Antanas Gerlikas, Dunes, exhibition view at CAC, Vilnius, 2016. Photography: Artnews.lt
Antanas Gerlikas was recently nominated for the Paulo Cunha e Silva art prize. The prize, based in the city of Porto, has a monetary value of 25,000€ and is aimed at international artists aged under 40 who have had no more than one solo exhibition in art venues with an international reputation.
Jury team consists of: artist Juliao Sarmento, curator Joao Laia, choreographer Meg Stuart and advisory of the MACBA directorate Vincente Todoli. Among 16 nominators there are important names such as Hans Ulrich Obrist, Catherine Wood, Luis Silva &Joao Mourao. Shortlist all together includes 48 artists. Antanas Gerlikas was nominated by Kęstutis Kuizinas – director of Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, where last year Antanas Gerlikas had a solo show ‘Dunes’ curated by Virginija Januškevičiūtė.
This prize was created by the City Council of Porto as a tribute to Paulo Cunha e Silva, former Councillor for Culture. The winner will be announced by June 2017. The winner will present a solo exhibition in the following year in Galeria Municipal do Porto, the municipal public art space dedicated to the presentation of Portuguese and international contemporary art.
Antanas Gerlikas (b. 1978) works with sculpture, installation, objects, video and other media. Artist uses traditional materials, such as wood, copper, concrete. Although being crafty, his works are distant from reality, resembling a dream or a vision. They can be situated in between nature and culture, working as quasi-objects. According to the writer and curator Neringa Černiauskaitė “Gerlikas lets us look at the surroundings using new perception: to take a stroll through the museum from the dog‘s perspective, listen to the stories created by objects or produce our own fictional narratives”. In his solo show ‘Dunes’ at Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius (2016) Gerlikas was teasing the viewer into the realm of a very specific aesthetics that is formed through atmospheres, shades, architectural rhythms.
Artist has recently taken part in group exhibitions in Vilnius, Riga, Tartu, Bucharest, Rome, Athens, Moscow and Reykjavik. His solo exhibitions so far have been held at Plungė House for Culture (1999), Tulips & Roses gallery (with Liudvikas Buklys, 2008), CAC Vitrine (2011) and CAC Kitchen (2014), Art in General in New York (2013) and Objectif Exhibitions in Antverp (2013), Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius (2016).
More information about the prize: http://www.pcsartprize.com/artists
Antanas Gerlikas exhibition at Contempoary Art Centre, Vilnius, 2016 http://www.cac.lt/en/exhibitions/past/16/8221
