Posts Tagged ‘art’

Experiences of Contemporary Art

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Last weekend I was in Berlin National Gallery with Judita and Viktoras to check out what’s happening there. And we found the photography exhibition of Thomas Demand there.

Judita, Viktoras, and I

After waiting in the row, we got the tickets, got in, and started exploring. There were mostly daily-life scenes without people, so to say, still life. That seemed to be nothing special. Sometimes I didn’t even like the composition. But there was something what didn’t look natural. The photos looked cleaned very much without any noise. The contrasts were large. Probably he did all that cleanness with a lot of photoshopping. Some photos even looked like modeled 3D views. This is how we watched half of the exposition.

Thomas Demand

Then we read the description of the exhibition at the flyer that we had received with the tickets. It said that all those compositions were made out of paper. No! That can’t be! The cloakroom of a sports hall, a corner in an Asian restaurant, windows with convolvulus all around supposed to be made out of paper.. But when you look closer you really notice that. This glass was made out of plastic, that broom was made out of cardboard, and so on.. Cool! We started watching the exposition from the beginning again.

Thomas Demand

Probably many students were involved in making those models. Or, as Milda says, it was all made by the hands of little children :D

Thomas Demand

This is how contemporary art can surprise you. It’s just important to get to know the conception.

-o-

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

Something interesting again! A mate sent me a press release about international art reality show “Art-o-thlon” in Vilnius.. As if I was a journalist :D

Art-o-thlon

They say, this gonna be an event of Vilnius – European Capital of Culture 2009, where young Europeans will fight for the name of the best artist. Art-o-thlon will join the formats of reality show, sport championship, and creative workshops. It’s interesting that it will be possible to watch the teams creating live directly in their studios. Also there will be open lectures about modern art and culture during the time of the championship. If I visit Vilnius in summer, I will certainly check that.

Are you interested? Registration for participation is happening until April 12th. So hurry up! You can find more information in the official website.

Funky Characters

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

Today in the evening I returned home full of impressions, but quite tired. So I fell asleep on a sofa immediately. In an hour a phone woke me up telling that picnic was over and Jenga would be brought to me soon. It had been so that after fruit’n'vegetable picnic at the river Spree, I went to the opening of a new exposition in “Talka” gallery. I wanted to communicate with my people as well as to create new relations with Latvians who own the gallery. Funtastically, they still had works of “MoyToy” from “Pictopia” festival. I didn’t hesitate to purchase Lithuanian urbanistic “Graso” keychain. I WOOD LOVE. (This was the introduction about Pictopia festival)

Two weeks ago “Pictopia” festival started in Berlin. That’s the first world-wide large-scope presentation of art and design of simplified and abstract characters. At first, there was a party at the “Weekend club“. Unfortunately, I didn’t meet any participants from Lithuania there. The next evening there was an official opening celebration in “the House of World Cultures“. Unfortunately, I didn’t meet any Lithuanians there too. But I filmed everything and talked to some other interesting optimistic people. Later the expositions of the festival were shown in 30 different galleries and public spaces of Berlin for a few days. The main exposition in “the House of World Cultures” will be working till the 3rd of May. If you come to Berlin, you should certainly visit that.

But if you don’t have Berlin in the plans for this month, I offer you to check a virtual travel through the opening celebration and a few galleries:

It was very pleasant to have Lithuanians participating in this international festival. High five to Gediminas Šiaulys, Nathan Jurevičius, and initiatives of urban arts “MoyToy“.

Flash Mob with Balloons

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

I took photo and video cameras to my rucksack and hurried away to Alexander Square. According to my knowledge, there had to be a flash mob at half past two on Saturday. I said to myself that I had to see that for the first time live.

Flash mob is a short mass action by a crowd of people who usually don’t know each other. They do some unexpected activities shortly and then disappear among others. For example, sometimes people freeze or start dancing in a supermarket, or worship a fountain in a park, or fight with pillows in the city center, or go around streets in cloths of a famous character. The activities of 100 people open new fooling opportunities. The meaning of such performances is the same as of secret-camera shows. It’s all about making fun and surprising the passers by. A social or political message is transferred rarely in such actions.

Flash mobs have been happening for five years in the world. But I got a chance to see all that closely only now. So I took some junk food on my way to fill up my stomach and went to the Alexander square at the fountain with a cup of coke in one hand and a photo camera in another one (The battery of video cam was not recharged). There were many colorful people in a crowd. Then all the yellows and reds moved to one side of the square and the others moved to another side. After that they blew up many balloons and the war began:

In my opinion, such actions give much vitality to cities and also create good mood and let people get rid of monotony. BTW, they are sometimes organized in Lithuania too. Once I got an invitation to clap hands in front of TV sets in a shopping center. Flash mobs tend to be fun. I will certainly participate there some day in the future.