Monika Gimbutaitė. Stasys Museum – Too Many Languages, Too Few Phrases | Tradition

How inflated, naïve, too early a press release would you say? Maybe the transformation of a cultural occasion right into a phenomenon would require quite a lot of weeks, and the analysis of the cultural group and artwork critics on a European scale – if such an ambition is already being raised – might be obligatory?

It appears that evidently the Stasys Museum is just not burdened with such issues, and in the intervening time quite depends on faux it till you make it technique.

They’re neither the primary nor the final whose communication slogans precede their actions. Desirous regarding this, I requested myself, fairly unironically, whether or not newly established cultural establishments, competing not solely in their very own discipline, but additionally in typically unequal battles with barbecues by the lake, films on the couch and social media dramas, can actually afford to change these two spots right now. Maybe it can’t be in any other case: first you declare your self a phenomenon wherein fomo* guided individuals wish to take part, and do you hope that you’ll ever turn into a phenomenon?

And it is nonetheless fascinating to see how large ambitions have already been made significant within the lately opened museum.

The primary exhibition devoted, appropriately, to the work of Stasis Eidrigevičius, is known as “Icon-o-Stasys”. Why precisely? As Lina Albrikienė, one of many curators of the exhibition, mentioned, though the title might sound enigmatic, it’s “conveyed in a playful kind”.

“A number of interpretations are supplied that may be guided, however everybody can understand the title of the exhibition in their very own means. We will pronounce “icon” or “icono” Stasys, finally we’ll nonetheless acknowledge the that means of the phrase icon. Nonetheless, when the image O is separated, it acquires one other that means – the conveyed affiliation with a face or an eye fixed drawn within the fashion of primitivism. Each of those components are distinguished in Stasi’s work. They’ll additionally mark the purpose of intersection – between the Stasi and the viewer or the viewer and the museum,” reads the presentation of the exhibition on the museum’s web site.

True, the identify is just not defined in any respect within the annotation that welcomes guests to the exhibition.

I ponder what to do when you acknowledge the time period “iconostasis” within the identify “Icon-o-Stasys”, which ought to first come to thoughts – particularly for overseas visitors visiting a cultural occasion that’s not solely European in scope, but additionally has an English identify? “Iconostasis”, translated into Lithuanian, means “iconostasis” – a church partition adorned with icons, separating the altar half from the area for believers. Nonetheless, neither the annotation of the exposition nor the structure of the exhibition and the curatorial imaginative and prescient behind it counsel a transparent reply in regards to the connections between the iconostasis and “Icon-o-Stasys”. However cannot an artwork museum borrow an artwork analysis time period only for a play on phrases?..

As we proceed to introduce the exposition, the phrases maintain developing.

A few of them shuffle their playing cards an excessive amount of. Within the first exhibition corridor, doorways relationship from totally different years are hung, and when opened, we get to know the important thing occasions of S.Eidrigevičius’s work. When studying occasions retold within the third particular person, sentences written within the first particular person, however not separated in any means (neither by citation marks nor by graphic means), all of the sudden seem – and disappear once more.

When making an attempt to separate factual data from private impressions, factual errors be a part of the corporate. After opening one of many doorways, we study that in 1974 the Middle for Up to date Artwork was already working, the place the republican exhibition was held, however though the constructing is similar, the Middle for Up to date Artwork may, in fact, solely be dreamed of within the then Exhibition Corridor.

The connection between the textual content and the picture typically makes you shrug your shoulders – the textual content means that in 1984 necessary as a consequence of S.Eidrigevičius’ collaboration with the newspaper “Polityka” and the group exhibition in Switzerland, however these occasions of the inventive path are illustrated by the quilt of the gathering of fairy tales by Anzelmos Matutis, which isn’t talked regarding within the textual content.

However it’s not solely phrases that create issues – the dearth of phrases, which happens when coming into different exhibition areas, poses no much less challenges.

Within the exhibition, the works of S.Eidrigevičius are pretty historically, even boringly, categorised in keeping with artwork branches and genres. Nonetheless, they don’t seem to be accompanied by texts reflecting inventive change, improvement of themes and motifs, stylistic and technical options. And not using a tour or impartial preparation, the guests who got here will in all probability solely have the ability to scratch the floor, however not likely get to know the writer’s work – when visiting the exhibition just a few weeks in the past, a catalog that will permit them to dig deeper was not revealed.

Subsequently, when strolling across the exhibition, solely the labels stay, from which we will discover out the names of the works and the yr of creation, however even right here one feels a dislike for the textual content – even when the phrases are an integral a part of the works (in a few of them the phrases are written in Polish), the textual content on the labels is just not translated.

Such sudden curatorial lack of phrases is shocking. It might appear that there was no scarcity of inspiration. The work of S.Eidrigevičius was analyzed from totally different views by artwork researchers, whose insights may have recommended other ways of studying the work. What can we discuss in regards to the not so widespread scenario, when a museum is established for a residing artist who can open up the backstage of his work and do it even very talentedly – in spite of everything, S.Eidrigevičius’ different abilities embody storytelling and writing!

Though the prospect to counterpoint the exposition with the writer’s ideas was definitely not correctly used, the id of S.Eidrigevičius as a textual content creator was remembered within the exhibition. The writer’s recorded poem “Singing Rooster’s Head” may be heard right here, though the listening area is just not the most effective thought out, so the recording will quite turn into a sound background than a piece that may be skilled independently. The writer’s stunning textual content can also be ready – “Letter to an empty wall”, embedded in essentially the most instagrammable nook of the exhibition and continually showing in guests’ pictures., due to this fact it’s obscured, if not by the sculpture standing in entrance of it, then by the heads of these taking footage, thus reworking itself primarily into a visible work.

It strikes me that this, to say the least, sophisticated relationship between the museum and the textual content turns into a very good metaphor for the establishment itself. Phrases manifest, illustrate, cover and conceal. There are such a lot of and so few phrases on the similar time, as a result of the museum nonetheless lacks a transparent inventive imaginative and prescient, which might decrease the phrases hanging within the air to the bottom, permit them to withstand firmly and transfer ahead.

After all, making a imaginative and prescient is just not simple, and it does not essentially occur straight away. However the Stasys Museum, nonetheless haunted by the specter of the establishment’s new donated Gars cinema, an area necessary to the townspeople and to the nation’s movie historical past, doesn’t have the posh of sluggish self-searching. With a view to dispel the doubts of the skeptics, future steps should be firmer.

Right now, it’s nonetheless a good distance from changing into a cultural phenomenon. You do not turn into one due to a brand new constructing and pictures on social networks. Though the variety of guests is absolutely encouraging, the passion for the newly established museum will inevitably fade, and we all know little or no in regards to the long-term plans and visions of the museum.

Guess faking it additionally studying. And if the ambition to be a European cultural phenomenon might possibly be changed by the aspiration to turn into a contemporary, skilled, open museum – perhaps it may possibly succeed. In any other case, because the title of this exhibition predicts, it dangers remaining an iconostasis with neatly displayed Stasi icons.

* fomo – concern of lacking out, concern of lacking out