norton use digital technology to a greater or lesser degree, as a new means of exploring the formal spatial and architectural concerns which have always been central to this form of abstraction. In the early years of the machine age, geometric abstraction spoke of absolutes of modernity, both technological and ideological. In the same way as Piet Mondrian’s iconic Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942) has been seen as a celebration of the vibrant modernity of New York, these younger British artists forefront new media techniques in their re-figuring of this genre for a new era.

Artists from a previous generation in the exhibition such as Gary Hume and Keith Coventry made ironic reference to early 20th century abstraction. In Coventry’s case the references to Suprematist painting served to illustrate the failure of utopian discourses. Similarly, Jane and Louise Wilson’s projection Monument (Apollo Pavilion, Peterlee, 2003) features Victor Pasmore’s sculpture for the post-war new town: an unloved relic of an era of confidence in an egalitarian future. By contrast, Liam Gillick’s work suggests a continuing optimism in the positive social influence of the built environment.

Supernova features 13 artists, with work covering the past decade. Largely comprising paintings, the exhibition also includes projection works. Works in the exhibition have been drawn from the British Council collection, private lenders and other collections.

Organizer: British Council

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Invisible
Special Effects of a Parallel World

Gints Gabrans' solo show

Solo exhibition of the prizewinner of the Hansabank Art Award of the Baltic Countries. Hansabank continues its cooperation with the Estonian Center for Contemporary Arts through a comprehensive arts support program. Until 2003, the art award was conferred only on Estonian artists (Marko Laimre, 2000; Ene-Liis Semper, 2001; Marko Maetamm, 2002). Starting in 2003, nominations were received from all three Baltic countries (the 2003 Award Winner was Lithuanian artist Arturas Raila). Gints Gabrans's works are based on an analysis of power and the values of mass media.

Back to Infinity

Glowing TV and computer monitors, the rig-tone melodies of mobile telephones that interrupt our silence and conversations, the wireless Internet: our space is packed with various waves, not registered by our eyes, which are familiar with only a small part of the light spectrum. Thus, we live in an invisible world. This is the starting point for the installations by Latvian artist Gints Gabrans presented at the Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius.
Seeing and understanding have been related for time immemorial; people even say 'I see’ instead of 'I understand’. This lies at the heart of the Renaissance drawing and the meticulous construction of orthogonal lines meeting at a single vanishing point to imitate seeing from single point perspective. However, everything got complicated in the 20th century: it became apparent that seeing apprehended only a small fragment of the world. Therefore, to see already means to be restricted: by distance and a singular point of view. Seeing may give only a subjective and incomplete understanding, but the illusions of clarity created by vision hinder us from 'seeing’ this.
This is why Gints Gabrans is trying to disturb this sense; he destroys the preconditions of clear sight and creates optical deceptions. Not so that we could have extreme experiences (like being drenched in the grey rain of late autumn), but so that we would doubt the objectivity and veracity of our sight, would hover for a while in the unknown and open other channels of perception. For instance, our eyes tell us that the huge gate built by Gabrans, titled “Passing through the walls", is dead closed with a blank wall of frosted matt glass. However, it is possible to walk through it and 'burn’ briefly while rupturing the beam of light. To create this illusion the artist needed many different things: a mechanical smoke screen, building materials, projectors and thorough handwork, because the slightest deviation might destroy the illusion. And what is this all for? Is it only to surprise us a little? Or, do these 'special effects’ help us pass into what the symbolism of the gate suggests: somewhere between two spaces of a different kind? Maybe, one could pass into the world that exists, never visited, parallel to this one that does not have a name — move from daily life to the space of art, light and even faith?
There is no answer: the artist does not help either with titles or with explanations. The direction and richness of experience depend on the package not so much of knowledge, but of sensitivity brought by the observer to the apparatus; from the ability to grant greater significance to a single moment (after all, you only pass through a virtual wall) than the 'common’ sense busy with routine allows. Also from the readiness to negate the visible wall by bisecting it, by the means of an action to open what looks closed - the invisible world, usually inaccessible, becomes apparent. The viewer has, in fact, to open the gate.
This is much easier in case of the installation with the mirror work titled “Parallel space" in which the reflection of those present in front of it slowly disappears. Of course, this is also a simple trick well known to illusionists (I will not betray its secret so as not to destroy the suspense). It is possible to see it just this way. But mirrors have always taken minds and imaginations to unknown territories: a mirror is also a kind of gate, only to a space that no device can reach or test. Let’s remember what Alice was doing 'behind the looking glass’ or the suspicious and unpleasant doubles that inspired Freud to write his text about the uncanny, which blurs the border between good and evil, imagination and reality, being and non-being and makes the demons of the unconscious public. The ability of the mirror to imitate life precisely and reverse it has been the subject of reflection and the source of mystic experiences forever and a day. The idea of photography was also born from mirrors as the dream to preserve the reflection, peal it off and put it into the archive of memories.
Vanishing and transparent human figures are a well-known phenomenon in photography. For a pragmatic eye they mean only that the exposition has been long and the impatient subject stood up and left before his image could be firmly fixed. From a quasi-materialist point of view, he or she has left less of their molecules on the print than they might have, and remain not fully appropriated by photography. However for those who tend to lift the obvious layer of photography and explore what is hidden under it (as behind the mirror) those imperceptible shadows have always meant more: they are messengers from the world of spirits, following us everywhere and never withdrawing (what photography shows is 'objective’, the 'truth’). Similarly, the mirror placed here by Gabrans should transfer us to the magically spooky 'other’ side (of the mirror, photography, reality, life) at least for a while.
If not, then there is also the mirror cylinder “Generator": producing a space that does not leave any points of reference, in which reflections merge into infinity. People say that it one could go mad inside it: it is simply obligatory to test this statement. In any case, after having crossed two gates we are already in the mirror itself: as much as it is possible to get into it by the means of light and cumbersome materials. Perhaps, Alice had a chance to experience more picturesque adventures, easier to narrate and tug at our attention, but that mirror was fictitious. Whereas Gabrans brings us into a real physical mirror, thus at least a little bit acquainting us with infinity and that immense world of physical waves that exist around us - invisibly.
Perhaps through his work, the gate, the vanishing reflections, Gabrans finally brings us into the realm of eye itself? The eye is also a mirror in a sense: when light passes through its lens it produces an inverse reflection on the retina. Yet is it possible to expand the power/understanding of seeing while inside the mechanism of seeing? Or when other perspectives have been cut off and we have penetrated the 'I of seeing’, has the possibility of seeing from a distance, and 'objectively’ been lost? No, the special effects of a parallel world do not take us to this direction. Instead, having passed through the gate, we should forget physics and plunge into metaphysics, and consider that our presence inside something like an eye changes something in our head.
Agne Narusyte

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Emission 2005: Darius Ziura
"Portraits"

The artworks displayed in this exhibition were created while the artist was traveling to remote villages in Lithuania and taking the pictures of girls whom he encountered during his trip.
This is a collection of glimpses of contemporary Lithuania. The portraits have been created with minimal resources, without any use of additional light and artificial constructing of reality. According to the artist, he merely records everything around him trying to be as neutral with regard to the observed reality as possible. Although the images are absolutely objective, they do not aim at definite conclusions and leave enough space for conscious imagination. This is a unique research balancing between objectivity and 'documentary' fiction.

Started in 2004 a series of monographic exhibitions called EMISIJA (EMISSION) introduces the most important Lithuanian artists who during the previous decade have constituted a new language of contemporary Lithuanian art. These artists have received a rich attention from the critics; they have participated in the important local contemporary art exhibitions and have represented Lithuania abroad on numerous occasions.

Image: Richard Wright, Untitled, 2004

Contemporary Art Centre
Vokieciu 2 LT- 01130 Vilnius Lithuania
opening hours: TUESDAY - SUNDAY 12:00 - 20:00
tickets: Full price - 6 Litas. Price with discount - 3 Litas. On Wednesdays discount for everybody

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