2nd INTERNATIONAL PRINT BIENNIAL „NOW ART NOW FUTURE. ESAMASIS LAIKAS / PRESENT TIME“

KAUNAS

07.05.2008

4 p.m. O. Tobreluts (Russia) print Project „Substitution“. M. Zilinskas gallery. Nepriklausomybės ave 12.

I begin to think what’s the violence and how it can be shown in the modern world. When i reflected about it i have remembered the story about tarquin and lucretia who has led the rome to overthrow of a monarchy and to an establishment of republic. The idea of substitution as a violence over object of desire is not new, and it’s especially interesting for me because of semantic shades in perception. The video where the action develops on two screens simultaneously, permits to perceive this story not so semantic as it’s interpreted in chronicle.

08.05.2008

6 p.m. L. Joekalda (Estonia) print project „Graphics from the stone age“. Architects‘ house gallery. Vilniaus str. 22.

Can we draw a parallel between printmaking today and ancient traces on the rocks? Why we are in need of let the signs. Pictures of wishes. Information, sacred, sacrifice, fertility, magic, protest... Forms of social order. Can the idea live without us to be born again? Where are we from? We have left to come back, after each ice-age we occur again. Maybe we have been here before. In order to understand, everybody must build one’s own model, model of the world, of the infinity, eternity. By making copies i create new documents, where echoes of different eras are mixing and melting into one, into harmonious balance.

09.05.2008

4 p.m. D. McManus (USA) print project „Let us eat cakes“. Graphic gallery. Zamenhofo / Kurpių str. 13.

Art is an active involvement with the world around us. It is an attempt to translate through visual media the way in which we view our current state of humanity. In an age where our species is using it’s industrial innovation to destroy not only itself but also the environment, as creators we fail to speak the truth by ignoring this violent reality. It has only been recently that nihilism and self obsession have perverted our practice and distracted us from the greater verity of our time. Despite past tendencies it is our responsibility to not create yet another visual pacifier. All of the pretty distractions offered by the market place need to be ignored. Our obsessions with consumerism and self pity must be discarded and thrown to the side. We must be critical and engaged for we find ourselves in a dark era. As visionaries and craftsmen it is our duty to be a progressive voice for change rather then a simple escape from it.

6 p.m. A. Klemencovas (Lithuania) print project „Time of identities“. Gallery „Meno parkas/ art park“. Rotušės ave 22.

Paradoxically, but the history is really going around the circle... Identity as such nowadays still is that “magic, unshakable, absolute phenomenon”, which has not only successfully survived after passing all ups and downs of the past, but has acquired even greater importance and urgency in contemporary time - the time of free europe. Ps. Pictures from militia instruction sheet of the ussr period are used for the installation.

K. Grigaliūnas (Lithuania) print project „Form of silence – stable sense of identity“ Gallery „Meno parkas/ art park“. Rotušės ave 22.

Creating this series of silk-screen prints works i tried to analyse how the process of photographing other person creates strains itself, as the interests of model and photographer not always correspond. Portrait photography of such type expresses institutional power, police and mass-control. I was interested in such portraits because what people look similar to depends on how they are shown. In this case portrayed persons are deprived of any opportunity to choose an image, any power of action except a look that allows a “model” through establishing visual contact with a watching spectator to undergo transformation from watched object into watching subject and vice versa. It is a moment when institutional portrait becomes an artwork.

7.30 p.m. Awards

WINNERS

NOW GRAND NOW PRIX    Loit Joekalda (Estonia)

NOW ART NOW SURPRISE               Dylan Mcmanus (USA)

NOW DISCOVERY NOW FUTURE Jūratė Pikčilingytė         (Lithuania)