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This article has been prepared on the basis of my paper for the conference Arts in the State - The State in Arts and does not aim to present the full picture, which cannot be comprehensive anyway. It is based on the approach that a text is a photograph of language, and thus an entire collection of words can be composed according to the principle of photo collage, as words create meanings that everyone understands differently. Taking into account the fact that in the above-mentioned conference the unique conception of the Cemetery for Artworks was presented publicly for the first time, this text, for scholarly purposes, was written as a case study. Depending on the raised problems, a case study allows choosing the forms of writing that are most suitable for a concrete solution and most precisely define the starting point of its "challenge" or problem. Separate parts of the article written in an improvised legalese become experimental extensions of the artistic/research field in different linguistic registers. Using the narrative approach, the author polemicizes not only with the popular role of a speaking/writing artist, but also with the rhetoric of the regulations supporting or commissioning creative work. Legal linguistics with its inner logic and power strategy used as a means to speak about a certain creative tendency proceeds from the main problematics of the article. It should be noted that from the classical viewpoint of art, rules are made so that they could be remade. Since it is the first larger official text about the Cemetery of Artworks that has actually been in operation for three years already, information of rather descriptive than explanatory or assessing nature is basically given here. As can be judged from the consistency of the presented information, its content is rather artistic, but in the paradigm of artistic research it can be read both as a practice and theory, which in its present shape does not represent either of them. Basically it is a study for art, about art, through art and together with art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hopes to restore the independent state remained very much present throughout the whole 19th century and motivated the ideas of the civil resistance in both Poland and Lithuania. The struggles for independence erupted through the uprisings of 1794, 1830-31, and 1863. While these attempts at armed resistance did not lead to the liberation of neither Lithuania nor Poland, they demonstrated the undying willingness to regain freedom. With the increasing repressive crackdown by the tzarist government, the role of artists only grew. Paintings and poems became weapons in the fight against the tzarist policy of Russification. The paper focuses on the works that the painter Vincentas Smakauskas (1797-1876) created after the suppressed uprising of 1831. The paper proposes a hypothesis that the paintings created during this dramatic period of Lithuanian history encoded secret symbolical meanings that represented the ideas of civil resistance. The research was inspired by the repeating scenes of grief and was carried out as an analysis of the traumatic experiences in society after the suppression of the uprising of 1831, when the tzarist government started repressing cultural and religious life. The methodological combination of iconological research and psychoanalysis resulted in the premise about the compensatory functions of creativity for both artists and their social environment. While searching for the reasons of similarity between the two paintings by Smakauskas--"Steponas Batoras Establishes the Vilnius Academy" and "A Group of People Surrounding a Woman in Her Death Bed"--the research poses a question: what is the real object of loss? The paper proposes a hypothesis that the object of loss can be deduced from the interrelation between these two paintings. While the former depicts the act of establishment of Vilnius University, which is a socially uplifting event, the latter shows the loss of this symbol. It is likely that, due to the complicated political situation and censorship, Smakauskas was forced to hide this idea by depicting the anonymous woman in her death bead. Perhaps, his contemporaries, who still recalled his first painting proudly displayed in the hall of Vilnius University, were expected to recognise the anonymous dying woman as an allegory for the closed Vilnius University, which was also known as Alma Mater Vilnensis. This hypothesis still lacks in sufficient proof, yet we expect to find it during the further research. While researching Smakauskas' work, the paper has discovered the exceptional role the artists played in the social life of the 19th century Lithuania. Being the citizens without a state, they acted as public intellectuals and politicians of resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers a general overview of the Lithuanian art historical research published during the three decades of Independence (1990-2020). The paper discusses the changes in institutional and academic life, the spectrum of methodological approaches, as well as the key art theoretical publications and their authors. The overview aims to assess the current situation in the art historical discipline and fascilitate the debates around the question whether Lithuania has managed to develop its own school of art theory. The analysis of the publications (mostly monographs) by the Lithuanian art theorists has conclusively shown that such school does already exist. In terms of its organisation, Lithuanian art theoretical school matches all the academic criteria: education is provided at all levels, and the dissemination and continuity of research, both empirical and theoretical, are ensured. The school has already gone through two or even three phases of development. The first stage, spanning between 1990 and 1998/99, was rich with significant achievements in the sector of education: it saw the launch of the first art theory doctorate programme in Lithuania, as well as the establishment of the Institute of Art Research, and the Vilnius Academy of Arts Publishing House. During the period, Kaunas Vytautas Magnus University launched their art theory programme, while the Culture and Art Institute in Vilnius had acquired two art theory departments. The second stage (2000-2010/12) saw a rapid growth of the number of publications, widening of the art theoretical specialisation, and further development of research methodologies. Along with the formal analysis and methodologies of iconography and iconology, came the outlines of social art history. All the spheres of art history became equipped with various methods of source research and interpretation. Among the main fields of research were the history of ecclesiastic and devotional art (patronage and heritage of mansions and urbanite art). One of the leading research problems of the time - the relation of text and image. The third stage covers the period of 2010-2020, and instead of the focus on the oldest examples of art historical heritage to the art of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. In Lithuania, the methodological innovations started gradually taking root only after the year 2000, therefore there are still many possibile routes to explore. Most texts emoploy a combination of different methodologies, varying between iconology, phenomenology, and semiotics. This helps the research to better grasp the multiplicitous nature of the analysed phenomena, although this sometimes comes at the expense of the narrational coherence and constructiveness of conclusions. The Lithuanian school is predominantly national-based. This has many advantages, although sometimes this makes it difficult to distribute the research internationally. Despite all the developments within the Lithuanian art history as a discipline, international collaboration via conferences, projects, publishing, and media still leaves much to be desired. Due to the reliability of documented information, Lithuanian art historians are able to produce a particularly high level of in their work with sources. Rather than emerging as a circle of followers around a particular prominent individual, the Lithuanian art theoretical school is a result of a number of colleagues - art historians and critics - practicing mutual support and exchange of ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text analyses the specific forms and channels of artwork development, namely, it looks into the storytelling potential of the physical space (the closedness of interiors and openness of exteriors), the digital space, and the space of paper publication. While respecing the artistic freedom, the paper stresses the importance of the permanently changing context, although even the most recognised art professionals can forget that, which often produces a comical effect. The research involves some seemingly unrelated topics and a few concrete objects: 1. artwork distribution, 2. the entrenchment of architects in the fabric of exhibition, 3. unseen contexts, and 4. the analysis/slam of exhibition titles from a particular historical period. The paper uses the comparative method that is rich both with references and personal remarks, and its style is close to that of a writer-artist rather than an academic. It aims to show the artworld as being slightly rough-around-the-edges, governed by distinct sources of power, and rich with absurdity. The research also uses dedicated illustrations to comment on the topical issues and various tragicomical situations related to them. Along with its visual component, irony temporarily relieves us of tensions and enriches the text companion. The research method is based on the practice of observation of the art field, and the analysis of its exhibition spaces along with individual artists, publishing platforms, and their intersections in the art critical publications, conferences and the internet. The paper tries to study the role of the new participants, specifically exhibition architects, in the exhibition context, while subjectively highlighting both successful and unsuccessful examples. The third part presents the analysis as a clash between randomly picked material (e.g., exhibition titles) on the one hand, and the material of a distinctly different genre (e.g., slam comments) on the other, thus deliberately rejecting the entire sociology of art. Because, when preparing to their exhibitions, artists fall prey to various word games when coming up with their project titles, and end up being torn between family, friends, art theorists and art centre directors on the one hand, and their intimate desire to express themselves on the other. This is also why the third part comes without any conclusions. The author is happy to live in such a structurally obscure environment (what's the difference whether you're self-taught or you've got a degree in art management; after all, life is but collection of exceptions), as long as one has the power of an individual voice. The author is but a text, while the polyphony of other people, historical events and texts is but a context, and the latter is always bigger than the former. The voice, in which we tell our stories of art, will be most successful not only when it is unique, but also when it comes out as a scream. One is thus bound to scream loudly and end one's life with a book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the interactions within an exhibition between its architecture and its curatorial program. Instead of being regarded as a dual system with a single goal, the interactions are seen as two separate systems that do not always ensure a coherent articulation of the content in the exhibition. An architectural program implies an existing exhibition space with new design solutions for a specific exhibition. An architectural program is an existing exhibition space with new design solutions for a specific exhibition. The curatorial program is called the logic of the arrangement of works - the principle according to which art objects are combined into a conceptual, visual or thematic picture. The study highlights that each of these programs has three types of expression that make up nine possible interactions between the exhibition architecture and its content. Of these, three interactions mark situations where the spatial layout and its content correspond to each other. However, the study focuses on the cases with particular discrepancies, as the practice shows that such exhibitions are most prevalent. This is thought to be due to the fact that the architectural structure of the exhibition halls is often unfriendly towards certain curatorial scenarios. Instead of regarding this as a problem, the paper considers this as an opportunity for the cases of conscious and productive solutions. The paper investigates one specific case: "Head With Many Thoughts", an exhibition at CAC. The exhibition is analysed both theoretically and practically with the help of the Space Syntax method, analytically assessing the behavioral patterns predicted in the exhibition, as well as practically checking how the audience groups respond to the exhibition. Rather than using a mere theoretical analysis, the paper proposes to consider the potential of these methods for further development and practical adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the aspects of anationhood in art theory and culture have already been thoroughly investigated, the relatively young discipline of cinema theory is only beginning to grapple with the notion of nationality in cinema. The earliest attempts to define 'national cinema' go back as far as the soviet and the early Independence periods, as seen in the works of Marijona Malcienė, Laimonas Tapinas, and Živilė Pipinytė. The paper aims to build on these early debates and develop a new interpretation of the notion of national cinema, offer its contemporary historiography with the pluralist understanding of the notion, and therefore ask the following series of questions: is it only the cultural texts about the host country that can be considered 'national'? does 'nationality' depend on the nationality of the artist? what criteria determine the value and significance of cinema? is it just the films with high artistic quality that are worthy of our attention? how about other factors that determine the culture of cinema (audience, distribution, screening)? how does the integration of these factors change our understanding of 'national cinema'? The paper addresses these questions in three parts. In the first one, I use key authors (Andrew Higson, John Hill, and Stephen Croft) to discuss the development of the notion of 'national cinema' while paying more attention to its modern interpretation due to its relevance to the contemporary cinema theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper overviews the history of the privately owned Kaunas Women's Arts and Crafts School (1927-1940), established by the craftswoman Stasė Gudonytė-Biziokienė (1896-1943). Her work is analysed in the context of the interwar arts and crafts education. The school was continuing the tradition of women's crafts education that formed in the 2nd half of the 19th century. Being part of the interwar elite, Gudonytė-Bizokienė, was considered one of the founders of Lithuanian high fashion. During the period of 1935-1936, the school introduced three additional courses: hat making, women's fashion, and children's clothing design and tailoring. The paper uses archival material and memories of family members to present the biography of Gudonytė-Bizokienė. The paper also describes the school with its educational aims, structure, institutional reforms of 1935, and its curriculum. The paper overviews the remaining samples of the students' work that reflect the interwar ideals of a cosy home space, and feature a mix of art deco and modernised folk style. The significance of the school is demonstrated by tracing the careers of its graduates in the general context of arts and crafts education of the time. Apart from Kaunas Art School and Dotnuva Academy of Agriculture (1924-1945), Kaunas Women's Arts and Crafts School was the only higher education establishment with speciality in arts. The school's aims matched the Lithuanian demands. Gudonytė-Bizokienė's tailoring courses were on par with the educational programs of the notable tailors of the interwar Kaunas. The paper concludes that it was the artistic crafts that Gudonytė-Bizokienė saw as her main goal, while the fashion salons were only an appendage to her educational work. Crafts education was credited with a higher status in the Lithuanian schools of vocational education. However small, the group of the school's graduates that the research was able to identify demonstrates excellent professional skills and readiness to work in the sphere of crafts education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is dedicated to the theoretical approaches and methodologies of artwork interpretation. By drawing from the contemporary materialist philosophy, primarily the theories of Bruno Latour and Donna J. Haraway, the paper aims to develop a version of contextual interpretation that is both terrestrial and spectulative. The paper discusses the conditions of discoursive emancipation, networked inclusivity and agency of artworks, namely: author's death, the importance of cognition, and Rancière's notion of aesthetic regime. Rancière talks about the emancipation of viewer as a result of the unpredictability of sensory cognition and the incongruity of the rules of poetics and aesthetics, which implies the activisation of artworks (images, texts, etc.). The paper argues that artworks (mediated images) have more agency than texts, which is confirmed by visual phenomenology, psychoanalysis of the gaze, the paradigm of effigies, etc. The artworks are thus the active and not-quite-dead participants of social interrelations because they keep generating unforeseen performative consequences and random meanings, as well as shaping the behaviour of the audiences that perceive them. Meanwhile authors and interpreters are not subjects but 'mere' actants - they are not-quite-alive as they rely on mediatised repositories of knowledge and forms. In terms of Latour's Actor-Network Theory (ANT), the perceiving audience (including art theorists themselves) are networked actants, and their interrelations involve many other actants, including originary imagery, (meta)stories, ideas, artists, thinkers, atmospheric phenomena, animals, and artefacts. Within Haraway's paradigm of situated knowledge, an artwork would be a sympoietic companion that joins us in thinking, makes us worry, assemble into the networks of partial, embodied, and site-specific knowledge, as well as mourn and facilitate our response-ability. If we are able to think together with various human and non-human entities, both alive and dead, this surely extends to artworks too. Haraway calls the paradigm of cohabitation of species and entities Chthulucene, and sometimes it is possible to apply it to the artworks that are not necessarily new. In the second part, I ignore the distinction between the art theoretical text and meta-text, and take up the case of Antanas Gudaitis (1904-1989). A master figure of Lithuanian modernism, Gudaitis studied in Paris (1929-1931), and his later period is marked by the plentitude of references to inter-species cohabitation. In his drawings from the 1970s, we see birds sitting at the table together with people, and his later work features 'double-portraits' that combined the heads of humans and various animals. Depicted in the distinctly expressionist style, objects and animate creatures are turned into equal actants. Gudaitis stresses the optical similarities between humans and non-humans, which gives his work the quality of the Freudian uncanny. In the conditions of an almost total cultural isolation during the soviet era, the art of Gudaitis, as well as that of the CoBrA collective, with their vision of an empathetic and slightly uncanny inter-species cohabitation (which today we would call post-anthropocentric), could have only emerged in the artistic soil already prepared by surrealism. The research of creative contexts, cultural environment and imagery is common in art history, and it is also one of the traits of the situative - terrestrial - interpretation, although the reformation of the art theoretical language through a meaningful developing of the speculative dimension is certainly not an easy task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the history of the Dailė Cooperative, the need and circumstances of its founding, its structure and activities. The cooperative operated (1941–45) during a highly turbulent period in Lithuania, when one occupational regime followed another, and World War II took place. The activity of this cooperative was important in that it built a concentrated production base (workshops with equipment, materials, etc.), handled orders, and coordinated the purchase and sale of works of professional and folk art. The Dailė Cooperative was modelled after the Soviet Art Fund, which, by means of centralizing material support (materials, tools, distribution of orders, and remuneration for work) provided to artists, controlled the creation of artworks. It should be noted that the founding and activities of the Dailė Cooperative were closely related to the Marginiai company, which was established in the interwar period to support folk art and home industry. The Dailė Cooperative took over its infrastructure as regimes changed; the company’s facilities were used, and nationalised workshops were merged into it. The cooperative brought together artists and folk artists, handled the sales of their works, held workshops, provided financial support, and contributed to the organisation of exhibitions. The activities of the Dailė Cooperative partly reflect the structure of the art scene in the period of occupation, the mechanism of its functioning, and the nature of the need for art and its consumption. The Dailė Cooperative was established during the first Soviet occupation, and its activities were not suspended, restricted, or terminated during the Nazi occupation. This shows that the institution of this type and the principle of its operation (centralised management) were acceptable to both regimes. After the war, the Dailė Cooperative became the basis for the Dailė manufactories, which were founded in 1945 and operated throughout the period of the second Soviet occupation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article was prepared for the conference „How to Tell About Art? Art History, Criticism, Texts and Narratives in Lithuania" which was organized by the Institute of Art Research. The conference description stated: "The aim of art history and criticism is to open the work of art to the imagination of the perceiver." What texts on art best reveal their artistic dimensions? All texts leave traces and affects perception, depending on the influence and symbolic value of the interpreter and the emancipation of the viewer or perceiver. How many and which perceptual references, what plug-ins/crutches does the viewer really need from an art critic? For Jacques Rancière, the emancipation of the viewer begins with the principle of equality. However, the art institution often insists on the 'correct' way to view the work, as well as what to buy, collect and watch, thus enforcing a linear understanding of cultural development. American antropologist Clifford Geertz argues that culture cannot be described by imposing ideas and advocates for the percetion-based, rather than evaluation-based understanding of culture.31 According to the modern paradigm of cultural relativism, it is important to learn the language of those we research, so that we could look over their shoulder, without succumbing to the Darwinian scientific racism. The latter violates the artist's autonomous representation of free thought, as well as the viewer's freedom to choose and interpret works of art according to their own experience. The artist's own 'study' of the authentic origins of an artwork can be considered as a unveiling of the unexposed part of the artwork in textual form. Artists own narrative frees them from the necessity to evaluate and provides material for studies of the peculiar systems of artistic thinking and creative genesis. Speaking about - or rather, with - art and artistic approach presuppose a respectful relationship with the art viewer and perceiver: instead of explaining what the particular experience should/could feel like, it provides more material for perception and further artistic interpretation. Could this help us "open the work of art to the imagination of the perceiver"? It is possible that, when written by a non-canonical artist, such a text with its ambiguous ties to the artwork would not only hamper the viewer's imagination, but also deconstruct any pre-existing fragmentary perception. The art history inventory finds complicated systems inconvenient. Therefore, by asking "Who Wants to Know where Artists live?", I not only emphasise the Who, which refers to the interested party, but also ask weather (who needs it) or why it could be interesting to know all that, and what to do with it. The article presents excerpts from a piece of author's artistic writing which was read as a conference paper. The reader is therefore invited to sample the experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the first Lithuanian art historical publication by proffessor and art historian Joseph Saunders, who read it in Vilnius University in November 1815. The article titled "Knowledge about Szymon Czechovicz's Life and Creations" is considered to be the beginning of historiographical research in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Similarly to the first art historian Giorgio Vasari and his "Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects" (published in 1550), Saunders reminds his readers of a forgotten painter (who made multiple portraits and religious scenes), and underlines his accomplishments and talent. Following the Vasarian tradition, Saunders brings attention to Czechovicz's life, his character, and his approach to art. Much like Vasari, Saunders is interested in the artist's soul, virtues and morale, and is emphasizing their importance in his philosophic reflections about art and artists. By comparing Saunders' article with the scheme of the "Lives" by Vasari, the paper suggests that Vasari could have been a model art historian, and argues that his methods of analysis were applied by Saunders in the 19th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is based on a paper presented at the conference "How to Tell About Art?" (Vilnius Academy of Arts, 7-8 May 2021; curated by Lina Michelkevičė, Laura Petrauskaitė, and Aušra Trakšelytė). The topic of the presentation was suggested by the growing interest among the Lithuanian public in historical art exhibitions. Both the conference report and the article are based on the assumption that the increasing visibility of the historical art exhibitions in the Lithuanian cultural field and their growing popularity might have an impact that goes beyond the art historical reflections. Such exhibitions not only develop the audience's sensitivity to artefacts, but also stimulate and partially satisfy the desire to learn about the history of culture, society and politics. The immanent characteristic of art - the perpetual movement of a visual artwork from (total) invisibility to (partial) visibility - implies the significance of an art exhibition and its capacity to communicate the 'inconvenient', and therefore silenced and distorted, memory. A fragment of the past will remain irrelevant for as long as it is unrecognised. By bringing the viewer face to face with the artefacts of a forgotten reality, the exhibition brings the latter closer, sharpens its colours, and makes it vivid. By taking the series of exhibitions dedicated to Lithuanian art and artistic life during WWII as its case study, the article aims to at least partially answer the question: how relevant, influential, and meaningful is the communication of 'inconvenient' and therefore silenced historical topics, particularly in an art exhibition that uses catalogue as its integral part? The article explains the motives for organising these exhibitions, analyses their brief descriptions along with their narrative structure, and overviews the forms and methods of dissemination. In order to provide a broader context for the issues at stake, a juxtaposition is made with similarly themed exhibitions recently held in Germany and Italy. They became renowned for their local and international focus on art produced under the Fascist and National Socialist regimes, as well as under the conditions of WWII. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Lithuania, the era of a contemporary artist's book began with the restoration of Independence. The year 1993 saw the opening of "The Book", the first international show of artist's books (Vilnius Contemporary Art Centre; cur. Kęstutis Vasiliūnas) which was followed by various presentations of book art in many other international art fairs abroad. Since 1997 Vasiliūnas has been curating the triennials dedicated to artist's book (including "Diary: Eight Days", "Love", "The Rabbit and the House" and "23 Sins"). The 8th triennial "Memento Mori" (2018) took place in Vilnius Martynas Mažvydas Public Library, later the exposition was brought to the USA, Italy and Germany. The triennials dedicated to the artist's book have been organised across the entire world. Since 1993, over 40 international shows and symposiums were held in Lithuania, Germany, USA, Austria, France, South Corea and elsewhere. Vasiliūnas has managed to assemble a growing international community dedicated to the genre of artist's book. The extensive international interest in the Lithuanian artist's book trienials testifies to the lasting importance of Vasiliūnas' curatorial work. R. Vaigeltaitė-V. became part of the contemporary artist's book movement back in the early 1990s. During the next 30 years she has created over 60 artist's books, all unique in terms of their form and structure. Most of her books have a traditional format of a leafed codex, but she also made leporello concertinas and book-objects. The books were made of various types of paper, including hand-made paper, as well as plastic, linen fabric, natural materials and found objects. The artist's books often involve mixed media such as linocut, wood block, colography, collage, stiching, ink jet print. The subjects of these diary-like records of everyday and travel experiences include mythology and religion. In terms of printing technique, Vaigeltaitė-V's book art is related to graphic printing: the ideas she comes up with during the making of the artist's book are then explored in graphic prints, and vice versa. The artistic scope of Prof. Kęstutis Vasiliūnas (Graphic Art Department, Vilnius Academy of Arts) is truly universal -- he is a graphic artist, artist's book designer, installation artist and curator. Vasiliūnas got interested in the artist's book in the early 1990s. His first work -- The Book of Creation -- was exhibited at "The Book" (1993), a show dedicated to the genre of artist's book. Vasiliūnas usually makes singular books and small print runs. Among the techniques he uses are coloured wood block print, longhand writing, drawing, ink jet print and movable type print. Vasiliūnas' books retain their visual link with the traditional block-shaped book. Despite of what they are made of -- be it wooden panels, paper, tea bags -- they all have landscape or square-shaped rectangluar pages and they all feature lapels. The series of of tea bag book-objects was launched in the naugthties. Vasiliūnas also works as a graphic designer. His work is defined by an interplay between these two disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the cloth-bound and decorated books stored in the Rare Books Department of the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, and expands on the use of textile depending on the content of the book and its purpose. The number of cloth-covered books is rather small. One of the reasons for this is that from the 16th century onward, with the advent of stronger gold-plated leather bindings, textile bindings experienced a decline in popularity; their use got restricted mainly to the special books and with additional decorations. Furthermore, clothbound books fray faster unless their corners have extra protection. It cannot be ruled out that some of such old bindings may have perished during various disasters while what reached us was re-bound books or books that had lost their bindings. The 19th century Catholic Church stand out as notable examples. A relatively large number of them survived to this day, particularly those dedicated to the Samogitian diocese. This can be explained by the fact that the calendars were only used for one year; therefore, simple fabric bindings were sufficient. The recurrent cloths used for the covers of rubricellae support the assumption that at least some of the calendars were sold for binding. Of the ornate books of secular content, the 1737 Horace's works printed in London are worthy to be distinguished, with their inner covers covered with silk moiré. The exquisitely ornate Catholic missals and Orthodox Gospel books are covered with additionally decorated velvet: the corners are adorned with square or rounded details, with a biblical scene or an image of a saint featured at the centre. Such books usually have a metal clasp. Although no metal components of the Orthodox Gospel books stored in the funds of the Rare Books Department have survived, the possible scenes depicted in them can be deduced from other respective Gospel books -- they would probably contain images of evangelists in the corners and the crucifixion at the centre. Catholic liturgical books are decorated with multiple-strand bookmarkers with ornate anchors covering their connecting knot. As the pages of the book had to be turned during the liturgy of the Mass, and the prayers were meant to be read from different places of the book, several bookmarkers marking the different places were required. For the sake of convenience, they were connected at the top. It is not possible to determine exactly where the tradition of decorating the connection point of the bookmarkers came from as such details of various shapes are known in both Catholic and Orthodox books; therefore, such method could have either come along with the missals or it could have been borrowed from the Orthodoxes living nearby. Two shapes of the bookmark anchors used in both missals and the Gradual have been discovered -- flat rectangular ones, decorated with lace, embroidered or simply sewn from ornate fabric, as the ones shaped like an elongated tube, made from decorative twine, with a piece of firmly rolled-up thick paper placed at the centre. Missals have bookmarks unique exclusively to them -- they are, glued to the side, made from various ribbons, usually silk, marking each page of the Eucharistic prayer. They were meant to help turn the pages easily, making sure that the priest saying the prayer is not distracted. Although not abundant, the collection of books with textile bindings stored in the Rare Books Department of the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences is very diverse. The examples discussed in the paper reveal the different options of using this material: luxury cloths are used for exclusive books with functional significance, simpler ones -- for short-lived, practical publications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the phenomenon entitled as "(non)recording medium", the phenomenological experience of which and the subjective relation with the mirror image of the Self are reflected on from the perspectives of psychoanalysis, phenomenology, philosophy, and media theory. By interpreting the works of visual art that use reflexive surfaces, the paper analyses the representational-mimetic function of reflection in the contemporary culture of visual over-abundance. By using the notions of 'the Real' and 'illusion' as the key parameters, the paper analyses the introspective state that emerges in front of the non-recording surface, the viewer as the Other self and their experience of the Real. Here psychoanalysis acts through the Other self the image of which is reflected on the surface, phenomenology-- through the sensual and temporal experience of the subjective reality, while the image itself is but a mimetic copy of the experienced object inscribed in the consciousness of the viewer. The paper introduces the definition of the ephemeral, transformed and ever-changing act of mimesis where the spontaneous--and volatile--nature of an image unfolds. By questioning the similarity and representation, the paper rethinks the shift of mimesis from the classical understanding of the imitation of reality to the modern understanding of the Real as volatile and temporal. Here the mimetic experience manifests through the combination of impermanence and temporality in art which, through the interaction between the subject's consciousness, memory and imagination, turns imago into a non-recordable mask of the subject. The ephemerality of the image implies the essential experience of the present where the Real is reduced to an appearance, while a constantly self-positing consciousness shapes the individual experience and thus affects the visuality itself. Therefore a visual reflection should be regarded as one of the categories of contemporaneity which functions as a radical form of reductive mimesis which exists beyond the limits of representative acts--it condenses the perceived Real and is strengthened through temporal dimension and the over-abundance of the images of fleeting presence. The paper aims to specify the notion of mimesis which, while still imprisoned in antiquity, is now often replaced with other terms, and is largely ignored by the art theoretical discourse. The paper discusses the examples where it unfolds via different artistic means: Asukas (2018) by Beatričė Mockevičiūtė, Pre-consciousness (2017) by Paulius Rainys, and The Continuity of Presence in the Past (1974) by Dan Graham. By temporarily capturing the parameters of the ever-changing Real, these experiential installations are positioned as visual screens that transmit the fleeting present. The paper actualises the question of (un)reality of an image--just like an artwork, a mirror posits a false--fictional--replica of the subjective Real: in other words, it is an imitation, or mimetic reality. The paper concludes that we are both what we see and how we are seen by others: we no longer reflect on the images, but rather are images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper was inspired by the need to acknowledge and identify the signs of war in the Lithuanian art of the 1930s. In order to keep the specificity of art historical research in view, the research is narrowed down to the visual artefacts of various kinds and purposes--from paintings (Justinas Vienožinskis) and graphic prints (Mečislovas Bulaka, Jonas Kuzminskis, and Žibuntas Mikšys) to the mass-produced press illustrations, posters, adverts, and decorations. The paper analyses historiographically lesser known artworks, including the posters by Vytautas Jurkūnas, Boleslovas Motuza and Liudas Vilimas, and the examples of imported art (lithographs by Louis Lozowick as well as foreign photography). The research material leads to the conclusion that Lithuania was preparing for a modern warfare which, similarly to the situation in the neighbouring countries, was widely associated with new types of weapons; tanks, planes, bombs and gas masks were regarded as symbols of the upcoming war. The image of modern warfare was reflected and disseminated not only via political texts of both local and foreign authors, reports from war zones, civil defense instructions, but also by images, primarily mass-printed press illustrations, public posters, event decorations, and advertisements. From a product of mass visual consumption, the motif of a gas mask got transposed onto paintings and graphic art where it acquired the status of the sign of modern warfare and acted as a premonition for the war that was about to engulf Lithuania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers an enquiry into masquerades as a social phenomenon. The peculiarity of masquerades--public events that emerged and were popularised in the 18th century--is that they provided different social classes with a unique opportunity to have fun together. The paper aims to research the structure of the 18th century society and identify the social changes that fuelled the demand to transcend the limits between social classes through this particular form of entertainment. By drawing on memoirs, fiction, and press reports, the paper analyses the function and social reception of masquerades. Even though the popularity of masquerades could be regarded as a sign of democratisation and diminishing of class barriers in society, these barriers remained very much present and obvious to everybody. Because the identities of people behind masks were unknown and participants were not permitted to bring any status-related attributes (such as weapons or servants), masquerades were creating an illusion of social equality. Yet this equality was rather ephemeral--the person's status was still often recognisable nonetheless and the aristocracy was not even attempting to hide it. The masquerade security forces were allowed to use their judgment and punish the wrongdoers according to their class. It is worth noting that, as masquerades were gradually gaining popularity, they were also subjected to "stratification": they adapted to the financial situations and demands of various social groups and, while becoming accessible to the poor, masquerades also introduced even greater social divisions. Masquerades were attractive primarily due to the unrestricted exploration of the possibilities of anonymity. They were based on the natural tendency to create illusions and tricks, which some saw as part of a controlled social game, while others saw them as a chance to hide their social status. The paper also concludes that, due to the mass character and the capacity to draw crowds from all social strata, masquerades were also used as tools of soft power: for example, in Vilnius, masquerades used to be organised by the officers of the Russian army deployed in the city at that time. This also served as a reason for debates about patriotism and treason. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has not been much academic research into how the artefacts of orientalist art ended up in Lithuanian museums, libraries and private collections, and how they are represented. This paper raises the question of the Far Eastern art heritage in Lithuania, and addresses the problems of artistic attribution. The paper analyses the case of the Chinese woodblock prints--nianhua (年画), or the so-called "New Year images"--stored in the orientalist art collections of the Lithuanian Art Museum (LAM) and Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis National Museum of Art (MKČNMA). The collections contain seven nianhua prints of this particular format and style. The research has successfully decoded the Chinese inscriptions; specified and determined the titles of the prints; attributed the prints to specific printmaking schools and workshops; identified the theatrical motifs with their corresponding literary sources and Peking opera productions; elaborated on the characters and their various properties; specified the meanings of the allegories, emblems, scenographic makeup, and costumes; and defined the particularities of artistic expression. The paper combined iconographic, historical and comparative methodologies, and carried out a partial research on the artistic style. Compared to the Chinese graphic art collections in the museums abroad, the works stored in LAM and MKČMA are not as numerous, yet they are arguably just as rare and valuable. The prints are unique in their form, aesthetic value, and artistic technique. All prints are attributed to the famous Yangliuqing school and dated to the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. They are all in good condition, and some of them are professionally restored. This first attempt to identify and introduce the Chinese woodblock prints from the orientalist art collections of Lithuanian museums is intended to inspire further research, promote the museum collections, and give an impetus to expand them. The research aims to bring a wider knowledge about the theatre-themed prints that reflect the whole complex of Chinese spiritual culture to the contemporary audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By drawing on the principles of the 17th century portraiture, the paper discusses the functioning and meaning of the anthropomorphic imagery embedded withing the system of the architectonically structured decorum. The paper is based around the following question: is it feasible to identify the 'average' facial types as they are used in various pictorial systems with portraits of specific people? The research reconstructs the practices--prevailing in the discourses of the Lithuanian art history--of identifying specific individuals in the hermas on the doors of the Kretinga Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary; it also brings out the iconographic analogies in some of the wood carving motifs and offers their possible sources. The research has shown that, during first decades of the 17th century, the roles of visual and verbal representations of a person were taken up by various hybrid structures. For instance, a personal coat of arms with the depiction of a particular individual, itself being a hybrid structure, makes a yet another hybrid formation primarily with another media of representation-- that of a portrait. The same goes for the values and their representations professed, advocated, defended, or created by this particular individual, namely: churches, books, tombs, sarcophagi... The analysis of written sources revealed the inherent connection between the literary portrait of an individual and the dedicated heraldic figures. Jonas Chodkevičius' heraldic griffon blends in rather organically with the narrativised descriptions of the commander's appearance, including the traits of physiognomy depicted in the spirit of Aristotelian tradition - for example, Chodkevičius' noble and predatory "eagle's nose". Differently from literature and the odd illustrations from Giambattista Della Porta's treatise on physiognomics, no such hybridity is found in representational art of the 17th century: a person is represented mimetically in a portrait and symbolically (in this case, via zoomorphic motifs) in the coat of arms. These different media can be unified within a single architectural space (e.g., a church) and a single architectonic system (tombstone, gateway, furniture, etc.). The question remains whether a specific person can be represented in a hybrid structure such as herma, term, Caryatid, or Atlas. While deconstructing the art theorist Marija Matuškaitė's idea about the identification of people--the approach that prevails in Lithuanian art historical discourse--in relation to the Kretinga Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, the research concludes that the principle of similarity and the links with biographical facts are not enough to interpret the hermas as depictions of specific people. The research confirms and contextualises the depictions of the church founders Jonas Karolis Chodkevičius and Sofija Chodkevičienė in the upper segments of the coats of arms that decorate the doors; the research also proposes a hypothesis that the three hermas at the lower part of the doors represent three parts of the Rosary Prayer, yet they can also represent the community of worshippers, a common prayer (Mt 18, 20) and the Church itself. Iconographically, the anthropomorphic images found in the Kretinga Church decorum can be divided into two groups: the familiar portraits of saints (Jesus, Mary, and the Cherubs) and the hybrid figures of anthropomorphised columns (Atlas and Caryatid as the figures of man and woman that support the doors as well as the trypych of hermas in the decorative system of the main entrance of the church). Their function is not merely decorative and they clearly encode a message that is either dedicational or didactic. The research was unable to determine the iconographic sources and specific meanings of Atlas and Cryatid depicted on the sacristy doors as figures cinctured with rosary and morphed into volutes and mannerist "cufflinks". It is obvious that this decorative composition, the upper part of which is decorated with the monogram of Jesus and the heads of Cherubs, and the sides of which are supported with two columns-figures that terminate at the pedestals ornamented with flower buds and lion heads (symbols of death/eternity), articulates the concept of faith and prayer. The same is also evident in the wood carvings and the iconographic programme of the church's main entrance. The research concludes that some of the motifs of the wood carvings of Kretinga church doors--burning lion heads and tasseled strings of rosary--are similar to the copper etchings in Joannis David's book Veredicum Christianum (1606) illustrated by Theoodor Galle, Joan Galle and Johan Wierix. This allows us to assume that further research on the decorative motifs can be useful for the attempts to reconstruct the iconographic programme of these unique wood carvings, find out their origins, and clarify the circumstances of their creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the portraits of Maria Lupu (c. 1625-1660), daughter of the ruler of Moldova Duchy and the second wife of Janušas Radvila (1612-1655), made specifically during the period between mid 17th century and mid 19th century. The paper takes into account only the portraits and their later copies depicting Lupu in her mature age, and is dedicated to the question of false attribution. The research attempts to clarify their dating and the conditions of their creation. Only a few portraits that were made during her lifetime survived to this day: the National Museum of the Republic of Belarus has a painting by Johan Schretter that depicts both wives of Radvila--Lupu and Kotryna Potockytė; the portrait of a lady which was recently identified as Lupu, stored in Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen, Denmark; and a possible copy of the latter portrait reproduced in the publication Theatrum Europaeum (1652). Warsaw National Museum also has a portrait from the series of "Laureal Leaves" which is possibly modelled after the painting held in Rosenberg Castle. The only references to the vanished group portrait of Radvila with his two wives are the drawing by Ferdinandas Friderikas Vilhelmas Radvila (1834-1926) and the watercolours created by Karolis Račinskis (1799-1860) in the first half of the 18th century (the latter depict the figures separately). As many as three portraits of Lupu were misidentified and turned into symbolic masks for other people. First, it is the Rosenborg Castle portrait which was once thought to depict M. Stricka. The second one is a portrait held in a private collection--painted on a wooden plinth, it dates back to the 18th century and is once thought to depict Barbora Radvilaitė. This portrait is likely to be created as a copy of the reproduction printed in Theatrum Europaeum. The third case belongs to one of the two portraits that depicts the duchess in the Radvila family album Familiae Ducalis Radivillianae--it has a signature that falsely identifies it with Kotryna Tomicka. The image has been created according to the portrait painted by Johan Schretter who portrayed Lupu alongside Radvila's first wife Kotryna Potockytė. The analysis showed that the false attribution of these portraits could have occurred due to the misinterpretation of the attributes of status and lineage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the 17th century canvas "St. Ann the Third" that once belonged to the Nesvyžius Benedictines and is now held in a private collection. The research has concluded that Hieronymus Wierix's (1553-1619) engraving "Earthly and Heavenly Trinity" served as a template for the said canvas, where the figure of St. Joseph was substituted with that of St. Ann's. The analysis focuses on the specific traits of St. Ann's face and hypothesises that the portrait of the saint bears similarities with Krystyna Eufemia Radziwiłłówna (1598-1657) who was a Benedictine nun and, since 1631, the abbess of the Nesvyžius Monastery. As a comparison, the research also draws on other artworks that the scholarship associates with this historical person: the sculpture of St Scholastica, once part of the altar in the Nesvyžius Church of Benedictines (currently in the Church of Novaya Mysh), and the canvas "Lamentation of Christ" in Kaunas Church of St. Michael (Radziwiłłówna is identified with the image of St. Mary Magdalene). It is likely that the sculpture of St. Scholastica was created in the likeness of Radziwiłłówna who was the then abbess of the monastery. This is confirmed by the abbess' robe which, while unusual for the traditional portraits of St. Scholastica, is identical to those popular in the congregation of Culm Benedictines of the 17th century. The same line of argumentation allows us to assume that "St. Scholastica", the painting by an unknown painter dated to the 17th century and displayed in Kaunas Church of St. Michael, is likely to have been created in the likeness of one of the abesses of the monastery. Meanwhile the paper rejects the identity between Radziwiłłówna and the figure of St. Mary Magdalene in the painting "Lamentation of Christ". The research determined that this painting was created much later and replicates a 1635 composition from the Church of Santa Maria in Aquiro, Rome, attributed to the Italian painter J. Massa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the context of the two editions (1967 and 1982 respectively) of Drafting Modernism [ Modernizmo metmenys], a monograph by Lionginas Šepetys. It is argued that the five reviews of the 1967 edition and the two reviews of the 1982 edition that appeared in news media and cultural press of the time, are partially indicative of the levels of knowledge on modernist art the readers of the book had during the different times. An overview of the publications on modernist art gives an impression that, in order to justify a comprehensive presentation of the theoretical and methodological approaches in modern art, publishers and news media had to find ideological pretexts and make it look like they were following the guidelines of the soviet cultural policy. Hence, instead of being the actual means of implementing the ideological cultural policy, these cases were rather a result of the specific circumstances and the particular relations between people and nations. At that time, Drafting Modernism was the single most prominent Lithuanian publication dedicated to modern art, and the totality of its critical reviews forms a picture of the informational field of the time, allowing us to see what information was available to the expert reviewers that used to be commissioned by the cultural press. In order to recognise the significance of the publication within the information field of the time, the paper analyses the texts via the methods of knowledge sociology and critical discourse analysis. Only a small part of the soviet art theorists had access to the specialised information—these were usually the researchers and acknowledged dissertation authors trusted by the regime who were permitted access to the Western libraries or at least the special collections in the Moscow libraries. Lionginas Šepetys was one of those few researchers. It would be more accurate to say that many of those who, in the conditions of freely available information, might have been called experts, or whom soviet publishers and media regarded as experts, were what the knowledge sociologist Alfred Schütz called ‘well-informed citizens’. They had access to the special collections in the libraries of Moscow and Vilnius, and were able to summarise the opinions of both local and foreign experts. Meanwhile the authors who favoured the soviet regime used to create socialist narratives about the well-analysed artworks. Thus a large number of those wanting to become well informed citizens had to rely on the popular soviet literature which was too sparse for the readers to engage in an informed polemic that involved different points of view. In addition to that, an author did not have to be an expert—in principle, a work on popular science could have been published by a well-informed citizen who was capable of interpreting the research of experts, and yet the publications often did not list their information sources. This gives an impression that, from the standpoint of the publishers, this kind of literature was aimed not at a citizen who wants to be well-informed, but rather at the ‘man on the street’ who had no interest in the cultural principles and processes. In 1967, there were no experts capable of debating Šepetys as equals. Lacking in specialised knowledge and unable to rise to the level of experts, the local well-informed citizens were reviewing the monograph within the bounds of their limited knowledge based on the soviet art history and their enquiries into the notion of modernity according to the Lithuanian art theory. Meanwhile, the 1982 edition no longer holds its status as an indisputable source of expert information—with the advent of the alternative expert narratives, the new edition now featured source references, which was a telling sign of the shifting relations between the actors in the information field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the roles of women in the 20th century Lithuanian literature and culture. The paper focuses primarily on the lives and works of the poets Janina Degutytė and Judita Vaičiūnaitė, and the art critic Aušra Sluckaitė. The argument is built around the two premises: first, the atmosphere of the post-Stalinist ‘thaw’ of the 1960s manifested through the liberalisation of society and modernist experimentation in arts. Second, the post-Stalinist reprieve also saw the return to the ideology of the traditionally patriarchal gender roles. The paper looks through a series of cases and analyses the ways in which women were active in literature by noting how the notions of femininity manifested in their work, and how their ways of working in the field of literature actually impeded their capacities to make their contributions evident. Drawing on the memoirs, letters, and other documents, the paper discusses women’s representations of both their selves and their youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the idea of ‘cultural resistance’ or ‘quiet modernism’ by analysing the records (in the form of interviews, papers and books) of the first generation of the post-WWII Lithuanian modernist architects (Vytautas Edmundas Čekanauskas, Vytautas Brėdikis, Algimantas and Vytautas Nasvytis, Algimantas Mačiulis, and Justinas Šeibokas), also known as the founders of the ‘Lithuanian school of modernism’. This generation of architects emerged in the late 1950s, when it started criticising the Stalinist architecture, realising important public objects in city centres, and occupying increasingly prominent positions in academia and the world of architecture, which eventually led to the formation of a particular cultural elite. This story of success might seem unrelated to the notion of ‘cultural resistance’ (or ‘quiet modernism’) often mentioned by the architects themselves. The paper concludes with the analysis of the evolution of and the ‘grand narrative’ behind this architect group that shared the same values and employed certain ‘quiet motifs’. The research also focuses on analysing how this myth has been reconstructed after the 1990. In conclusion, the paper argues that the notions of compromise, adaptation, and subversive opportunism—rather than ‘cultural resistance’—are more appropriate to describe the architectural and urban practices of the aforementioned generation of architects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social and cultural changes that transformed the Western world so rapidly and radically in the 1960s and 70s were known as ‘sexual revolution’ primarily because they led to an overall sexualisation of popular culture. The paper analyses the forms of the sexualisation of public culture in Soviet Lithuania and offers an interpretation of its overall meaning. Rather than regarding it through a quantitative analysis of the sexualised images that appeared in public, the paper will consider the phenomenon of sexualisation through the accounts of the ‘interpretative community’—i.e., the target audience that was meant to receive and perceive the content. Two magazines (Švyturys and Nemunas) serve as the main objects of analysis. The paper examines the readers’ letters, questionnaire forms, and protocols with reader requests. The analysis identifies the main topics that were driving the reader responses and the ensuing debates on the sexualised images in the 60s (emancipation of women, difference between art and pornography, education of the youth), and identifies several forms of relating to the sexualised images (questions of feminist emancipation, elimination of eroticism, profanation of sexuality). The paper concludes with the thesis that the ‘interpretative community’ of magazine readers grasped the meaning of cultural sexualisation by encountering the sexualised images in public and identifying itself as a part of that culture. Due to the conservative ideological control, the public sexualisation was relatively moderate and restrained, while the reader reactions and debates were rather intense and pressing, which is why the paper proposes to name this phenomenon as ‘quiet sexualisation of culture’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper was inspired by Elona Lubytė’s seminar that she held in the National Art Gallery on December 1, 2018. The seminar focused on the question of whether it was reasonable to use the term ‘quiet modernism’, and whether this phenomenon actually took place in the soviet Lithuanian art. During the early ears of independence, the idea of ‘quiet modernism’ seemed attractive and convincing as it gave the artists the sense of selfworth. However it might as well have been a myth created by the artists themselves. The paper traces the clearly evident influence of cubism and, particularly, Pablo Picasso, by discussing the strategies of modernisation and the way they were applied by the Lithuanian artists from the late 1950s until the early 70s. The paper argues that this idiom was operative in art that was both officially censored and officially acknowledged, thus bringing the otherwise incompatible and semantically opposite artworks into a stylistic proximity. By using a few most prominent cases, the paper demonstrates that the two ideologically opposite fields of art actually used the same artistic forms. The paper goes on to discuss and analyse the hybridity of the post-cubist idiom that thrived during the periods of Khrushchev’s liberalisation and the early years of Brezhnev’s stagnation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to clarify the specificity of the art field in the Soviet Lithuania, and argues that the latter cannot be exhausted by the dichotomous approach based on a clear-cut separation between the official (non-modernist) art and the ‘quiet’ (invisible) modernism. The paper focuses on the art phenomena that, until now, have been referred to via a rather lofty umbrella term ‘quiet modernism’, and breaks them down into three segments: ’quiet’ systemic art, ‘shadowy’ non-systemic art, and anti-systemic art. Compared to the ideological control of other arts, fine art censorship in Soviet Lithuania was relatively weak, with only the mass-oriented genres having been subjected to closer scrutiny. The control of easel painting was delegated to the art professionals themselves, while the experts and audiences were fully trusted in setting the boundaries of artistic expression. Meanwhile, during the late period, the Soviet regime itself became much more tolerant of the possibilities of artistic expression. Here we can highlight several factors that contributed to the fact that, having been a less visible and yet fully established within the bounds of the official, the quiet systemic art in Soviet Lithuania not only completely ‘overshadowed’ the non-systemic art, but also left no place for the anti-systemic art production. First, with regards to the problematic territory where public dissent was still rife and unchecked, Soviet government felt it important to divert the potential opposition through relatively harmless channels such as the spaces of limited visibility, decorative applied art, and art export. Second, during the late soviet era, the soviet republics of the Baltic region were looking for the ways to reach out for the lost world of Western art by strengthening their cultural ties with exiles and neighbouring countries west of the Iron Curtain, which was another important factor that modified the rules of the game. Third, local party elite quickly realised that they could strengthen their administrative powers by exploiting the work of Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian artists who, particularly in the sphere of applied arts, were largely inspired by West and therefore freer in expression—party leaders were using this kind of art as a regional business card both inside the soviet empire, and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper expands on the art historical context of Elona Lubytė’s project Quiet Modernism (1997)—which is now widely acknowledged as a certain point of reference in soviet art studies and art distribution—with the aim to introduce other concepts relevant to Lithuanian art history. Here the modernisation of art that began during the decade of the Khrushchev Thaw is discursively separated from other modernisms or, rather, (post)modernisms that are currently being invented as a result of using the (Jacques Ranciére’s) aesthetic regime to interpret the late soviet art. When researching the art of the past, particularly that of the periods of political oppression, it is crucial to distinguish between the productive and reproductive approaches, as well as to differentiate between the perspectives of creator and perceiver. Art production and historical distribution are deeply rooted in the milieus of each period, therefore we should also consider not only the art shows in remote areas and other nuances of ‘quiet modernism’, but also the clamorous modernisation of the official art. In other words, it is not only about the resistance against the sovietisation of art, but also about the very project of sovietisation as such. Viewed from our current perspective and linked with the discursive contexts that are relevant to the interpreters themselves, the soviet artworks become freed from the historical clutches of a particular epoch and enter a more universal discourse. The year 1997 was a particularly favourable time to invent some of those possible ‘local’ modernisms. The end of the 20th century saw a renewal of the debates on the heritage of the Western modern art. This project is still pertinent in the context of the multiple, extended, repeating, and recurring global modernities. The fact that, in the field of Lithuanian art, artists are showing their interest in modernist heritage, proves that the currently ongoing process of ‘reloading’ the modernism is very much alive. The paper also gives an overview of this new stage of modernist development in Lithuania. Some of the works by middle-aged artists are just as attributable to the new modernism as those by the young generation. With their serene and constructive attitudes, the former are displaying purity of forms (but not that of media) that they clarify, reactivate, reference, and reflect on. The paper concludes with the question: why the 20th century Lithuanian modernism is still excluded from the global history of the ‘reloaded’ modernism, and why is it not featured at the representative art ‘centres’? This might be due to the fact that Lithuania still lacks a clearly articulated visual narrative of its own modernism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual art in Vilnius of 1919-1939, as a whole, has not been studied until now. To a lesser extent, its level of study was determined by the difficult geopolitical situation in Vilnius. In the interwar years, Vilnius and its region were annexed by Poland. Subsequently, the peculiar artistic life of the city during this period and its results for a long time have been of little interest to Lithuanian researchers. This has led to a fragmented perception of Lithuania's art history, in which the interwar artistic life of Vilnius has still been marginalized. The aim of the article is to analyze the art formation processes of the interwar Vilnius, highlighting the direction and nature of the activities of its most important institutions (Faculty of Arts at Stephen Báthory University, Vilnius School of Crafts, Vilnius Association of Plastic Artists), and to discuss and evaluate their significance in the process of modernizing the city's culture. The paper raises a question of Poland's cultural policy in the interwar period: in which ways and by which means did it work in the field of art in Vilnius? It highlights that the art of the interwar period in Vilnius was dominated by the portrayal of historical architecture, while other spaces and themes were hardly touched - for example, there is a lack of images of suburban and modern lifestyle and daily life. The paper makes an assumption that it was the political and cultural situation in Vilnius that influenced the establishment of such a retrospective view. Only in the 1930s, with the transformation of Vilnius into a modern city of the Second Rzeczpospolita, its modern visual culture began to manifest itself more actively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eugenijus Karpavičius (1953-2010) one of the most prominent Lithuanian book designers of the turn of the 20th century. He designed over 300 books from all over spectrum of genres: art and photography albums, catalogues, as well as books of poetry, essays, academic papers and textbooks. His books have won many awards in both Lithuanian and international book art competitions such as the Best Book Design from All Over the World, and were widely exhibited innternationally in book fairs and pavillions of the Lithuanian Publishers Association and the individual publishers. Throughout his 30 years of practice, Karpavičius remained faithful to the creative principle 'less is more'. In a way, this principle reflects the very essence of a book -- the oldest means of communication, a cultural object and a avaluable commodity. A book is about information and its transmission, therefore its main functions: informational, educational and aesthetic. Karpavičius understood those functions perfectly well and his works stand out as their masterful embodiments -- they all feature a distinct architectonic, structural logic, compositional clarity, harmony of text and image, and highly literate application of printing techniques. Karpavičius approach was minimalist, and he consciously avoided any unnecesary decorum. His artistic style is based around the 20th century's 'classical' principles of book design: clarity of both structure and overall composition, harmonious and logical layout of text and images, and expertise in printing technologies. However, his books are not devoid of spirituality -- the meticulousness of his designs gives away an overly emotional relation towards both text and image. Today laconic and functional design -- an alternative to the 'novelty' or even kitsch -- is undeservedly underrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the work of Kaunas bookbinding studios during the Interwar period. The research resulted in a large amount of archival data on the identities of the bookbinders from that time, as well as their professional qualifications, capacities, work management, level of mechanization, services on offer, materials used, product prices and requests from clients. The research aimed to reveal the differences between the industrial, custom high-street and custom artisan bookbinding. However it turned out that they were all closely intertwined. The analysis of the documented bookbinding equipment in various workshops has shown that the process of mechanization was rather slow, and that even the mass production was dominated by manual work. Back then, many books would leave the printing presses soft covered, and authors themselves often had to personally seek out the bookbinders for more durable book covers. Back then Kaunas had several types of bookbinding studios: industrial printing house bookbinders, private bookbinding businesses, and individual artisans. However all these types of workshops were able to provide the same range of services -- from mass productions to one-off books, both normal and artist editions. For instance, printing house bookbinders would not only take care of the mass production but also accept individual orders, even for one-off prints. Furthermore, all bookbinding studios were not only binding books (and documents) but also producing folders, photo albums and greeting cards, as well as padding the maps and charts with fabric and offering book 'restoration' services. Although Kaunas had no bookbinding school, many artistic bookbinding experts knowledgeable of the many intricacies of the craft. The craft of bookbinding often intertwined with leather decoration business -- the latter also used the same materials and offered products such as photo albums and notebooks. The Interwar leather processing and bookbinding industries were highly influenced by "Šatrija", a bookbinding company which had the Estonian expert Aksel Karing workin under their employ. He introduced some artistic and technical innovations of leather processing, thus significantly popularising this trade. The research concludes that the Lithuanian artistic bookbinding has been influenced by the Estonian school much earlier than it was thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the second half of the 18th century, Vilnius had four institutional printing houses: one was the Academia's press enterprise, and the other three belonged to the Piarist, Basilian and Franciscan congregations. Inspired by the ideas of Enlightenment, Vilnius institutional printing houses began to seek out new types of book design. The paper takes a close look at the illustrations of secular books printed in Vilnius during the second half of the 18th century. Secular illustrations of this period is still a largely under-researched area. Such research is key in revealing the interactions between the traditionally religious and the newly enlightened worldviews that circulated aroud the book culture of the Great Duchy of Lithuania at that time. The research focuses on the six illustrations from different secular books. Three illustrations come from the Piarist printing house: "The Allegory of Diplomacy" (engraved by Johanna Dorothea Philipp-Sysang) from the book published in 1758; "The Allegory of the Piarist School of Piety" (by the artist F. Moser), book published in 1774; and "The Allegory of Electricity" (engraver unknown) in the publication from 1786. Two illustrations appear in the books printed in 1781 by an academic printing house: "The Portrait of Lucius Anneus Seneca" (engraver unknown) and "The Exterior View of Vilnius University" (engraver unknown). One unauthored illustration-vignette in the book printed in 1791 by the Basilian printing house depicts a labouring child. The research sought to identify the symbols, subjects and iconographical origins of these illustrations. It turned out that two of the illustrations ("The Allegory of Electricity" and the view with Vilnius University) were original works made by the local artists. Meanwhile Seneca's portrait gives away the local author's personal preferce, as the type of the iconographical portrait he chose to imitate originates in the humanist reception of the stoicist philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nuclear events have inscribed the 20th century into a new chemical temporality, that generally escapes our scrutiny due to radioactivity's invisibility. Radioactive particles keep falling back to earth since nuclear tests peaked during the Cold War, they form an iterative invisible presence that is coated in political invisibility. Through films and fictions, the paper traces haunted images that keep coming back. Two distinct geographies are weaved together, that of West Coast American deserts, where numerous tests were conducted, and that of the nuclear peninsula of La Hague, in France. The recurring metaphors of dust and mist, not only characterise the two landscapes, but illustrate how radioactive particles literally journey and affect natural environments and activate the trope of contamination. Viral Fictions address the issue of creating a nuclear marker for La Hague's burial site. Underlying the fragility of material cultures and the aporia of projecting knowledge through deep time, the article creates a possible immaterial fictional nuclear marker for La Hague. Merging a set of references from local folk oral legends with the ability of fiction to transmit forms of knowledge and imaginary archetypes, Viral Fictions uses AI algorithmic software to generate speculative forms of fictions and visuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This enquiry focuses on the portrait medal of King Sigismund Augustus attributed to the goldsmith Giovanni Giacomo Caraglio; the medal and its remake are kept in the Ashmolean Museum of the University of Oxford. The medal features in Caraglio's portrait painted by Paris Bordone in 1553, and is therefore also dated to the same year. The obscure occasion for which the medal was cast prompts reconsidering the relation between its obverse and reverse. The obverse features the bust of the king in profile facing left, while the reverse depicts the figure of Faith encircled with the quote from Virgil's Aeneid: "DVM SPIRITVS HOS REGET ARTVS" ("As long as the spirit directs these limbs", IV, 336). Avigdor W.G. Posèq has convincingly argued that the left-facing orientation of the profile coincides with the direction towards the past and is often used when representing humanists, females, minors, and clergymen rather than kings and politicians who are responsible for shaping the future. What is the message behind the medal that depicts the king looking towards the past in combination with the personification of Faith and Aeneas' promise to remember Dido? This essay argues that this combination acknowledges Sigismund Augustus' acceptance of his royal duties and his resolution to remain faithful to the Catholic creed of his ancestors in the wake of the death of his beloved spouse Queen Barbara Radziwill (1523-1551). Although, due to Virgil's authority and the privileged genre of medal art, this item has been regarded as high art, the association between the queens Barbara and Dido bore significant misogynist and erotic undertones. The latter have been exploited in the remake of the medal as its bronze aftercast was adjoined to a former pendant featuring Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan and Olympian gods mocking them. Due to the identification of the hitherto obscured iconography of the reverse as well as the references to the Reposianus' epyllion together with Ovid's Metamorphoses and Ars Amatoria as its literary sources, this unique medallic remake comes across as a humorous gesture. The paper argues that the reverse being fixed to the obverse along the horizontal axis allowed the viewers to reveal the erotic reputation of the king and, by doing so, turn the image of Augustus (meaning, literally, "the elevated one") head upside down. This way, by a mere twist of fingers, the contradictory combination of reverse and obverse of this medallic remake allowed the erudite and powerful onlookers to join the Olympian gods in their laughter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper utilises the perspective of the recent soviet studies as well as the newly opened sources to reconstruct the social portrait of Vladas Vildžiūnas (1932–2013), a Lithuanian modernist of the first post-WWII generation. The resulting social [Lat. socialis – ‘public’] portrait of the artist reveals Vildžiūnas as an ambitious, talented, and officially renowned sculptor1 with his everyday patterns of behaviour within the oppressive system, his network of informal and official connections, as well as his creative strategies. The time frame of this chronological reconstruction—1952–1990—covers the period of the Cold War which spans from Stalin’s repressions and Khrushchev Thaw, through Brezhnev Stagnation, and up until Gorbachev’s Glasnost and Perestroika, with the latter eventually leading to Lithuanian independence. In terms of the sculptor’s creative biography, these stages are reflected by the periods of his extended studies in the LSSR State Institute of Art (1952–1961); the period of him as an established professional (1962–1975); and the period of official recognition (since 1976). These periperiods are analysed by focusing on the grand forces—the combination of the political, economical, social, cultural, and technological factors that shaped the behavioural norms within the oppressive system: – the circumstances around the studies at the LSSR State Institute of Art; – the networks of informal and official social relations; – a set of strategic tactics the sculptor used for his creative autonomy²— namely, technological independence; connection with the West; the reasons of legalisation and aims of the Jeruzalė Garden informal community of sculptors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Roland Barthes's "Camera Lucida. Reflections of Photography" is a book that attracted attention not only from researchers of photography, but also those of other visual expressions, philosophers, and cultural critics. The last decade has seen intensive analyses of the relation between his photography and phenomenology. Meanwhile, this paper suggests a different approach - reading "Camera Lucida" in the context of all Barthes works, i.e. in the framework of his theoretic thought. In the analysis of his theoretic thought we explore the meaning of the question: "What does my body know about phenomenology?" asked by the author in this book. This question describes an approach to photography that could be named "corporeal knowledge". Corporeal or body knowledge in the description of emergence, formulation and production of signification is a common topic in Barthes's works. A look at the corpus of his works makes it apparent that Barthes cared about several essential problems that connect his works of different themes and styles into one methodological field. One of such problematic threads continues in a dashed but consistent fashion all the way until his final works is the signification of body (or corporeality) in the production of meaning. This paper studies how the conception of "corporeal knowledge" is spread in a book dedicated to photography. The paper carefully looks at the Barthes's photography researchers' notion that in "Camera Lucida" the author returns to phenomenology, since such concepts of phenomenological philosophy as perception, experience, memory, and imagination have never left Barthes's sight. We raise an assumption that instead of talking about a turn or return to phenomenology, it is better to talk about the isotopy of body and corporeality in the Barthes's works. Therefore the further discussion raises the questions of: how is Barthes treating the concept of body? What does he call the corporeal knowledge? What does the body mean generally in an attempt to answer the question what is photography? This paper shows that in Barthes' "Camera Lucida" for the first time an ontological question is raised, i.e. it aims to understand what is photography itself, what is its essence. The author has never raised the question of essence and not signification before, since structuralists or semioticians do not raise such questions. The analysis of the chronological way the author follows in his descriptions of the phenomenon of photography shows how he starts with photography as a message without a code and gradually reaches the concept of photography as an object, in which expression, content and the referent (the reality) coincides. This identity is photography's essence without signification that, according to Barthes, cannot be described by any traditional analytical methods. A rational, analytical view takes apart and generalizes; therefore, it cannot reach the essence of photography. This view is counterpoised by a personal view. Therefore, it is argued that the only possible way to understand what photography is in itself is to research the primal, true relationship between the viewer and the photographical image that takes shape before any conceptualization. Such relationship is exactly what Barthes calls "corporeal knowledge", where the basis of understanding is the position of the personal "1". Unlike in his other works, in "Camera Lucida" Barthes asserts that there are such fields or phenomena, where only this alternative (personal "corporeal knowledge") understanding is possible. Further on this study analyzes the conditions for such alternative view. The third part analyzes Barthes's description of the essence of photography by using two concepts studium and punctum. This analysis shows how these two elements of photography are connected to corporeal knowledge. 1t shows two conceptions of punctum. Several important aspects of corporeal plane are elucidated: describing punctum with corporeal terms (wound, stab, sting, cut, etc.) he attributes this element to the plain of corporeal senses instead of rational cognition. 1n the further description for the first time he conceptualizes the essence of photography - that which allows understanding the point of photography is indescribable, experienced and unarticulated. 1t also shows how the temporal aspect of punctum (photography shows that the object existed) is linked to the bodies' direct relationship. The conclusions propose that even though Barthes's last book "Camera Lucida" stands out among other books dedicated to photography and other expressive objects due to its conceptualization of the plain of "corporeal knowledge", a lot of issues still remain. That is especially because in his works Barthes has not described the conception of "body". 1t is stated that only by analyzing the fragments that create the isotopy of corporeality in his theoretical works it is possible to reconstruct the Barthesian conception of corporeality. By interpreting Barthes's question "What does my body know about Photography?" in the context of all his works, it becomes evident that on the one hand, the descriptions of the signification of photography and the search for its essence are inscribed in the systemic structure of the development of significations. 1n his analysis of visual objects Barthes uses the structures of linguistic significations, which means that he also faces challenges that arise in the text theory. One of such challenges is the place of corporeal experience and meaning in the description of signification, its emergence and comprehension. Therefore, after considering the development of his theoretic thought, what is in his critique called Barthes's return to phenomenology appears to be a consistent step towards the description of those uncoded, irrational and unsystematic elements of meaning that Barthes assigns to the plain of "corporeal knowledge". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the end of World War II, a large part of the inhabitants of Lithuania fled to Germany. Several dozen thousand children also left for Germany together with their parents. Settled in DP (displaced persons) camps, parents together with teachers and all humanitarian intellectuals focused their attention on children's education. Despite the meagre living conditions, kindergartens and schools were established, new textbooks and readers were written, and old ones were reprinted. In all educational institutions the continuity of the teaching process was sought, and teachers worked according to the school programmes and curricula approved in the Republic of Lithuania in 1939. When children began to be assembled into schools, the lack of readers for children of all age groups became obvious. They were necessary not only for the teaching process, general and ethical education, but also to keep the children busy. In the period when DP camps were established in the spring and summer of 1945, this problem was solved by copying excerpts from some publications that had been brought from Lithuania by hand, or by multiplying these publications with a typewriter. The newly emerging Lithuanian periodical press helped solve the urgent problem of children's literature by including columns for children or by publishing separate supplements from the very first issues. The publication of children's books, among books of general nature, was partly supported by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), and many Lithuanian public organizations that operated in exile. The Book Publishing Committee was founded under the Education Board of the Lithuanian émigré community specifically for that purpose. In the period under discussion children's books and textbooks were published by private and cooperative publishers and publishing houses of public organizations. The largest Lithuanian publishing houses Patria, Sudavija, Venta, Gabija, Giedra and Sūduva established in Germany produced the largest number of children's books of various kinds. DP camps themselves, the schools that operated there or their parents' committees, as well as private persons also acted as publishers of children's literature. More than fifty illustrated Lithuanian books for children were published in post-war Germany from 1945 to 1951. The relatively small amount of illustrated publications was determined by the poor living conditions in exile, the production facilities of publishing houses and, above all, printing houses devastated by the war, as well as the lack of paper and funds. The appearance of almost all children's books published in Germany is plain and comparatively poor in all aspects. This concerns the format, paper, binding, the choice of fonts and the means of printing. The majority of the booklets were printed on thin and fragile mainly brownish paper of very low quality, and the booklets themselves were thin, light, with soft covers and seamless binding. There were no children's books printed on high-quality art paper. The appearance of children's books was spoiled by the equipment of printing houses affected by the war, the lack of high-quality typographic paint and the narrow range of colours. The majority of them are characterized by excessive or insufficient richness of the printing type. Sometimes even different pages of the same book vary in the degree of richness, and quite often the text and the illustrations of three or four colours are printed indistinctly. Children's illustrated books are also very different with regard to their artistic quality. It was determined by several factors. Beside professional artists (Adolfas Vaičaitis, Liudas Vilimas, Ona Dokalskaitė-Paškevičienė, Jonas Firinauskas, Juzė Katiliūtė, Zenonas Kolba, Vlada Stančikaitė-Abraitienė, Jonas Steponavičius), quite many artists who did not have the necessary qualifications and lacked theoretical knowledge in the book art and particularly the experience of layout design worked in the field of children's book design. These were mainly the attendees of the Kaunas Art School who did not finish their studies, Eduardas Krasauskas, Halina NaruševičiūtėŽmuidzinienė, Juozas Penčyla, Aleksandras Šepetys, as well as former students of the Vilnius Academy of Arts and the Kaunas Institute of Applied Art, Vytautas Leonas Adamkevičius, Emilija Drochnerytė, Povilas Osmolskis, Antanas Petrikonis and Viktoras Simankevičius. In comparison with children's books of the interwar period, new stylistic tendencies of design or illustration, and innovative forms of expression that could have been influenced by the new post-war environment of Western culture and its incredibly intense artistic life did not manifest themselves. Very generally speaking, traditionalist aesthetics and realistic expression were predominant. Besides, it cannot be seen from the poor context if one or another publishing house had a clear conception of an illustrated children's book and obvious artistic and aesthetic design criteria. However, all children's books published in post-war Germany have one thing in common - their ideological contents, which was partly determined by the emphasis on the knowledge of one's homeland given in the four-year primary school curriculum of the Republic of Lithuania as a very important part of developing national self-consciousness, teaching the universal and intrinsic values, and building a moral and aesthetic basis. The strengthening of the perception of identity of small kids who found themselves in an unfamiliar environment, the formation of their historical and civic self-consciousness became as urgent as never before. There were constant discussions on this topic in the periodical press of Lithuanians in exile. These views were followed by the majority of writers and artists: Lithuanian themes, images of the Lithuanian village and, specifically, national attributes are predominant both in the contents of books and the accompanying illustrations; traditional motifs of village life, as well as symbolic motifs of crosses, the musical instrument kanklės, and a heroic warrior are widely used. On the other hand, other important functions of children's books were not forgotten either. The aim was to awaken the feelings of the love for homeland and, no less importantly, the respect for one's parents, kindness, honesty, and other moral feelings, to develop imagination and aesthetic experience. Both the text and accompanying illustrations served this purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the article is to introduce neurodesign, an emerging interdisciplinary field that interconnects theory and practice. The aim is to reveal the object and problems of research as well as perspectives for development of this field. The paper reviews the current approach towards the role of a designer in marketing and design research process and attempts to define how the process should change in the future, based on the opinions of today's design professionals and examples of interdisciplinary cooperation. It, furthermore, analyzes theoretical and technological approaches of consumer neuroscience and, specifically, neuromarketing and neurodesign. The article also discusses heuristics and cognitive bias studies by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, the branding model based on consumer neuroscience and developed by Hilke Plassmann and other scientists working in the field of neuromarketing, as well as equipment used for empirical experiments and mathematical modeling software. Development of the field of skills and interests of designers brings with it new challenges. As a result, greater emphasis is placed on the evaluation of the ethical discourse of designers, which continues to acquire new aspects. The literature analysis and comparative method are used to answer the question of where to draw the line between the aim of designers to create influential design and potential manipulation of consumers. The paper overviews the main mechanisms of control and self-control in the field of consumer neuroscience, and more specifically, the codes of ethics introduced with the aim of finding a sustainable balance between the interests of researchers and the public. These could also serve as landmarks for designers. The article focuses on the field of visual communication; however, its guidelines could be useful to professionals in other areas of design as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the fundamentals of Alois Riegl's theory of heritage preservation with the primary focus on the so-called "cult of monuments" and the notion of monumental values, and foregrounds the significance of the latter notion for the further thought on heritage preservation. It places the conception of the values of a monument in the context of the author's theory of art and analyses its philosophical premises. For highlighting these premises, the analysis deploys contemporaneous philosophical ideas, such as those by Friedrich Nietzsche, Wilhelm Dilthey, Georg Siemel, and Max Weber. This gives grounds for an exposition of the collision of apriorism and historicism, essential to Riegl's thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During a walk huge nests were found on the forest floor. Despite the absence of evidence, it was decided that the nests had been made by the Bigfoot. The incident encouraged the attempt to figure out why people get to believe in the most incredible things so easily instead of looking for a logical and often simpler explanation of a certain phenomenon. The investigation of the belief issue (related to paranormal occurrences) has grown into a project for exhibition. While preparing for the exhibition, documentaries on the Bigfoot were analysed to define principles for creating such programs. On the basis of these principles, a narrative system formula for enabling the belief in its subject was worked out and a model for the narrative belief system was created. In the exhibition, the model was used to develop a story about the Bigfoot who made nests on the forest floor. Despite the fact that the show clearly stated that the Bigfoot story had been simulated by using the model of the narrative belief system and that the presented artifacts did not prove the existence of the Bigfoot, a significant number of visitors turned out to believe in the story of the Bigfoot. The paper reviews the exhibition, which became some sort of experiment, and discusses how and why the model of the narrative belief system works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the phenomenon of artistic research as a cultural object within the framework of the cultural diamond scheme created by Wendy Griswold. The paper does not attempt to explore the entire field of artistic research, but focuses specifically on artistic research conducted by artists researchers at Vilnius Academy of Arts during their doctoral studies. Rather than engaging in the definition of artistic research and its critique, the article looks into what role artistic research plays in the whole network of the creator, receiver and social world. In this case a student is the creator, the academy is the receiver, institutions and social groups form the social world, and artistic research is a cultural object. The article attempts to explain interconnections, influences, power relations and tensions existing among these players. The author speaks from an insider position as she is part of the field herself. It is concluded that despite scepticism from different social groups (including artists themselves), artistic research has already revealed its social and cultural significance as "historically transmitted model of meaning" albeit constantly changing. The article reinforces Griswold's point that the significance of a single cultural object (one artistic research performed by one particular doctoral student in this case) is minimal in the whole social network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores textual practices in the field of contemporary visual art in relation to the paradigm of contemporary art and to the development of cultural economy. From the perspective of cultural sociology, the aim of this study is to reveal how paradigmatic patterns affect various textual and linguistic forms of contemporary visual art, encouraging an expansion of art boundaries and extension of artworks into various texts, discourses, stories and messages. Textual and linguistic forms of visual art have achieved significance within conceptual art and have become the conductors of systematic transgressivity of art, eventually linking artistic practice to anthropology and philosophy. Cultural industries and new paradigms of cultural management also have a strong influence on the textuality of contemporary visual art by narrowing the field of critical thought and increasing the impact of pervasive communication. The paper concludes that the contemporary art world is governed by a system of integral capitalism, which subordinates art and culture to economic interests. The latter are reflected not only in the principles of art management, but also in the circulation of conceptual ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the period from 1988 to 1991, which was marked by intense political events of national liberation. At the same time, Lithuanian art experienced strong transformations on the institutional level and in the forms of expression. Performance and action art were introduced into the practice of Lithuanian artists and critical discourse, and it was considered the birth of contemporary Lithuanian art. Therefore, the period has attracted much attention among art historians in Lithuania. Most of them agree that the art of the late 1980s and early 1990s had a strong relation to the political events of that time. Nevertheless, the question how the movement for national liberation made an influence on art remains unanswered. The main conceptual aim of this paper is to define the discourse of national liberation and to see how the artists of that time reflected it in their artistic practice. The paper focuses on the research results presented in the collective monograph Sąjūdžio ištakų beieškant: Nepaklusniųjų tinklaveikos galia (edited by Jūratė Kavaliauskaitė and Ainė Ramonaitė, 2011), which explores the networks of various informal cultural circles and popular and professional groups to explain the rise of Sąjūdis. With the help of this research the dominant discourses of that time are defined as follows: reformation (perestroika), rebirth of the nation, ecology, human rights, ethnography and the freedom of expression. In the next step the artistic practices of the artists' groups 'Post Ars' and 'Žalias lapas' are analysed according to the logic of the previously defined discourse of national rebirth. The conclusion of this paper is that the discourse of national rebirth among the artists was reflected in various ways from direct participation in political actions to artistic actions which literally echoed the idea of 'rebirth of the nation and an individual'. Despite the fact that the discourse of national rebirth was marked by open nationalism, there was no hint of nationalism in the artistic practices themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Referring to the surviving photographs, artworks, reminiscences by contemporaries, and other written sources, the paper discusses the representation of the naked body in visual arts and its public reception in Lithuania in the 1920s and 1930s. Nude photographs of the Russian-born ballet dancer and painter Olga Dubeneckienė-Kalpokienė (1891-1967) become an impetus to discuss what might have been the reasons for a woman to undress in front of the camera and what meaning this kind of act had. The paper analyses the general attitude towards the naked body made public, referring to the origins of the movement of nude aesthetics and naturism, and the spread of its ideas in interwar Lithuania. The analysis of the history of creation of the artist and ballet dancer's nude photographs and portraits allowed to highlight the fact, which has not been previously emphasized in Lithuanian art history, that painter Petras Kalpokas (1880-1945) used photography as an aid in his works. The author of the paper presents new facts attesting to the close relationship between Dubeneckienė- Kalpokienė and Kalpokas, which began earlier than is asserted in traditional Lithuanian art history. This proof is important not only for the biographies of the above-mentioned artists, but also for that of Vladimiras Dubeneckis (1888-1932), as it may explain several dramatic moments in the famous architect's life. Moreover, Dubeneckienė-Kalpokienė and Kalpokas's wedding date is specified (1935). A sketchbook, which was thought to belong to Dubeneckienė-Kalpokienė, is newly attributed to Kalpokas. Research of the public attitude towards the naked body in the interwar period has revealed that even the priest Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas did not hide his fascination with partially naked portraits. Dubeneckienė- Kalpokienė's allegorical nude photographs received exclusive attention from exhibition visitors and reviewers. Even the nude photographs by foreign artists, displayed in an international photographic exhibition in Kaunas (1938), were acclaimed by some professionals. However, despite the fact that interwar society was becoming more modern, it was not ready to accept fellow-countrymen's nude photographs about which we learned only in the 21st century and which are still 'without a place' in the history of Lithuanian photography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a picture painted with oil on board in the early 17th century, was first recorded in historiography in the Riešė church. The first restoration of the painting was conducted in Poland in 1938, and several lost parts were reconstructed. In 1992 the painting was restored by Violeta Katilienė, and analysed by Dalia Panavaitė, Arūnas Bėkšta and others. After this restoration the painting was transferred to the Church of All Saints in Vilnius. In the present paper, referring to the Michel Foucault's concepts of the space of localisation and heterotopia, we discuss how space is organised in the painting currently held in the Church of All Saints, and how the mediaeval principle of localisation of figures and the new features of post-Trent church painting of the late 16thth - early 17th century are expressed in its structure. In this research possible iconographic sources and / or analogues of the painting are presented, the depicted persons are newly identified, and the logic of their presence in the same painting space is historically justified. It is revealed that the unknown artist who painted this work referred to a copper engraving by Johan Sadeler, created after a work by Christopher Schwartz (1545-1597) that did not survive, and also followed the engravings of the book of emblems by the Jesuit Johan David of the late 16thth - early 17th century as well as other examples. A comparative analysis of the restoration material and the prototype of the work allows us to assert that in the primary variant of the painting a graphic prototype was meticulously followed, and iconographically different details (Mary's foot, Infant's arms, Mary's ears and hair) coincide with the physically lost parts which were reconstructed in a somewhat different form during the pre-war restoration. While comparing the total image of Mary's figure represented in the painting to the print that served as its prototype, the basic outstanding stylistic difference is the placidity and monumentality of the painted variant. The enlarged eyes and the generalised modelling of facial features of the holy persons, and the gilded sky decorated with carved ornaments extending above the cloud allow us to relate the work to the local painting school, possibly of Vilnius, that combines the decorativeness and schematism of icon painting, and the Baroque sumptuousness and magnificence of the Trent Church. In the paper, the iconographic analysis of the work is made more specific, the Carmelite saints - Saint Angel Martyr and Saint Albert - are established, and the three rulers - Sigismund III Vasa, Sigismund Augustus and Sigismund the Old - are recognised and their presence is justified. Jesuits occupied the key positions in the court milieu of Sigismund III (they were King's tutors, confessors and the court's preachers); the possible author of the prototype of the painting, Christopher Schwartz, worked for the Munich Jesuits, and other graphic prototype used in the composition of the painting is also related to the design of emblematic Jesuit literature mainly published in Antwerp. It allows us to draw a conclusion that the circumstances of the creation of the painting are related to the activity of the court of Sigismund III and the cultural activity of the Jesuits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A square is one of the elements of a city's morphological structure. The balance between its volume and space, as well as its social content are the topics that are often discussed by professionals of urban design. In addition to being an element of spatial structure, a city square also performs social functions (it provides a space for festive gatherings, commemorations, public get-togethers, shortterm public recreation, socialisation, etc.). The term "public space" basically refers to the functional aspect, while the term "square" primarily denotes geometrical parameters. The current paper presents some insights into the aspect of urban design of squares treating it as a composition of volume and space with a social function. It sets the criteria for the formation of a square on the basis of the earlier studies of squares (as structural elements) found in professional literature, while focusing on the principles of formation of urban space (a search for concrete compositional and structural solutions). These criteria constitute the basis for a comparative analysis of squares (in central parts of cities rather than old towns) in the context of the common European cultural framework. The paper aims to find out if today, 25 years after the restoration of independence in Lithuania, these squares need to be transformed or merely adjusted (improved). This question, like the issue of status (both physical and social), which still has not been established in some Baltic cities and states, is frequently raised at various levels (professional, political and social). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socially engaged art projects that give central priorities to principles of participation, collaboration and the inclusion of various social groups into the creative process are spreading rapidly. Despite this "social turn" in contemporary art (or maybe it is because of it) one of the most important questions remains: how do we evaluate such activ ity? Socially engaged art radically transgresses the lim its of artistic autonomy that were inherent to modernism, transferring the processes of creativity from the conventional art-world space into the sphere of social relations. Thus, an art practice which is not merely representational directly affects human relations. Therefore evaluation of social art can be diverse including various combinations of aesthetic, ethical and political aspects. The paper investigates the problems of evaluating social art in order to formulate a set of criteria that will be applied in the analysis of the Šančiai-Friendly Zone socially engaged art project. The theoretical part of the paper ends with the conclusion that different dimensions of political, ethical and aesthetic standpoints should be judged in proportion to one another as they impact the general form that the particular socially engaged art project takes. Ethical criteria are the most problematic ones when applied to the creative processes that are impossible to put in the frame of tight moral boundaries. Political meaning and effects in socially engaged art projects are obvious and interpretation should be based on the principles of locality and contextuality. However, the question of aesthetic values in socially engaged art are often forgotten in order to understand the broader political possibilities and limits of social art. Raising the question of aesthetic criteria, as I've argued, should thus be one of the essential things to do. On the one hand the transposition of art related skills to the non-art sphere exactly defines the limits of social art detaching it from such disciplines as social work or activism. On the other hand the transfer of attributes of art discourse, the condensation of the unknown and the imaginary, into the sphere of social relations can accomplish the act which historically is associated with socially engaged art's raison d'être - to change reality. The second part of the article contains the analysis of artistic and cultural project Šančiai - Friendly Zone executed in 2013 in Kaunas. The main aim of the project was to create experiences of publicness through communication and collaboration with local communities in one area of Kaunas called Žemieji Šančiai. The publicity in this case was perceived after Jürgen Habermas' classic definition of the modern "public sphere" understood as a place for critical-rational discussion. However, the project bears all the consequences that follow from this idealist image of public sphere. From a social point of view Žemieji Šančiai is a very heterogeneous area beginning from working class foundation ending with large Roma minority. In a context such as this the urgent question to be raised is how to overcome Habermasian idealism where the interests of one class are regarded as universal, ignoring the heterogeneity of the public sphere by blindly believing in the efficiency of rational communication? After the analysis of the Šančiai - Friendly Zone project the statement could be made that the participants overcame the normative rationality of public space by using creative methods based on creativity and imagination instead of logical argumentation. They provoked the emergence of collective images, emotions, and acts; creating situations in the local community in order to form new derivatives of the public sphere even if they were temporary and fragmentary. However, the analysis tells how important it's to note that the public sphere, just as society, is not homogeneous, and how stressing the differences and conflicts that follow from this situation are important. The tools of art and creativity can expose and employ the conflicts productively. So far, the inner conflict situation seems to have been extracted from the agenda of project Šančiai-Friendly Zone (the title Friendly Zone speaks for itself) and concentrated on external conflict (where enemy is official conception of culture and negligence of institutions). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, textile art has become a unique and representative phenomenon of Kaunas artistic life inspired by the Textile Department of Kaunas Art Faculty of the Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts. A graduate and now teaching at the department Monika Žaltauskaitė-Grašienė is one of the prominent people whose artistic projects and initiatives have contributed to the expanded field of contemporary textile arts and artistic expression. Using the new Jacquard weaving techniques the artist reveals the textility of human life and reality, sensual and tactile perceptions that we keep in our memories and that arise from the individual or collective experience, authentic environment, and bodily sensations. This paper examines the art work of Žaltauskaitė-Grašienė in the horizon of feminine aesthetics. The paper discusses the tactility inherent in textile art and women's creation. It focuses on the haptic role and sensual experience of reality, the tactile sensation of physical reality and the depth of surfaces expressed in the work of Žaltauskaitė-Grašienė. The tactile perception derives from the long-term specific women's artistic tradition. So the textile is considered as women's expressive field par excellence. Textility can be observed in women's literature as well. Therefore, in exploring the feminine expression and tactile sensations the article seeks to highlight the creative relationships of Žaltauskaitė-Grašienė textile works with women's prose. The article comes to the conclusion that the work of the textile artist reveals the textile reality woven with the physical, psychological and social threads of human life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her essay "Women's Time", Julia Kristeva related the changes in the feminist movement to the models of linear, cyclic and monumental time, thus revealing the temporal dimension of the female creator's identity. At the end of her essay, she predicted that the emerging third wave of feminists would raise the issue of fluid identity even more radically, would refuse the struggle for women's rights and internalize the split founding the symbolical order into women's identity as the basis for self-creation and art. The time required for such identity would take a spatial form where all three models of time would coexist in the same historical period. There are many women artists in Lithuania, and quite a few of them - Laima Kreivytė, Laisvydė Šalčiūtė, Akvilė Anglickaitė, Paulina Eglė Pukytė, Marta Vosyliūtė, Kristina Inčiūraitė, Jurga Barilaitė, Laura Garbštienė etc. - explore women's experiences as well as identity and its fluctuation in time. Thus, it is important to analyse women's works as visual interpretations of "woman's time" that supplement theoretical debates with intuitions available to visual sensibility. They discover new insights and include other theories into their reflections. The paper analyses two images of woman's time created by two artists of the young generation in their photo installations: SHE or Is by Akvilė Anglickaitė (2010) and Play with Signs by Dalia Mikonytė (2013). Their work follows the same artistic principles: they both carry the meaning beyond the image, into the expanded field of photography, they include the philosophical discourse, they focus on the topic of reproduction and they reflect on the crisis of the photographic medium. Both Anglickaitė and Mikonytė transform the cyclic time of reproduction, traditionally associated with women, into the linear story time and monumental time of history, and all three coexist in the spaces of their installations. In Anglickaitė's installation SHE or Is, the system of scattered photographs accompanies the theme of woman's time suggested by two portraits by linking it to the powers, durations, rhythms and frequencies regulating the movements of cosmos, and unlink the concept of motherhood from any known statements. The installation conveys "bodily vibrations" during the time of pregnancy and visualises the "vertical temporality" of being in the world. The seven photographs of Mikonytė's Playing with Signs form a time interval, in which she stages the becoming of personality realised by appropriating, connecting, mixing and rejecting various contexts. The time of growth, like the time of pregnancy (growing), is marked by the split in the subject and appropriation of the other, whilst creating the phantasy of the self as a whole. In both cases, the act of creation is linked to becoming, which is triggered by loosening certainties and stabilities. The artists oppose the roles imposed by the patriarchal culture in order to prove that women can and must raise fundamental existential questions. Such transformations may be related to the new generation of feminists who, as predicted by Kristeva, has grown by rejecting the Woman. Having joined the youth counterculture and inspired by the philosophy of protest and artistic alternatives, this generation has broken away from the definitions of the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of écriture feminine proposed by French feminists Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray in 1970s has been criticised for being apolitical. But the criticism has been contested with the argument that it has a potential in changing the discourse that structures gender relationships in society. Écriture feminine as 'writing the body' is constructed in feminist theory as an opposition to the dominating patriarchal discourse that prevents women from occupying the subject position and uses them to guarantee the subject position for men. By criticising Sigmund Freud's interpretation of female sexuality according to which a woman cannot sublimate, Irigaray claims that a woman who is prevented from realising her libido participates in discourse in two ways: mysticism and mimicry, which are both sadomasochistic. By using mimicry as a method in her philosophical questioning, however, i.e. by imitating the dominating discourse 'unfaithfully', Irigaray demonstrates its artificiality and fallacy. She suggests that women should leave the dominating patriarchal discourse by rejecting its rules and deconstructing its language. The dominating discourse, according to Irigaray, denies gender differences and is a discourse of 'oneness' pretending to be universal. In order to escape sameness, Irigaray suggests 'speaking the body' based on the relationship of gender differences where femininity and masculinity do not enslave each other, but preserve wonder with regard to each other thus creating a limit, a gap, a middle that does not allow absolute fusion and preserves difference. Writing the body is writing with the other, which creates a dialogical relationship. Thus, for Cixous, Kristeva and Iragaray, écriture feminine is an expression of specificity in female body and at the same time a realisation of Jacques Derrida's différance. The paper suggests that this conception of écriture feminine can be used to understand the significance of work by two Lithuanian female photographers, Veronika Šleivytė and Violeta Bubelytė, who 'spoke the body' without acknowledging their feminist strategies. This was caused by historical circumstances in which they created. Veronika Šleivytė photographed self-portraits during the inter-war period when the concept of écriture feminine did not exist and she worked in a male dominated field and society that held very traditional views regarding women. Violeta Bubelytė started photographing herself naked in the early 1980s, i.e. in the time when the concept of écriture feminine was very popular in the West, but it could not reach Lithuania that was under the Soviet regime. Yet when their work is interpreted through the concept of écriture feminine, it becomes clear how they both were opposing the dominating discourse of patriarchal photography. Be photographing themselves, they used mimicry (in Irigaray's sense) as a positive method by repeating the clichés of portrait and nude unfaithfully and thus showing the artificiality of the representation of women and establishing themselves as subjects. Both photographers rejected woman's identification with nature and transferred their bodies to the sphere of culture. By 'writing the body' they both created a dialogical relationship where a woman addresses herself with Irigaray's question 'who are you?' as if her self were already slightly other. Yet Šleivytė also inscribed the other in two more ways: by trying on other identities and speaking about herself through love to other women. Both photographers also disturbed the familiar discourse of portrait and nude photography by using a different lighting, creating superimpositions and using the gaze to establish subjectivity. On the other hand, in their own discourse, they undermined its 'oneness' by using alternative verbal discourses and introducing the dimension of time. Both photographers used the photographic medium by positively creating the space for dialogue, but also showed that woman's self is inaccessible to photography as a medium establishing the dualist subject-object position. Additionally, this paper is written as a meta-text, exploring the possibility to use the concept of écriture feminine in academic writing on photography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]