During the day – a huge dose of art at ArtVilnius’21, and in the evening until late – open doors of Vilnius city galleries. Art fans are invited to the gallery festival Art After Hours on Friday, October 15, when art spaces will open their doors until late at night and host a variety of meetings with creators and excursions to exhibitions.
The art spaces participating in the Art After Hours festival were selected by the curators of the event Sonata Baliuckaitė and Gabija Tarabilda. The main goal of the selection was to combine galleries, art spaces, and artists into one evening of quality content, in which viewers will participate for free.
“We have coordinated the date and concept of Art After Hours with the ArtVilnius’21 contemporary art fair,” says Sonata Baliuckaitė, the artistic director of the fair and one of the curators of Art After Hours. “Every year the fair is visited by many visitors from other Lithuanian cities, from abroad, as well as by international collectors, art critics, and journalists. We want them to take good emotions and impressions from Vilnius not only of our city but also of art spaces, galleries, and the life that takes place in them.”
“Such festivals attract a lot of people, and the city becomes the epicenter of culture and exceptional events. For visiting galleries from abroad, this evening is not only a great opportunity to establish cooperation with the galleries of our city, but also to get to know Vilnius while following the festival routes,” says event curator Gabija Tarabilda.
Vilnius Užupis district will welcome night visitors with three exhibitions. AP Galerija invites visitors to Danguolė Brogienė’s textile exhibition Blue Thoughts, and artist Kristina Norvilaitė’s gallery will allow visitors to dive into her psychological, philosophical, and educational exhibition Forgotten Dreams. Photo artists Tadas Kazakevičius, Artūras Morozovas, and Paulius Zavadskis invite everyone to meet at the Užupis Art Incubator. Their group exhibition After Mass reveals exciting Sunday moments from Lithuanian church villages.
Lithuanian Artists’ Association’s gallery Arka will present a group exhibition of installations and site-specific art Place of the Event. Participating artists Andrius Erminas, Rimantas Milkintas, Nerijus Erminas, and Danas Aleksa perceive the present through the lived distance of unequal duration, influenced by the progress of the times, socio-cultural experiences, instincts of the near future, and attempts to adapt to changing times.
Vilnius Academy of Arts textile gallery Artifex will welcome visitors with the exhibition Intuitive Instructions and works by Donatas Norušis, which tell stories through the physical properties of sound. Specially for the Art After Hours festival, the artist is organizing a performance of sounds, vibrations, and frequencies. Gallery AV17 will open the exhibition Critical Limit by the young generation sculptor Tauras Kensminas, which will present objects created during the last few years that talk about the inevitable changes in our world.
Performances of the international congress To Research or Not to Research in the Post-disciplinary Academy? will take place in the project space of Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association, in the gallery Atletika and the cultural complex Sodas 2123. Robertas Narkus, Anastasia Kolas, Raivo Kelomees, Hardi Kurda, and Raminta Naujanytė will present their performances at Atletika. Sodas 2123 will invite everyone to the open studies of interdisciplinary art creators Vytautas Gečas and Marija Puipaitė, Akvilė Anglickaitė, Austėja Platukytė, Jelena Škulienė, Laima Kreivytė, Vitalij Červiakov, Gabrielė Gervickaitė, and other artists-researchers-doctoral students.
Gallery Vartai opens its doors for the festival along with an exhibition dedicated to the 100th birthday of the famous Lithuanian modernist artist Antanas Mončys. Gallery Meno Niša will host the exhibition Something Happened by winners of the National Art and Culture Prize Rūta Katiliūtė and Vladimir Tarasov.
In the main hall of St. John’s Street Gallery, visitors will find a group exhibition of individualists, Imperfect Garden. The exhibition was inspired by the book Imperfect Garden: The Legacy of Humanism by the French philosopher of Bulgarian origin Tzvetan Todorov. In the basement of the gallery – Rūta Matulevičiūtė’s exhibition Atlantis. Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum will invite everyone to the exhibition There Is No Earth by Patricija Gilytė, who lives and works in Germany.
An exhibition by Lithuanian graphic designer Antanas Kazakauskas will take place at the gallery Kairė-Dešinė at the Vilnius Graphic Arts Center. Pamėnkalnis Gallery will host a personal exhibition by Japanese artist Riekas Koga. Morka Gallery will invite everyone to Aglaja Ray’s exhibition, an energetic storm, a dance of freedom with rollers, brushes, and spray paint bottles, Structures.
The independent experimental space, gallery, and community confessional 8 Eyes and Ears in Vilnius Naujamiestis district will offer visitors an atheistic game with religious ideas – the exhibition of the painter Kipras Černiauskas Sanctity Translated. It is also worth visiting the 24-hour sculpture garden of the MO Museum, where visitors will find the works of the National Prize winners.
Art After Hours is a unique opportunity to visit Vilnius art spaces and galleries in one evening. The festival is funded by Vilnius City Municipality. The event is free of charge, you can find out more about it at http://www.artafterhours.lt/en/ [1]