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Call for Applications: 17th International Vilnius Painting Triennial

Lithuanian Artists’ Association inviting artists from all Baltic Region and Poland to apply for 17th International Vilnius Painting Triennial. Event exhibitions will take place in December 2020 – January 2021 in Vilnius, Lithuania. This year organizers actualizes the conditions for freedom in the context of global instability, contemplating them as an expectation intertwined in everyday life like a promise of a future reality.

We live in turbulent times. Cataclysms, information wars, pandemics, biological weapons, ecological disasters, refugee crises, annexations, and other dangers encroach on the global illusion of security. The various social, cultural, political, religious ideologies and dogmas that establish the so-called meta-narratives define the autonomy of the individual and seek to subordinate it to conveniently controlled apparatuses of power. Today, natural human freedom is a utopian aspiration rather than an indisputable task.

Metanarratives shape and maintain different cultural meanings, social relationships, define their boundaries and “safe” and “supervising” societal structures, and resistance and liberation occur as a symptom of isolation. According to M. Foucault, isolation is a condition for the development of individualization. The acute isolation that has befallen us today, inevitably leads to a state of uncertainty, the unknown, and anxiety about the future.

Art in such a determined, i.e. conditioned state acts as a creative power questioning control and free will, discovered through autonomy and rebellion. Creation is sparked by resistance, which sometimes results from internal antagonism and sometimes from external fields of tension. We live in a time that requires us to be constantly alert and anxious. By changing its forms, opposing control, combining individualization and the social plane, contemporary painting becomes a procedural form of social discourse or at least an opportunity for it. This year’s triennial actualizes the conditions for freedom in the context of global instability, contemplating them as an expectation intertwined in everyday life like a promise of a future reality.

In the context of this triennial, the metanarrative as a control mechanism and isolation as a condition of freedom will be contextually disseminated in the premises of the Museum of Applied Arts (the Arsenal, i.e. the Arms Warehouse) adjacent to the former guardhouse, barracks and/or the Bastion of Defense.

The triennial exhibitions will take place in December 2020 – January 2021. The triennial program will consist of selected collections, invited artists’ group exhibition and various artistic events.

Vilnius Painting Triennial is organized by Lithuanian Artists’ Association since 1969. This traditional project functions as a representative review of contemporary painting as well as reflection of social, cultural, civic, historical, political issues through art. This year triennial is dedicated to Anniversary of 85 years of establishment of organization.

Organizer: Lithuanian Artists’ Association.
Main partners: The Lithuanian National Museum of Art / National Museum of Lithuania.
Main sponsor: Lithuanian Council for Culture.

WE INVITE ARTISTS TO SUBMIT APPLICATIONS FOR PARTICIPATION IN THE TRIENNIAL SELECTION

Applications are accepted until September 30, 2020, via this e-mail: evelina@ldsajunga.lt

APPLICATION SUBMISSION

  1. The e-mail should contain attached photographs of works (not more than 2-4 photographs of different works, preferably jpg. files, no larger than 2 MB). Each photo must be titled this way: name_surname_artwork title_year created.
  2. Please attach a text accompanying the proposed works (titles, dimensions, materials, media, technical details, exhibition order, description of the idea behind the artwork, creative series or other);
  3. Attach a description of the artist’s creative activity (CV) with contact information (phone number, e-mail address).
  4. E-mail’s subject field should be APPLICATION FOR THE TRIENNIAL. The e-mail should contain artist’s name and surname.
  5. A separate application form doesn’t need to be filled in.

IMPORTANT:

  1. No more than 4 different artworks created from 2017 can be suggested for selection; the dimensions are not limited.
  2. The proposed works must correspond to the triennial’s theme, concept, and keywords.
  3. You can submit artworks pertaining to the genre of painting as well as painting in combination with other media, i.e. installations, objects, video art, performative acts, photography, interactive actions, documentation, etc.
  4. The selection is open to the artists of all fields, members of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association (as well as non-members), students.

More information: Evelina Januškaitė-Krupavičė, evelina@ldsajunga.lt, +370 671 90710.