On July 24, The Radvila Palace Museum of Art of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art (LNMA) opens Evaldas Jansas’s solo exhibit Extrapolation. An uncensored retrospective of the scandal-bent artist presents his artwork of the three past decades.
The title of the exhibition, Extrapolation, references to the action of using the past experience to infer unknown (future) processes by assuming that existing trends will essentially continue. The exhibition straddles the diversity of Jansas’s artistic expression, highlights the most significant pieces, and encapsulates the bold and controversial stance his creative practice represents. The visitors will be invited to experience the artwork of high emotional intensity, to explore, through the artist’s lens, the development of the Lithuanian contemporary art and the changing social, political and cultural landscape.
Human physical and psychological limits – centre-stage of the artist’s creation
Evaldas Jansas is an interdisciplinary artist who stormed onto the art scene during the dawn years of the Lithuanian independence. A graduate of Vilnius Academy of Arts, with a major in painting, he first appeared at the exhibitions in the 1990s, showcasing objects and installation. His expression in sculptural medium was soon amplified by performances and video where he tested the human physical and psychological limits, alterations of consciousness, the absurdity and rock-bottoms of life. At the centre of Jansas’s artwork – especially his video works – is a physically and psychologically stripped, self-mutilating body exposed to the eyes of the viewer. In 2007 – 2010, he returned to figure painting interweaving his autobiographical details, citations from the history of art and popular culture. In dazzling, expressive images, the artist talks about the dominance of media and the excessive flow of information.
In the words of Kęstutis Šapoka, curator of the event, “Evaldas Jansas is one of the artists whose name has entered the category of common nouns. He is not only a restless bohemian spirit, but also an enfant terrible of the contemporary Vilnius art system at the turn of the century – and a foremost interdisciplinary artist. Jansas is also a socio-cultural phenomenon, a legend and icon, symbolizing the breaking of aesthetic and social conventions, of artistic transgressions and all the rest of (in)possible border experiences that “respectable society” tends to ignore.”
The autobiographic exhibition and three “Jansas’s epochs”
The exhibition at the Radvila Palace Museum of the LNMA, as a retrospective of three decades in the artist’s career, is divided into three parts – “Jansas’s epochs”, representing three stages of his artistic practice. The exhibition unfolds like a personal story told by the artist, as his existential portrait that obliterates the division between life and art. At the same time, it holds a mirror to the history of independent Lithuania and the genesis of contemporary art – as the contexts that have shaped also Jansas’s art.
The exhibition Extrapolation validates the artist’s deserved reputation of a provocateur. The display includes the documentation of his scandalous performances and installations, also sculptural objects of radically graphic character (including the ones “seasoned” in the artist’s bowels) and the paintings exploring the limits of kitsch, poor taste and the caricature. The common denominator for the artwork displayed is his critical take, (self)irony and the desire to speak of the world in authentic, uncensored words, reiterating the axiom that art is not supposed to be only pleasant and comfortable.
The display is accompanied by a programme of the artist’s videos. Throughout September and October, the Museum will host screenings of Jansas’s early documentary, his experimental and long form video works, and the stories from the project Jansas TV, what has been an important chronicle of contemporary artistic life.
The exhibition opens at 6 pm Thursday, 24 July, at the Radvila Palace Museum of the LNMA.
Curator Kęstutis Šapoka
Architect Gintaras Makarevičius
Graphic designer Lina Bastienė
Organizers: Radvila Palace Museum of the LNMA, Gallery MOrka
Project financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture
Information partner JCDecaux Lietuva
