The creator who lives in America, but returns to Lithuania more and more often, presented a similar installation for the first time six years ago, in Washington. At that time, almost half a million visitors saw the work.
– You mentioned earlier that when you arrived in New York, you had no contact with Lithuania for a good fifteen years. And now you are a frequent guest here. Are you watching what is happening in the field of Lithuanian culture, do you feel a part of it?
– After coming to Lithuania, I work a lot on various projects, I barely have time to move around and, unfortunately, I don’t have time to go to concerts, exhibitions or performances. However, I can say one thing – there is a lot of cultural life going on in Lithuania, which I would like to experience – I can see it from advertisements, posters, social media.
I think you are very lucky to have so many different options. And I, having paid tribute to the Lithuanian cultural field, return home for at least a few days and do nothing, I rest!
– You are often referred to as an American Lithuanian, sometimes – a New Yorker, a Vilnius native, maybe even a Marijampole native. Is the question of identity, broadly speaking, important to you?
– A person does not choose where he is born. As a teenager, in Soviet Lithuania, I used to wonder why I wasn’t born in America. Now, living in America, I think that my Lithuanian identity enriches me, allows me to look at many phenomena more broadly than I could have if I was born in America.
My son Kristijonas, who grew up in America, has already fully integrated into the life of this country, but it is not really a threat to me. I like my duality, I think that living abroad, but being Lithuanian, I am a richer person with multiple experiences and a broader worldview.
The Lithuania where I grew up is different from the Lithuania where today’s youth are growing up. The Lithuanian identity was one in the interwar period, and another in the Soviet era or the 90s. What kind of Lithuanian identity should be protected then? Identity is an ever-changing concept.
In Lithuania, where I grew up, many things were unacceptable to me, which is exactly why I left. For Lithuanians living abroad, their identity changes again – we are a small nation, so when we leave, we cannot gather such communities as emigrants from large countries, who often do not even learn English.
We, the representatives of a small nation, are forced to build connections and relations with a new country, we integrate and this changes our Lithuanian identity, I think thus enriching it.
Photo by Gabrielias Jauniškis/Ray Bartkus installation “Gardens”
– In Vilnius, you created the installation “Sodai” for the centenary Song Festival. You presented the previous version in America as well. When and why did gardens appear in your work?
– I created the first version of “Gardens” when the Lithuanian Embassy in Washington approached me. Since Lithuania celebrated the centenary of the restoration of a modern state, we wanted to make a piece that could be transported around various American cities and specifically to present Lithuania to Americans. Therefore, it was necessary to somehow interest the audience of American cities who had seen everything.
Gardens can be understood in many nations because their forms are recognizable and elementary. Lines, triangles, pyramids are repeated throughout human history, from the time of the Egyptian pharaohs to the present day.
Our goal was to present Lithuania to as wide a circle of viewers as possible, so we had to create a large, impressive installation. I thought that light always attracts a person, so when I created gardens, I thought of making them luminous.
Our goal was to present Lithuania to as wide a circle of viewers as possible, so we had to create a large, impressive installation.
By the way, famous American artists who used neon lights in their installations in the 60s and 70s also influenced this. I believed that such images of geometric, illuminating forms would be closer and more understandable to Americans, precisely because of the contribution of these artists to American culture.
The Gardens were first built in Washington’s historic and very beautiful Union Railroad Station, located right next to the Capitol. During those few days, the “Gardens” installation was seen by almost 400,000 people. people.
The embassy wanted to transport this piece around different cities, so it had to be large, but at the same time easy to pick up to fit in a car. The Gardens have been exhibited in New York, Washington, Chicago and Philadelphia. Various reviews in print publications and television programs have promoted them among the most visited attractions in those cities. It was a very memorable presentation of Lithuania to the USA.
Photo by Gabrielias Jauniškis/Ray Bartkus installation “Gardens”
– What reactions did “Gardens” have in America at that time?
– Perhaps the funniest event happened in Washington. A group of people walked by and started talking in a language I was somewhat familiar with. It turned out to be a Latvian children’s choir from Riga that came to Washington to perform. Only after arriving in an unfamiliar city, after a long journey, they disembarked at the station and were greeted by familiar ornaments. After putting down their bags, the whole choir stopped in front of “Sodus” and sang Latvian folk songs for half an hour. It was an exciting, very beautiful moment.
I also met more viewers from Eastern Europe who recognized their hometowns in the “Gardens”.
I also met more viewers from Eastern Europe who recognized their hometowns in the “Gardens”. Americans or immigrants from other countries were intrigued by “Gardens” as an object of contemporary art. In part, this was our goal: to present Lithuania as a country with deep traditions that would be relevant in the modern world. I am glad that I can present this installation in Lithuania.
– How does “Sodai” presented in Vilnius differ from the previous installation?
The “Gardens” presented in America could only be viewed from the outside. While setting up the installation, connecting the wires, I had to crouch under it, so I had the opportunity to view the “Gardens” from the inside, when around me, at a 360-degree angle, intersecting diagonals of various colors crossed, creating ever-changing compositions.
I wanted the audience to have a chance to see this beauty too. I thought that it would be possible to pass by the next “Gardens” installation and admire it with your head closed. So, the new installation is not only “Gardens”, but also an arch.
– Does the Song Festival evoke any feelings or memories for you? Maybe you participated in it as a child?
– I remember very well that when I was about six years old, my parents used to take me to the Song Festival in Kalnai Park. These are childhood memories: songs playing, lots of people. I don’t know if it’s a consequence of Soviet education, but I was taught that I couldn’t sing, so I wasn’t a member of choirs, and I didn’t dance either, even though my mother wanted me to.
I never imagined that I would ever be a participant in the Song Festival, but I became one thanks to this installation.
– When creating, do you think a lot about the audience, their reactions, how they will receive the work?
– Previously, I thought more about the audience and worked on predicting one or another of their reactions. But I lost hope long ago to understand how the audience will accept the work, which work they will buy and which they won’t, so now I only create based on my own selfish motives.
However, I believe that art is not one or another physical object, but a connection between the artist and the viewer. The work is the vessel that both the artist and the viewer fill with their experiences, aspirations, feelings, reflections, and sometimes an artistic experience is born in that medium. Looking at a work is a very important artistic act.
Photo by Gabrielias Jauniškis/Ray Bartkus installation “Gardens”
– Installations in your work appeared not so long ago. Is it – a difficult technique to implement?
– You cannot know exactly what the installation will be until you see the result in reality, you cannot predict how all parts of the work will work. I believe that every technique complements me, has taught me something. Working with light installations, I start to treat light differently in painting, and the subtleties of painting influence the works I create with digital technologies and so on.
There are artists who are strictly limited to both subject matter and means of expression, and this can lead to great results, but I am attracted to new experiences, new worlds, I need to raise and solve new problems. If the lessons are understood and learned, I must move on to the others. I like creativity, I’m not attracted to production.
– With your creativity and artistic projects, you strongly complement our cultural life. And what attracts you to present your work here? After all, you are doing it successfully in America as well.
– The project follows the project, this year I have been in Lithuania three times with different jobs and I will come at least once more in the summer. I have very good conditions to create in Lithuania. They did not appear out of nowhere.
After returning to Lithuania, I held my first exhibition in 2007 at the “Vartai” gallery. So it took almost 20 years of consistent work before I created the necessary infrastructure for successful creative action in Lithuania: sponsors, helpers and viewers.
In New York, I illustrated the world’s most famous newspapers and magazines for almost 30 years, and the structure of the media world is very different from the art market, it is impossible to jump between them – there is too much competition in every sphere.
So now I feel like I’m in a second career, maybe a third if I were to count my work as a graphic designer before I left for New York. It would certainly take more than 20 years to build such an infrastructure in America – it is an incomparably larger market.
In New York, I illustrated for the world’s most famous newspapers and magazines for almost 30 years, and the structure of how the media world works is very different from the art market, it is impossible to jump between them.
Anyway, Americans are most interested in American artists, Germans – German artists, and Lithuanians, I think, Lithuanian artists.
– What projects await you in the near future?
– Lithuanian Culture Attaché in Ukraine Tomas Ivanauskas offered to come to Ukraine. We are planning an action on the basis of the “Malonny” project in Marijampolė: two American artists, two British artists, two Lithuanian artists will come to Lviv, and together with two more Ukrainian artists and volunteers from Lviv, we will paint in the city’s public spaces. I think it’s important to show our unwavering solidarity with the brave Ukrainians who experience Russian violence every day.
– Do you believe that creativity can change the world at least a little?
– Life is creativity. Every day, my wife Ina strives to do 3 good and not necessarily grandiose things: to show the way to tourists who are lost in New York, to help a woman get off the subway station to carry a stroller with a child, to talk to an emigrant who has just arrived in the USA on the street. I believe that if each of us did this, the world would change for the better.
I think that the only meaning of life is to be a little bit better every day than yesterday.
I think that the only meaning of life is to be a little bit better every day than yesterday. Small positive vibrations change the world for good. Although sometimes it seems that all good efforts go to waste, you can not be discouraged, because the opposition between good and evil is permanent, it will never disappear.
Thirty years ago, I experienced miraculously wonderful changes: the walls fell in Europe, the countries of Eastern and Central Europe became free and democratic states, Lithuania flourished and I was very optimistic about the development of the world. The present teaches that, unfortunately, the boundless optimism was not justified, and humanity repeats the mistakes of the past and sinks into the era of problematic conflicts.
Legendary American investor Warren Buffett says that optimists always win in the stock market. I’m not so confident that he’s right!
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2024-05-08 14:25:45