The Sweet Sweat of the Future

The Sweet Sweat of the Future

For the last thirty years, Lithuania had a clear sense of direction. Yet, by the second decade of the 21st century, having reached its essential goals (EU and NATO membership, adoption of the Euro), the country suddenly found itself without clear coordinates to follow. Furthermore, the Western world, which had been Lithuania's ultimate destination, has become more unstable than ever: Brexit, election of Donald Trump, annexation of Crimea and war in Ukraine, increasingly obvious and detrimental climate changes; have together dismantled the vision of a safe world. Once again, the time has come to formulate the question: how do we perceive the future and what do we want from it?

Engaging with these broad questions, the exhibition examines Lithuanian art from the past 40 years. The exhibition starts from the end of the seventies through early eighties - a period just before great change. While it is common to talk about new Lithuanian art starting in the period of Sąjūdis (the late 80s independence movement), less considered is what it was like to create, as an artist, without knowing about these upcoming changes, but slowly sensing them as they approached.

Sometimes we choose to sweat profoundly ourselves or make others to do that for a sweeter future, but sometimes we do the opposite - relinquish our pretensions to prove our power and instead smell and follow the sweet scent coming from the future; secreted by the sweaty, warming, glands of the earth strained by more and more humans. The exhibition presents these and other strategies for facing this future. In some of the exhibited works, one can perceive conscious reflections of the future and the powers enabling it. In other works, the authors appear as the unbeknownst harbingers of the future. Connected in a concentric structure, the artworks form a unitary totality. The closer we get to the centre of this totality the greater we push forward to the future. Yet, moving in circles, we can feel how the ponderings of one future overlap with others.

Curators: Laima Kreivytė, Jolanta Marcišauskytė-Jurašienė, Ieva Mazūraitė-Novickienė, Eglė Mikalajūnė, Agnė Narušytė

Artists: Aleksas Andriuškevičius, Akvilė Anglickaitė, Jurga Barilaitė, Artūras Barysas, Violeta Bubelytė, Alfonsas Budvytis, Eglė Budvytytė, Vitalijus Butyrinas, Cooltūristės, Aida Čeponytė, Vitalij Červiakov, Adomas Danusevičius, Tomas Daukša, Rimantas Dichavičius, Stasys Eidrigevičius, Laura Garbštienė, Gabrielė Gervickaitė, Bart Groenendaal, Karla Gruodis, Vidmantas Ilčiukas, Kristina Inčiūraitė, Donatas Jankauskas, Evaldas Jansas, Jurga Juodytė, Romas Juškelis, Linas Katinas, Algimantas Kunčius, Algimantas Kuras, Juozas Laivys, Dainius Liškevičius, Česlovas Lukenskas, Aurelija Maknytė, Arūnas Matelis, Petras Mazūras, Andrew Miksys, Ingra Miler, Deimantas Narkevičius, Robertas Narkus, Mindaugas Navakas, Audrius Novickas, Valdas Ozarinskas, Pakui Hardware (Neringa Černiauskaitė and Ugnius Gelguda), Liudas Parulskis, Igoris Piekuras, Vytautas Pletkus, Andrej Polukord, Romualdas Požerskis, Rokas Pralgauskas, Artūras Raila, Eglė Rakauskaitė, Romualdas Rakauskas, Eglė Ridikaitė, Teresė Marija Rožanskaitė, Rimas Sakalauskas, Šarūnas Sauka, Mindaugas Skudutis, Anastasia Sosunova, Rūta Spelskytė, Svajonė ir Paulius Stanikai, Laisvydė Šalčiūtė, Algirdas Šeškus, Virgilijus Šonta, Algirdas Tarvydas, Gediminas Urbonas, Nijolė Valadkevičiūtė, Dominykas Velička, Vytautas Viržbickas, Marta Vosyliūtė, Vita Zaman, Gintaras Zinkevičius, Darius Žiūra, Jurgita Žvinklytė

Exhibition design: Ieva Cicėnaitė, Julija Reklaitė

Graphic designer: Laura Grigaliūnaitė

3D documentation by: Adomas Žudys 

Partners: Lithuanian Film Centre, Lewben Art Foundation, Meno kūrinių kapinės, Valdas Ozarinskas Foundation, M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art, Small Theatre of Vilnius, Utenos Krašuonos progymnasium, Vilniaus Taikos progymnasium 

Sponsors: Lithuanian Council for Culture, JC Decaux, Exterus

Media sponsors: LRT, Žinių radijas, lrytas.lt