On, Saturday, August 31, Eskilstuna Art museum in Sweden opened Nordic Art Station – the 2nd triennial of Nordic art, where Lithuanian curators Ignas Kazakevičius and Vidas Poškus presented their combination of aesthetics and informational technology: informational Art Terminal that gives a playful review of Lithuanian contemporary art and its sixteen stereotypes – the phenomena and artists.
The showpiece that is travelling from Lithuania to Sweden is an informational terminal, just the same as the ones greeting the visitors of institutions, banks, hotels and airports and offering to choose the required service by one click. The Art Terminal is programmed as an informational quiz/game: it invites you to read something about the stereotypes and the artists representing them, to have a look at their works, to answer the related questions and switch to the next person and his/her image. According to the curators, a figurative description of the terminal would be a a cyborg/robot, a real „aesthetic terminator“ that stimulates one‘s interactive perception of history of arts.
At the request of the triennial organizers to recommend several Lithuanian representatives for the event, the curators offered a whole „exhibition inside the exhibition“: their invention, the Art Terminal, gives the audience an opportunity to cover a wide range of artists. In the words of Ignas Kazakevičius, it resembles an untraditional art review – a condensed generalization of the artists‘ works, designed for a visitor of any cultural and artistic background.
The curators‘ tandem took inspiration for their solution from the topic of the triennial, which is „Merry Melancholy“. As Vidas Poškus has observed, melancholy is encoded in the Lithuanian mentality, which, in this perspective, is not so different from our neighbours living in the Scandinavian-Baltic areal. „The oxymoron of „merry melancholy“ looks as something that contradicts itself, but a closer analysis reveals that it is not something made out of thin air – after all, irony and sarcasm often complete the melancholic mood“, Vidas Poškus says. The curators decided to switch from a traditional manner of exposing the artworks to a formula that visually expresses the Lithuanian version of melancholy phenomenon.
The ironic stereotypes of Lithuanian art – from the Pensive Christ to the train, from the line to the dress – find their embodiment in the Art Terminal in the works and persons of Žygimantas Augustinas, Jurga Barilaitė, Violeta Bubelytė, Henrikas Čerapas, Laura Garbštienė, Arūnas Gudaitis, Kristina Inčiūraitė, Giedrius Jonaitis, Patricija Jurkšaitytė, Linas Jusionis, Bronė Neverdauskienė, Eglė Rakauskaitė, Eglė Ridikaitė, Julijonas Urbonas, Mikalojus Povilas Vilutis and Marius Zavadskis.
The list of the artists is not final. The curators are going to continue the project by supplying the Art Terminal with new programs that analyze the works by Lithuanian artists in various aspects, and by presenting their project and topical exhibitions in other spaces for art.
The exhibition at Eskiltuna Art museum will be open until November 10, 2013. It is the 2nd triennial organized by the museum, and this year it covers the relevant art news from Scandinavian countries, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Klaipeda Culture Communication centre has been working in cooperation with Eskiltuna Art museum since 2009.
More detailed information on the Art Terminal is available at the project website:
