Solo Show by Gediminas Akstinas at Art in General (NYC)
The Gardens and Art in General are pleased to announce a solo exhibition by a Lithuanian artist Gediminas Akstinas on view at Art in General’s Musée Miniscule from September 13– October 25, 2014. This is the fifth and the last exhibition in The Gardens’ yearlong curatorial residency at Art in General.
Gediminas Akstinas (b. 1961, lives and works in Vilnius) is a sculptor whose artistic practice is characterised by the combination of the formalist and conceptual approaches, an investigation of the possibilities of representation of the everyday life as well as tackling the resultant tension between realism and abstraction. Akstinas’ work range from big scale site-specific sculptural objects, extending the architecture of the chosen space (“Carriage”, 1998) to small hand-made portable objects, sorts of interpretations of seemingly domestic things analysing relations between form and function and the principles of site specificity as well as paradoxes accompanying them (“Shelf-pupils”, 1990, “Bench”, 2012). The consistent analysis of the potential of the object is the important feature in Akstinas’ oeuvre, resulting in the creation of more than a bunch of series of works and life-long projects.
Recent exhibitions: The Orangery, Užutrakis Manor Estate, Trakai (2014); Exhibition of Meetings, The Gardens, Vilnius (2012), Sparrows, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius (2012).
For this exhibition Akstinas made a series of watercolours (2014), which continues the previous serial body of work, dating the end of the 80’s. The work features a domestic, mechanically repetitive object (a cup) and it’s different correlations created especially for the space of Musée Miniscule after more than twenty years brake. Here seeing is being understood as the act of mind and not the one of an eye: with the use of a particularly formalist expression the questions of the creation and perception of the image are being raised, aiming to avoid any associative or narrative connections at the same time pointing to the tautological side of this purpose. In this series no drawing is closer to an ‘original’, but rather every cup is a fixation of the specific time and individual implications of the author. Therefore, thinking of the image is way more relevant than the image itself in these ‘cup’ series – a cup becomes an event instead of a figure.
Curated by Inesa Pavlovskaitė Brašiškė and Gerda Paliušytė.
Art in General is a nonprofit organization that assists artists with the production and presentation of new work. Art in General was founded in 1981 and in its 30 years, the organization has emerged as one of New York City’s leading nonprofit arts organizations. Art in General fulfills its mission in a variety of ways, including the organization and presentation of exhibitions, hosting a national and international artist residency program, and through regular public programs and membership events.
Opening is on Saturday, September 13, 6-8 pm.
Art in General, 79 Walker St., NYC.