On 26 January 2023, at 7 pm an exhibition Weather Forecasts by a group of young artists opens at Atletika gallery (Vitebsko 21, Vilnius).
The gallery spaces are filled with anxious echoes of today’s events. Brutal and confusing historical circumstances – so far known to the younger generation only in the form of myths, films, textbooks or some stories – draw us into a new whirlpool of reflection. They accumulate like sediments, like the fear of a never-ending storm, prompting to rethink the social structures that bind us together and the dominant models of the world. It is a collage of reverberations and echoes, reflecting on the inner turmoil of the artists and their environment.
This exhibition presents reflections on the environment and society – analysing urban change, niche communities and the specificity of their interactions, anticipated changes in the world and the expectations of creators, transformed into forecasts of our micro-climate. Are these just one-day weather fluctuations, or some climate anomalies becoming the new standard?
The exhibition will be followed by a programme of public events: guided tours with the artists will take place on Saturdays in February (4, 11, 18 February from 4 pm), and on 12 February at 6:30 pm an open poetry reading event will take place in the Events Hall at cultural centre SODAS 2123 (Vitebsko 23, Vilnius). The exhibition will run until 19 February.
Artists: Greta Eimulytė, Ona Barbora Šlapšinskaitė, Denisas Kolomyckis, Liudvikas Kesminas, Barbora Matonytė, Erikas Siliuk, Algis Sprindžiūnas, Norbert Hinc.
Exhibition architect: Matas Šatūnas
Curators: Indrė Urbelytė, Greta Eimulytė
Design: Domantė Nalivaikaitė
Opening evening: 26 January 2023, 7 pm.
Exhibition dates and times: 27 January – 19 February 2023, Wednesdays to Fridays 4-7 pm, Saturdays 1-6 pm, Sundays 1-4 pm.
February guided tours with artists on Saturdays, 4th, 11th, 18th February, 4 pm, no registration required.
Open poetry reading event: 12 February at 6:30 pm, in the Events Hall at cultural centre SODAS 2123 (Vitebsko 23, Vilnius).
Atletika gallery location: Vitebsko 21, Vilnius
Organised by Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association.
Activities of LIAA are funded by Lithuanian Council for Culture and Vilnius City Municipality. Main information partner 15min.
About the authors:
Barbora Matonytė is an artist of the younger generation, whose field of creative activity could be best described as a search for various sculptural expressions in an expanded field, space and experiential plane. Her work in the interdisciplinary medium is clearly distinguished by two main fields – visual art installations and sound art (soundwork) discourses and the possibilities of combining them.
Liudvikas Kesminas is a contemporary artist, often choosing the methodology of spatial installation, site-specific work or synthesis of different media in his creative practice. In his work various interactions intertwine, such as the integrity between the viewer and the artwork, the possibility of reusing the object and space, and the application of the rules of video games to life. All of the above become his creative strategies in the field of visual contemporary art.
Greta Eimulytė graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from the Department of Sculpture, Vilnius Academy of Arts. Recently, she has been interested in the relationship between architecture and the body, as well as the historical, cultural and psychological contexts related to it. The media used in her practice vary from drawing and text to objects, video and sound installations. Her work has been presented in various galleries in Lithuania and abroad, including the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, Lothringer 13 Halle in Munich, and the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania. She currently lives and works in Vilnius.
Algis Sprindžiūnas is a painter and installation artist. His work explores the relationship between virtuality and the sensory world, and the search for authenticity in the contemporary condition. In winter 2022 he opened his first solo exhibition ‘Blue screen Be real’ at gallery ‘Akademija’, and also presented his works in the digital exhibition space ‘IRGI Gallerija’.
Denisas Kolomyckis is an interdisciplinary artist, actor, public figure and activist. His creative practice encompasses different fields of artistic expression – dance, theatre, performance, installation and sculpture. His work usually deals with issues of social justice, human identity and sensitivity. Kolomyckis presented his work in various galleries in Lithuania, also in the United States as well as in many European countries. He is currently studying MA in Sculpture at the Vilnius Academy of Arts.
Norbert Hinc lives and works in Vilnius. He is currently interested in the vision of future monopolies in the world of technology. Hinc says that virtual reality and its vast possibilities are the main creative space where he fulfils himself by bringing his ideas to life.
Erikas Siliuk is an artist living and working in Vilnius. He is currently studying in the Master’s programme at the Sculpture Department of Vilnius Academy of Arts. He works with themes of memory and forgetting, exploring the possibilities of rethinking the problematic heritage of the 20th century.
Ona Barbora Šlapšinskaitė is a contemporary artist, graduated from the Vilnius Academy of Arts in 2022 with a Bachelor’s degree in Sculpture. Her creative field includes research on marginal communities, the transition of painting to spatiality, and the rendering of everyday experiences in artistic expression.
Matas Šatūnas is a sculptor, installation artist and exhibition technician. In his creative practice he focuses on architecture, interrelations between objects and urbanism. He graduated from the Vilnius Academy of Arts with a Bachelor’s degree in Sculpture and currently lives and works in Vilnius.
Indrė Urbelytė is a researcher on the history of 20th century Lithuanian art and curator of exhibitions. Currently she works as an art historian at the Kazys Varnelis House-Museum of the National Museum of Lithuania, and curates contemporary art exhibitions as well as other cultural projects in Kaunas and Vilnius. She studied in Vilnius, Paris and Brussels. In 2022, she was awarded by the Lithuanian Society of Young Researchers for the best Master’s thesis in the field of humanities.