Contemporary Art Festival VIRUS’24
2019 10 25 – 2019 12 15
25th of October (Friday)
VIRUS’24 OPENING 5pm
(Šiauliai Art Gallery, Vilniaus St. 245)
Evaldas Jansas exhibition “Jansas”.
No one was as deep and eccentric as he was in the middle of his body, provoking himself publicly and stalking the dead end of artistic creation like Evaldas Jansas. Thus, each of his exhibitions are a great opportunity to re-create his imaginative idea to make the male
genitals and prototypes larger, and the radicality of convulsive post-traumatic Lithuanian men with current apathy. By exploring art, society, the conscious border, Jansas is an exceptional phenomenon in the Lithuanian art world. Jansas’ creations abound in satanic laughter, carnival idiocy, eccentric owner and romantic suicide elegance. Its volcanic productive moisturising baseboard line for the scariest sculptures and installations, macabre
performances, empathetic video, confessional lyrics, lively post-punk revival-style canvases. But they all obey the utmost open and conscious, which is the artist’s view of the art context and saving.
The exhibition will be open until 12th of November 2019.
Lina Lapelytė’s performance “Pirouette”.
Pirouette (for non-practicing ballet dancer and musician).
Participants: Ilva Juodpusytė, Liudas Mockūnas.
Sound and Stage Design – Patricia Kokett
Underneath Patricia Kokett’s name is a whole verse. The sounds broadcast in a DJ set do not always sound conformist; original and refreshing beats can immediately turn into awkward sound design aesthetics. Patricia Kokett boldly flies with tribal, industrial, kraut, kosmische musical qualities that bring her into a trance in a seamless stream.
6:30 p.m. Justinas Vilutis exhibition “Fear Swallows the Soul”
(Museum of Photography, Vilniaus St. 140)
Justinas Vilutis’ cycle of fears devouring the soul combines elements of pop culture, from the series “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” or the movie “The Gremlins” to films like “Nosferatu”, “Horror Symphony” and “Witches”. The works develop images of evil, transformation and alienation, drawing parallels between chaos and grotesque, hyperreality and abstractness. In this way, the project becomes a way of exploring the state of the subject and the primordial emotions – the walls that separate us from the collapse of external reality.
Justinas Vilutis was born in Vilnius, currently lives between Lausanne, Paris and Vilnius, and combines art projects with Nike, Kenzo, MIT and other famous companies. He graduated with a Masters in Photography from Ecal University in Lausanne, Switzerland. His works combine a variety of disciplines, from photography to graphic design, sculpture and text, and feature spontaneous combinations of everyday, hyperreality, roughness, and versatility.
Kristina Švenčionytė and Nora Ray will perform “Solitaire Solitaire” during the opening.
Solitaire (English) – A card game that a player plays alone.
Solitaire (English) is a rare species of freckles featuring gray feathers, gloom and beautiful chanting.
Solitaire (English) – A single player board game consisting of a game board with holes and shapes in them.
Solitaire (French) – A worm parasitising inside a human.
Solitaire (English) – An endangered bird species.
Solitaire (French) – uninvited, uninhabited.
Solitaire (French) – An isolated, monumental column that is not part of a particular structure.
15th of November (Friday) VIRUS ART 4 p.m.
Exhibition of works of Ieva Mediodios
“IEVA MEDIODIA / FROM NEW YORK TO VILNIUS 90”
(Šiauliai Art Gallery, Vilniaus St. 245)
Ieva Mediodia is an innovator in the art of painting and an active member of the New York art scene. In the author’s work, the most significant breakthroughs of post-Judaism Lithuanian art, the transformation of modernist painting into feminist, body-textured blogs of author technique, were expressed in a special way. Strong sensual expression and scientific discourse in her work are later synthesised into oblivious, radioactive-coloured objects embodying the senses of the present. Ieva’s ability to combine cosmic distant temptations with neuronal flashes, neural linear drawing with detailed architectonics, geometric schemes with spontaneous molding requires special stroke calligraphy, unexpected pauses, smooth surfaces and translucent structures. It is the principle of generative painting, where the interplay of randomness and logic simply creates in the eyes a glimmer of fantastic figures, a fluttering expansion of fluid strokes, sharp colors, and penetrating lines.
Nancie Naive’s single “Ambitious”
Nancie Naive (Emilė Skolevičiūtė, born 1997) is a superstar rising in the fields of contemporary art and pop. Nancie lives and works in Vilnius. Her work explores the role of women in contemporary society, between popular culture and Christianity, so that Nancie fits in with the concept of a superstar. Nancie presents herself as a work of art. Nancie began her creative career at the VDA Department of Sculpture, presenting her works at the exhibitions “JCDecaux Prize 2019: Not for Who Asked” at CAC, 2019; “The 17th Century” In Autarchy, 2019; “Spring Exhibition” at the Martynas Mažvydas National Library, 2019; Play Within the Walls of the Academy, MOCAK, 2018; at art fairs ArtVilnius’18 and ArtVilnius’
November 19 (Tuesday)
VIRUS DANCE 6:30 p.m.
Performance of Kaunas Dance Theater Aura “Kaunas ZOO”
(Šiauliai State Drama Theater, Tilžės St. 155)
Ticket price 8 Eur / 5,50 Eur
This performance of dance and live music explores the themes of beauty, the cult of fashion, the pursuit of luxury, and demonstrates the vanity and all it brings with it. It emphasises current issues, and problems caused by life “with masks”. The magnificence and vanity that the performance demonstrates also reveals the true inner state of the individual, which is often weak and violated by distorted dogmas imposed by society. Efforts are made to reveal a human nature that is altruistic, sensitive, and honest with itself and with others.
Choreography: Birutė Letukaitė; costumes: Kristina Čyžiūtė and Birutė Letukaitė; sound design: improvisational music group “Kaunas Zoo”; light design: Vladimir Sherstaboyev.
Dancers: Blake Seidel, Chiara Corbetta, Clara Giambino, Erik Zarcone, Evgeniy Kalachev, Jasper Narvaez, Julia Mintaute, Matthew Livingston, Marine Fernandez, Mei Chen.
Duration: 60 minutes
23rd of November (Saturday)
VIRUS FASHION 7pm.
International avant-garde fashion show VIRUS’24
(Šiauliai Athletics and Wellness Centre, S. Daukanto g. 25)
Ticket price 10 Eur / 7 Eur
Comic Opera ALFA
Α (Alpha) is an opera that boldly raises important social and cultural issues and challenges of today, viewed in both personal and historical contexts. It addresses topics such as: gender equality, minority politics, the crisis of big stories. The astonishing combination of two sufficiently distant genres – opera and comic – gives the story of love and murder with a strong main character the extravagance of the heroine. The story told at the opera is a variation on the tragic fate of one of the most prominent 20th-century Spanish poets and playwrights – Federico Garcios Lorca. Isabella Garcia Lorca, sister of Federico, based in Alfa, returns to Spain after many years of emigration to reveal the secrets of her brother’s fate. The circumstances of the writer’s death are still vague, and the tomb was once thought to be near Alfacar in Andalusia. Revealing the truth is complicated by the mystery of the time circle, which keeps us coming back to the beginning and becoming an “alpha” without “omega.”
Director, scenographer, costume designer: Dr. GoraParasit (Gintarė Minelgaitė)
Producer: OPEROMANIA
Performers: Nora Petročenko (mezzo-soprano), Nerijus Masevičius (bass-baritone), Ieva Savickaitė (actress), Pranas Kentra (electronic guitar), Agnė Rimgailaitė (accordion), Monika Zenkevičiūtė (electronics).
Duration – 50 minutes.
VIRUS FASHION music – Antanas Jasenka.
Antanas Jasenka successfully publishes his work in foreign record companies, often appearing at various new music festivals. He has hosted a radio show for electronic music and also creates sound design for theater performances. Since Autumn 2008 he is a member of the experimental project “Diissc Orchestra”, which also includes well-known composers and electronic music composers Martynas Bialobžeskis, Jonas Jurkūnas, Vytautas V. Jurgutis and Arūnas Zujus.
26th of November (Tuesday)
VIRUS DANCE 6:30 p.m.
Performance “my saturday went pretty well until I realized it was monday”, HARTMANNMUELLER, Germany
(Šiauliai State Drama Theater, Tilžės St. 155)
Ticket price 8 Eur / 5,50 Eur
Trying to preserve a human body – depending on the type of conservation – can be anything from poetic to macabre to somewhat entertaining or destructive. In any case, it challenges us to look at the potential and limitations of a body. Then, when a body is vacuum-packed or wrapped in plastic, it can lead to severe deformations or changes in its meaning and functions. Based on experiments with their own human flesh, HARTMANNMUELLER
consider in their performance my saturday went pretty well until I realized it was monday, Shakespeare’s character Hamlet from a singular perspective – one that seems caught in its own constraints and its own body which HARTMANNMUELLER help to deconstruct.
Appropriating Hamlet’s problems, they transfer them to the bodies of today – to the year 2018 where the world remains out of joint and a delusional confusion around physical limitations begins.
Choreography/concept/music-composition: HARTMANNMUELLER.
Performer: Simon Hartmann, Daniel Ernesto Mueller; dramaturgy: Annette Müller; light: Philipp Zander.
A piece by HARTMANNMUELLER, co-produced by tanzhaus nrw. Sponsored by
Kunststiftung NRW and Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes NRW.
Premiere tanzhaus nrw Düsseldorf| November 2018.
Duration: 55 minutes
Sponsors: Lithuanian Council for Culture, Šiauliai City Municipality.
Information sponsors: LRT Plius, Etaplius weekly, Etaplius news portal, Šiaulių kraštas daily, Šiaulių naujienos daily.
Partners: Šiauliai Athletics and Wellness Centre, wãpsva LT design house, BIS A BIS, Balheidas UAB, Šiauliai State Drama Theater, Šiauliai State College, Šiauliai Vocational Education And Training Centre, Šiauliai Cultural Centre, Vilnius Town Hall, Museum of Photography.
Organizer: Šiauliai Art Gallery.
Tickets: Ticket Market
FASHION AND ART ZOO
This year the contemporary art and fashion festival VIRUS’24 cannot be more eccentric. That is why in this years program there is so much style play, brightly colored provocations, carnal experimentation and carnival playfulness. Such an explosive blend is particularly well-timed, as art, fashion and style create a seamless narrative of creativity and expression in today’s modern world. The birth of modern art is closely tied with the early bohemian legends, in a sense of its style, fashion and mannerism. In contemporary art, a creator can transform his lifestyle into a never-ending performance. This was the case with Evaldas Jansas, who will be opening the festival. Therefore, his exhibition is simply called “Jansas”. He is a living Lithuanian art legend and a style icon; no more explanation is nessasary. Lina Lapelyte, winner of Venice Biennale, will be cultivating the drama on the opening night with her performance “Pirouette”, following the sounds created by the exotic Patricia Kokett. Later, the festival will take place in the Museum of Photography with Justinas Vilutis and his decadent charm, dangerously fashionable hybrids and a performance dedicated to narcissistic solitude by Kristina Švenčionytė and Nora Ray.
On November 15th, prepare yourself for feminine elegance, carnal fragility, the neural retina and a vagabond artist proclamation. All combined into one bizarre exhibition by the talented newyorker Ieva Mediodia. This is an exclusive exhibition of a sole artist, who imparts a peculiar mood with the author’s technique to render the artist’s subtle feelings, thoughts and journeys to endlesness.
The enigmatic Nancie Naive’s single “Ambitious” will be a perfect match in the brightly coloured exposition. This is an artist who transformed her style of living into prolific self-visualisation. A mixture of brand and personality.
Before long you will be threaded into a vernissage by the DJ OBCDN, who will enrich the festival with his sound extravagansas. By all means, the art and fashion festival VIRUS can not be fulfilled without contemporary dance. “Aura” troupe is one of the most beloved groups by the people of Šiauliai. They will be warming the audience with their new performance called “Kaunas Zoo”, which tells a story about the cult of stars and the vanity of fashion. Also, about the dangers and temptations combined together.
As a rule, the avant-garde fashion show will be full of surprises. As always, all the international avant-garde collections and performances are separated. However this year the show will be enriched by the exceptionally unique comic opera “Alpha”. It will be an extrodinary and luxurious experience, in a sense of artistic courage and exceptional interpretation. A guest from Moscow – Roman Jermakov, will be the intrigue of the evening. He will amaze the audience with his combinations of costumes and living sculptures.
Universal musician and composer Antanas Jasenka will expand the fashion show with the acoustic landscapes.
The festival will be closed in the small hall of Šiauliai State Drama Theater by the German duo HARTMANNMUELLER, who are well-known and loved by Šiauliai residents. It is a dance performance about what is most sensitive; stripped lives and the pursuit of perfection. The festival also strives for excellence with its team, audience and challenging artists. Let’s be together for another unique event in the fusion of art and fashion.
Festival design – Marius Žalneravičius.
