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8 - 10 April, 2011. The starting point for declassified, the exhibition and accompanying programme curated by David Ellis at Rich Mix in Shoreditch, is a collection of 69 original Lithuanian film posters covering four decades from the personal archives of the photographer Marta Ovod. The exhibition will be accompanied by the satellite programme of classic/experimental film, real-time audiovisual performance, music and talk. It will be both the convergence of a diverse range of art practices and generations having at its core the metaphor of 'layered surface' and 'disclosure' but more specifically Lithuania’s contemporary pluralism. 

Fragments of text and image seep through to form a mix of unexpected configurations and alternative meanings. Can the textures, chirpy blocks of modernist colour and ephemeral styles inherent in the poster smuggle out clues to a culture’s ruptured history? Or is this a facile interpretation, the preferred depiction of a past rather than its reality?

For Ellis, each poster is not merely a revelatory aesthetic representation of Lithuanian cinema but an effective message-carrier from another epoch, an indispensable tool for cracking open the back-story of Soviet and Independent Lithuania.The posters offer forensic proof of this transitional period, its shifting ideological and socio-political system and the films they promoted.

The satellite programme of classic/experimental film, real-time audiovisual performance, music and talk is both the convergence of a diverse range of art practices and generations having at its core the metaphor of 'layered surface' and 'disclosure' but more specifically Lithuania’s contemporary pluralism. 

All events will take place in RICH MIX, 25-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA

 

PROGRAMME OF EVENTS

Exhibition

8 April, Friday, 6 pm, Rich Mix Mezzanine Gallery

declassified: LITHUANIAN FILM POSTERS

Opening of the exhibition

Making an exhibition is like being an archaeologist; you're creating narratives out of fragments. The posters, like artifacts dug from the ground, and removed from several layers of historical sediment are open to new conjecture and reflection. The posters are adverts for films, never or rarely seen in this country, and testimonies of a life far removed from our own. Out of context and historically unmoored these images become repositories for new stories and beautiful speculations.

The exhibition includes Mikas Žukauskas's specially made video-conversational with poster designers Prof Juozas Galkus, Gintaras Gesevičius and Vidas Drėgva.

Free entrance

Exhibition continues until 30 April 

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/gallery/2011/mar/17/lithuanian-film-posters-gallery

 

Audio-visual performance

8 April, Friday, 8 pm, Rich Mix Bar and Mezzanine Gallery

declassified: GLUELESS

Real time audio-visual performance by Rokas Tarabilda / Emanuelis Ryklys (Rüt Rüt)

Marking the launch of the exhibition, Rokas Tarabilda / Emanuelis Ryklys (Rüt Rüt) present Glueless, a live 45min realtime audio-visual mélange of classic film images, film soundtracks and IDM beats. The film poster is the most static element in the filmmaking process, freezing the action of the film, condensing it into a rectangle. What if the images contained in the poster were to be re-animated and broke free of the frame?

Free entrance, continues until 1am with MO77 dj's

http://www.rutrut.lt/
http://www.rutrut.lt/bangos/

 

Film

declassified: GOLDEN AGE OF THE LITHUANIAN BLACK AND WHITE FILM

9 April, Saturday, 12 pm, Rich Mix Screen 3

Adam wants to be a Man
dir. Vytautas Žalakevičius, 1959

Chronicle of One Day
dir. Vytautas Žalakevičius, 1963

Double bill

Newly restored prints, with new English subtitles

Adam Wants to be a Man (Adomas nori būti žmogumi), director Vytautas Žalakevičius, 1959, 87 min.
The first significant Lithuanian full-length feature film. Vytautas Žalakevičius, surrounded by a talented team, managed to reconcile the different influences (those of French poetic realism and urban expressionism) into a coherent, independent work, which, in spite of and in fact because of being touched to some extent by a retro haze, has remained essentially timeless. Set against the background of Soviet film of the time, Adam Wanted to be a Man unexpectedly came across as a quintessentially European film. (Saulius Macaitis)

Chronicle of One Day (Vienos dienos kronika), director Vytautas Žalakevičius, 1963, 84 min
The first clearly authorial film by Vytautas Žalakevičius, giving rise to bitter disagreements. At the time the meaning seemed clear – a confrontation between a citizen and someone who is indifferent, but the artistic language and free expression was so unexpected, “incomprehensible”, that it provoked the involvement of the censor. The author was able to reconcile the frequently declaratory form with a psychological, even lyrical tone. The phrase “Why were you standing under a tree?” for many years was a sort of Soviet metaphor. (Saulius Macaitis)

Tickets: £6.50 concessions, £9 full. To book your ticket online please visit:

http://www.richmix.org.uk/declassified.htm

Link: http://www.lfc.lt/en/

 

Experimental

9 April, Saturday, 3 pm, Rich Mix Bar

declassified: TULSARAMA

Film & soundwork as artifact / unburied evidence

Die(sel) Old Europa # 1923-2004 - Simon Tyszko 15 min
Introductory digression by David Ellis  'He is unfinished, it is unfinished'
And Pig was born - Julius Ziz 20 min

Richard Crow / Gintas K. 45 min (live performance)

Notes on the Circus - Jonas Mekas 12 min
Award Presentation to Andy Warhol - Jonas Mekas 12min
Film about an unknown Artist - Laura Garbštienė - 11min

The Dud Effect - Deimantas Narkevičius 16 min
The Essay - Artūras Barysas 10 min

Chrysalis - Jurga Zabukaitė (sound - Lina Lapelytė) 10 min

Richard Crow. Photo Heidrun Lohr

An integrated mesh of unfinished / improvisational work in moving image featuring among others work from Lithuanian filmmakers Julius Ziz, Artūras Barysas, Jonas Mekas, Laura Garbštienė, Deimantas Narkevičius as well as artist Simon Tyszko. David Ellis, curator and performer, presents He is unfinished / it is unfinished, a performed spoken digression on the subject of things unfinished / discarded.
Composers Gintas K / Richard Crow engage in a musical 'coupling', a structured improvisation both digital and analogue, incorporating the lived experience of distance both geographical and cultural. Both artists ferret through their own unique personal archives of found Kodachromic family slides / pre-recorded short-wave radio material and specially composed sound in this live electro-acoustic composition, which derives from the shared memory of the Cold War.

Free entrance

Links: http://jonasmekasfilms.com/diary/
http://davidpaulellis.blogspot.com/
http://www.touchradio.org.uk/touch_radio_52_richard_crow.html
http://www.myspace.com/gintask
http://www.theculture.net/detours/

 

Poetry

9 April, Saturday, 7 pm, Rich Mix Venue 2

declassified: MAINTENANT PRESENTS LITHUANIAN & BRITISH POETRY

Chris McCabe & Donatas Petrošius
Tim Atkins & Tomas S. Butkus
Jeremy Reed & Gabrielė Labanauskaitė

Gabrielė Labanauskaitė

Collaborative, ebullient and eminently unique, we present a poetry event featuring some of the most exciting writers emerging in Europe. Challenging the linear notions of poetry as a closed medium, Donatas Petrošius, Gabrielė Labanauskaitė and Tomas S. Butkus from Lithuania will read and write in tandem with three of the UK's most vibrant poets, Chris McCabe, Tim Atkins and Jeremy Reed. This evening will evidence the depth and imagination of contemporary European poetics, declassifying notions of poetry as anything but a remarkable performance art.

Free entrance

Links: http://www.maintenant.co.uk
http://www.youtube.com/maintenantpoetry
http://soundcloud.com/maintenant

 

Music

9 April, Saturday, 9 pm, Rich Mix Bar

declassified: ALINA ORLOVA

22 year old Alina Orlova, singer-songwriter, piano player, artist and multilinguist, has won critical acclaim in her home country of Lithuania and her piano-led compositions and vocal agility have drawn comparisons to the likes of Laura Marling, Joanna Newsom or Regina Spektor. Regardless of what she is singing in Lithuanian, Russian or English, she conveys a level of emotion and intensity anyone can connect to. And her simple songs astonish by a multilayered surface of identity, place and time. How is it possible to spin something so unique from something fairly commonplace?

“Singer with an incredible, high-trilling voice and a unique line in exhilaratingly dark, Baltic folk pop.” (Time Out) 

“A heart-rending gorgeousness to melodies.” (Metro)

“Her songs are jam packed with wonders to satisfy your sonic appetite.” (contactmusic.com)

Tickets: £8 advance, £11 door. To book your ticket please visit:

 http://www.richmix.org.uk/aandc_declassifiedlivemusic.htm

Links: http://www.myspace.com/alinaorlova
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpmmW9EwokE
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfc87o_alina-orlova-doves_music

 

Film

declassified: GOLDEN AGE OF THE LITHUANIAN BLACK AND WHITE FILM

10 April, Sunday, 12 pm, Rich Mix Screen 3

Last Day of the Holidays
dir. Arūnas Žebriūnas, 1964

Feelings
dir. Algirdas Dausa and Almantas Grikevičius, 1968

Double Bill

Newly restored prints, with new English subtitles

Filmmaker and film programmer Louis Benassi in conversation with film producer Artūras Jevdokimovas

Last Day of the Holidays (Paskutinė atostogų diena), director Arūnas Žebriūnas, 1964, 64 min.
A pure, sad, and in spite of everything, hopeful, perfectly formed cinematic poem, capable of more than one meaning and not just a ‘children’s film’. The film about the diversity of human nature – the usual games and the power of the imagination, ‘normality’ of behaviour and the constraints experienced early in life. The lightly treated personification of nature and the indefiniteness of place allow the author, without losing sight of reality, to operate in more abstract terms, to force the viewer to think about Earth, the place where the action takes place. (Saulius Macaitis)

Feelings (Jausmai), directors Algirdas Dausa and Almantas Grikevičius, 1968, 90 min.
The film is about the tenacity of a human being and the whole Lithuanian nation in the midst of cataclysmic events to find room for simple emotions. In no other Lithuanian film were post war events and its heroes (a German soldier, a Soviet policeman not proud of his job, emigrants, weighing up the fate of their native country) treated sympathetically. This was why a minimal number of copies of the film were printed in the Soviet Union and few people saw Feelings outside of Lithuania.  One can discover time and again ambiguities in dramatic composition, to feel the rhythm of the film, to admire the timeless plasticity, the unvarnished atmosphere and exceptional interplay of the actors. (Saulius Macaitis)

Tickets: £6.50 concessions, £9 full. To book your ticket please visit:

http://www.richmix.org.uk/film_declassifiedpartii.htm

Links: http://www.lfc.lt/en/

***

Book tickets in advance through http://www.richmix.org.uk/aandc_declassified.htm

declassified curated by David Ellis and Marta Ovod
Curatorial advisor – George Vasey
In collaboration with Steven Fowler, Artūras Jevdokimovas, Daiva Parulskienė
Production assistant / technical advisor – Gediminas Stanionis

declassified is championed by Raimondas Biguzas
promoting an enjoyable creative space where communities meet

Partners:

Rich Mix - http://www.richmix.org.uk/ 

The Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in the UK - http://www.lithuanianembassy.co.uk/

 

Lithuanian Cultural Foundation - http://www.krf.lt/

International Cultural Programme Centre - http://www.koperator.lt/

Panoptikumas - http://www.tinklai.net/

3 AM Magazine - http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/

Sponsor:

http://www.lycamobile.com/

Supporters:

Lithuanian Film Studios - http://www.lfs.lt

Lithuanian Film Centre – http://www.lfc.lt/en/

Anthology Films Archive N.Y - http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/

Monaco Production - http://www.monako.lt/en/

Cottle Public Relations - http://www.gerrycottle.com/

Marta Ovod - http://www.martaovod.co.uk/

We would like to express also our gratitude to many individuals who generously contributed their time and efforts to declassified.

Leaflet of the event