The exhibition “Telling Tales” brings together ten artists or artist duos from the Baltic States and Switzerland under the theme of story-telling, in terms of both collective history and personal narrative.
Invited by Pro Helvetia Warsaw to take part in their Cooperations programme marking the closure at the end of 2013 of the Swiss Arts Council‘s activities in Central and Eastern Europe, Kunsthaus CentrePasquArt embarked on a collaboration with art institutions and artists in the Baltic States. “Telling Tales” is the result of discussions and research visits conducted over the last two years by colleagues from Biel, Riga, Tallinn and Vilnius. After the presentation at the Kunsthaus, the exhibition will be shown at the National Gallery of Art, Vilnius and KUMU Art Museum, Tallinn during 2014 while the themes explored in “Telling Tales” will be the subject of a symposium at the Latvian Center for Contemporary Art, Riga this summer.
In this exhibition Lithuania is represented by two artists – Eglė Karpavičiūtė and Dainius Liškevičius. In his large-scale installation the Lithuanian artist, Dainius Liškevičius is concerned with forms of free political or artistic expression, referring to three figures that were central to the country’s revolt against the Soviet occupation. The story recounted by Eglė Karpavičiūtė is more oblique – Karpavičiūtė’s small-format paintings quotes the work of famous artists, questioning their universal comprehensibility by removing them from their familiar context.
Swiss art lovers and art collectors are already familiar with Eglė’s works – her paintings were shown at Zurich art fair. She also had an exhibition at “Katapult gallery” (Basel) together with Swiss artist Babs Ernst. The exhibition was held under the patronage of the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Lithuania, Dr. Graziano Pedroja. The recent exhibition “Telling tales” was very successful for young artist – some of her works filled both private and corporate art collections. Painting “Where is the Lobster?”, which was chosen to represent the “Telling tales” exhibition on it’s posters and invitations, together with other pieces now belongs to Dr. Graziano Pedroja’s art collection.
