Cold War Modern – Lithuanian Connection
Updated 2008-09-13
26 September, 2008. In September Victoria & Albert Museum opens Cold War Modern: Design 1945-70, its largest international exhibition this year. Next year the exhibition will travel to Vilnius – European City of Culture 2009 – and will be shown in the newly opened National Gallery of Art. This will be one of the biggest international museum projects to take place in Lithuania after the restoration of independence. In connection with the project curators’ talk will take place at the Sackler Centre, Hochhauser Auditorium, V&A, on 26 September, Friday, 10.30am. With participation of Jane Pavitt, curator of the exhibition Cold War Modern, Lolita Jablonskienė, Chief curator of the National Gallery of Art, Lithuanian Art Museum, and Laima Kreivytė, head of the visual arts projects of the Vilnius – European Capital of Culture 2009. Talk will be moderated by Henry Meyric Hughes, President of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) and a member of the Council of Europe’s Group of Consultants for exhibitions.
From the end of World War II up to the middle of the 1980s the cold war was the background to the development of international modern art, design, architecture and cinema. This period was notable not only because of the political tension it engendered but also by its exceptional creativity. This was reflected in all spheres of life – both in the everyday life of people and in the most important achievements in culture. Art and design did not become just an illustration of the politics of the cold war: works of art played an important role, reflecting the dominant political and social ideas prevalent at the time, but also infrequently challenging them as well. This exhibition prompts us to look at the cold war as a contest between two concepts of modern life and art that evolved on different sides of the “iron curtain”.
Lithuania and the other two Baltic countries were the western face of the Soviet empire, while the cold war’s clash of cultures on the borders of the Soviet empire took on specific local characteristics with the “thaw” of the Khrushchev period. Quite a few of the manifestations, witnesses and participants of this intensive period of modernisation and the contest that was won (or lost?) still survive. In the exhibition Cold War Modern to take place in Vilnius an attempt will be made to give it a specific local context: to accompany it there will be a project showing Baltic art, design and architecture created during the years of the “thaw”.
Programme of the event:
9 to 10am – consultant curator David Crowley leads the tour of the exhibition
10 to 10.30am – coffee break
10.30 – 12.30pm - Sackler Centre, Hochhauser Auditorium
CURATORS TALK
Jane Pavitt, Curator of the exhibition Cold War Modern: Design 1945-1970
Lolita Jablonskienė, Chief curator of the National Gallery of Art, Lithuanian Art Museum
Laima Kreivytė, Head of the Visual Arts Projects of the Vilnius – European Capital of Culture 2009 office
Moderated by Henry Meyric Hughes, President of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) and a member of the Council of Europe’s Group of Consultants for exhibition
10.30 – 12.30pm - Sackler Centre, Hochhauser Auditorium
CURATORS TALK
Jane Pavitt, Curator of the exhibition Cold War Modern: Design 1945-1970
Lolita Jablonskienė, Chief curator of the National Gallery of Art, Lithuanian Art Museum
Laima Kreivytė, Head of the Visual Arts Projects of the Vilnius – European Capital of Culture 2009 office
Moderated by Henry Meyric Hughes, President of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) and a member of the Council of Europe’s Group of Consultants for exhibition
Jane Pavitt is the University of Brighton Principal Research Fellow in Design at the Victoria & Albert Museum; a member of both the Research Centre at the University and the Research Department at the Museum, where she is usually based. Her work focuses on later 20th century and contemporary design, and particularly on strategies for presenting design through museum exhibitions and collections. To this end, she has curated 5 design exhibitions for the V&A, with the most recent research and exhibition project entitled Cold War Modern: Design 1945-1970. It is the V&A's main exhibition for Autumn 2008, after which it will tour internationally.
Lolita Jablonskiene is a contemporary art critic and curator based in Vilnius. From 2000 she headed the Contemporary Art Information Center (CAIC), which spun off from the Soros Foundation, and later joined the Lithuanian Art Museum to work for the new National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art. In 2002 she was appointed chief curator of the National Gallery. Jablonskiene is an ex-commissioner of the Lithuanian pavilions at the Venice Biennial in 1999 and 2005. She has curated art exhibitions in her home country and abroad, contributed art critical texts to Lithuanian and foreign press; lectures at the Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts (associate professor).
Laima Kreivyte is a contemporary art critic and curator based in Vilnius. In 1997-2007 she was visual arts editor at the Lithuanian cultural weekly 7 Meno Dienos (7 Days of Art). Since the beginning of 2007 she has been involved as a head of visual projects at the Vilnius – European Capital of Culture office; lectures at the Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts. Major curated exhibitions: Baltic Mythologies, III Prague biennale (together with Luigi Fassi, 2007); 1907:2007. Private Conversations (2007), Suspended E-motion: Contemporary Finnish Arts (2006), Jump from Yourself: Identity of an Artist (2005), History‘s Herstory (2005) at the Vartai Gallery in Vilnius.
Henry Meyric Hughes is a freelance curator and writer on art, and (international) President of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA).He was Director of Visiting Arts and Director of Visual Arts at the British Council from 1984-1992, then Director of the Hayward Gallery, 1992-6. In 1995-6 he was the Commissioner of the Council of Europe’s exhibition, Art and Power. Europe under the Dictators, 1930-45. He was President of Manifesta from 1996-2007. His recent curatorial projects include Blast to Freeze: British Art in the Twentieth Century (2002-3), the Cypriot Pavilion at the 2003 Venice Biennale and numerous exhibitions of contemporary art abroad. He is currently working for the Council of Europe on a concept for a trilogy of revisionist exhibitions on Art in Europe since 1945.
Place: V&A South Kensington, London SW7 2RL. Meeting at Exhibition Road Staff Entrance, 9am. The guests will be escorted through to the exhibition entrance.
FREE, but space is limited and advance booking essential, especially for guided tour, email culture@lithuanianembassy.co.uk to reserve or call 020 7935 9872
In association with the V&A Museum, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius – European Capital of Culture 2009, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, British-Lithuanian Society and the Lithuanian Embassy in the UK
