Deimantas Narkevicius, Gintaras Didziapetris
YOU ARE MY MIRROR 2 : THE BRIGHT TOMORROWS THAT NEVER CAME
Exhibition Bis: Matthew Buckingham, Nicolas Pinier
July 4 – October 19 2008
Opening: Thursday 3rd July – 7pm
The splendor and misery of monuments…erected in public spaces in order to “commemorate” an event collectively… Or dismantled, taken down after the collapse of the ideologies they served, and once the propaganda they embodied had lost its audience. Signs of pies in the sky, utopias which have not kept their promises, monuments of the Soviet era today merely exude an air of obsolescence, silence or a sort of “aphasia” (1). The emptiness of public spaces devoid of these witnesses to totalitarian power is not enough, however, to erase memory and history.
The exhibition The bright tomorrows that never came references Lithuania’s recent social and political history to broach the question of heritage, transmission, memory, commemoration, utopia-and, evidently between the lines, that of monumentality and anti-monumentality-through the encounter and dialogue between two artists representing different generations: Deimantas Narkevicius and Gintaras Didziapetris. Each questions in his own fashion the articulation between the past and the present, between personal and collective history, as well as the fictional potential of historical images and testimonies. Their work and reflection have a particular resonance in the Lorraine region, its landscape scarred by history and punctuated by monuments marking wars, human loss and periods of annexation.
1- Jean-Pierre Rehm, “Suspended Vocation”, in A Prior Magazine no. 14, May 2007, p. 162.
This exhibition is part of the You are my mirror events set up in Grand Est and Vilnius and presented as part of the European Cultural Season in France (July 1st – December 31, 2008), organized by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and the Ministry of Culture and Communication, with the support of the General Secretary of the French Presidency of the European Union, and organized by Culturesfrance.
49 NORD 6 EST – Frac Lorraine
1bis rue des Trinitaires, Metz
Hours: Wednesday through Sunday 12pm – 7pm.
free admission.
Partnership: With the kind thanks to Conseil Général de la Moselle ; Gallery gb agency; Frac Bourgogne.
——————————————————————————————————————-
The Fonds régional d’art contemporain de Lorraine, a member of « Platform », network enjoys financial backing from the Lorraine Regional Council and the Lorraine Region Cultural Affairs Department (DRAC) at the Ministry of Culture and Communication.
