ARTSCAPE FRANCE: Pierre Labat and Tomas Martišauskis at gallery VARTAI, Vilnius

September 6, 2011
Author Echo Gone Wrong
Published in News from Lithuania

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Unitl the 30th of September, 2011, an exhibition ARTSCAPE FRANCE, curated by Augustina Matusevičiūtė and representing a young French and a Lithuanian artists Pierre Labat and Tomas Martišauskis is held in the VARTAI gallery, Vilnius (Vilniaus 39).

ARTscape – is a long term interdisciplinary project introducing contemporary art from future and former European Capitals of Culture. This time ARTscape: France will present works by the French artist Pierre Labat. Alongside the Frenchman, Lithuanian artist Tomas Martišauskis will present his latest installation. The two solo shows in the gallery space could be seen as two monologues about transition between sculpture and installation and their interaction with the viewer.

Pierre Labat (b. 1977) is an up and coming French artist who has had several exhibitions in the main contemporary art venues in France, such as Palais de Tokyo in Paris, ACDC Gallery in Bordeaux, Art-Cade Gallery in Marseilles and has been awarded a prestigious residency grant at the Villa Kujoyama (Kyoto, Japan) in 2010. Labat is concerned with the sensuality of the urban architecture and the atmosphere it creates. His works vary from monumental outdoor sculpture to the architectural and sculptural interventions in a gallery space. The premise of his practice involves the viewer as the spectator and the navigator of artificially created environments similar to the aesthetic of Minimalist art. Labat believes that through the interaction with three-dimensional sculpture the viewer brings in the fourth dimension – the time of experience.

ARTscape: France will present two site-specific projects by Pierre Labat specially made for the spaces of VARTAI gallery. The keyword for understanding the two projects is ‘borders’. He uses geometrical three-dimensional volumes made from natural materials to physically correspond with the architecture of the space while manipulating with the viewers perception by creating optical, symbolic and physical hurdles. Mathematically calculated relationship with the space invites individual reflection on the concept of visible and invisible borders. For his installations Labat uses local resources and materials and once the show is over, the objects have to be dissembled in order to lose their artefactual essence and ‘go back’ to being an ordinary object, thus completing the cycle of the artwork.

Lithuanian artist Tomas Martišauskis (b. 1977) will present his latest project, which is a postmodern take on the relationship between sculptural matter and the space. Using contemporary technologies he translates a specific sculptural object into various mediums thus expanding the notion of traditional sculpture. Even though the primary object will not be exhibited, its 3D, video and audio renditions become what the artist describes as ‘authentic copies’. Paradoxical relationship between authenticity and a copy enables to see different aspects of the object: its interior and exterior, its sound, plasticity in animation and in the structural drawing.