Nearly a hundred of still-life artworks from the collection of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art going on view at Pranas Domšaitis Gallery

At 6 pm on Friday, 6 October, Pranas Domšaitis Gallery of the LNMA opens an exhibition Witnesses of Everyday Life. Still Life as a Re(de)construction of Time. The exhibition curator Nijolė Nevčesauskienė has selected, from the collections of the LNMA, around a hundred works created in the second half of the 20th century. Paintings and other works of the genre in the collection of the museum have been rarely exhibited by independent events, only a few of them have previously appeared in solo or group exhibitions.   

The exhibition Witnesses of Everyday Life. Still Life as a Re(de)construction of Time will feature lesser-known or unseen specimen of still life, the ‘witnesses of everyday life’ collected during the second half of the past century. The curator Nijolė Nevčesauskienė cites the 1985 still life painting by Vincent van Gogh Three Pairs of Shoes, pointing out that ‘it struck his young peers as a rather strange work. Yet soon these raddled boots turned into some most powerful witnesses of the artist’s self portrait’. The curator expects that the exhibition will reload the viewers’ look on the everyday.   

Paintings, graphic prints, photographs, ceramic and textile artworks in the exhibition not only reflect a protest against the ideological soviet system, but encourage to think deeper about the period’s mundane life. The curator shines light on the character of the genre stamped on by soviet reality by emphasizing some specific artistic means of expression. She traces the changing narratives, compositions, colour schemes, forms and ideas behind these. Implied is also a question whether postmodern trends in the art of newly-independent Lithuania retained a space and role for the genre of still life, or, maybe, it was subsumed by ready-made and other conceptual inventions? 

The exhibition Witnesses of Everyday Life. Still Life as a Re(de)construction of Time will be accompanied by a rich programme of education and other events. At 12 a.m. Saturday, 7 October the curator Nijolė Nevčesauskienė will give a guided tour of the exhibition, followed, at 2 p.m., by a meeting/event with Rūta and Česlovas Lukenskas, Cucina povera, arte povera. Lukenskienė, a pedagogue, will present the phenomenon of a ‘Lithuanian kitchen of need’ practiced in the times of hardship and misfortunes, illustrating it by several ‘frugal’ dishes. A discussion of such a kitchen’s place in excess society will follow. The artist Lukenskas will dwell on the ideas of arte povera based on his practice and open a discussion of the genre of assemblage as art/non-art/or, perhaps, anti-art.  

The exhibition Witnesses of Everyday Life. Still Life as a Re(de)construction of Time opens at 6 pm on Friday, 6 October, at Pranas Domšaitis Gallery (Liepų 33, Klaipėda) of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art and will run through 31 March 2024 

Curator Nijolė Nevčesauskienė 

Exhibition architect Ieva Glumac

Designer Loreta Uzdraitė

Organizer  Pranas Domšaitis Gallery of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art 

Sponsor Klaipėda City Municipality 

Participating artists: Leonas Katinas, Vincas Kisarauskas, Algimantas Kunčius, Algimantas Kuras, Alvydas Lukys, Antanas Martinaitis, Jonas Martinaitis, Jūratė Mykolaitytė, Bronė Mingilaitė-Uogintienė, Alfonsas Motiejūnas, Boleslovas Motuza-Matuzevičius, Rimantas Olšauskas, Arvydas Pakalka, Lili Janina Paškauskaitė, Galina Petrova, Algirdas Petrulis, Marijus Piekuras, Ignas Piščikas, Sigitas Prancuitis, Marija Račkauskaitė-Cvirkienė, Viktorija Repšienė, Augustinas Savickas, Algis Skačkauskas, Gintautas Stulgaitis, Aspazija Surgailienė, Mikalojus Šalkauskas, Antanas Šukys, Algimantas Jonas Švėgžda, Algimantas Vitolis Trušys, Leonardas Tuleikis, Eduardas Urbanavičius, Raimondas Urbonas, Ričardas Povilas Vaitiekūnas, Henrikas Albertas Valujevičius, Ramunė Vėliuvienė, Romanas Vilkauskas, Alfonsas Vilpišauskas, Valerija Zalensienė.

Information provided by Skaistė Marčienė, director of Pranas Domšaitis Gallery of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art by phone +37060039972 or e-mail [email protected]

Indrė Polimaitienė, co-ordinator of Communication and Marketing Department of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, by phone +3705 262 1883 or e-mail [email protected]

The Lithuanian National Museum of Art is one of the largest national art museums in Lithuania with the aim of building, safekeeping, researching, conserving, restoring, curating and exhibiting the collections of the arts and cultural artefacts of national significance at its nine divisions in Vilnius, Klaipėda, Palanga, and Juodkrantė.