Duo show 'Visitation' by Jonas Anicas and Tauras Kensminas

About

The title of the exhibition refers to Arkady and Boris Strugatskys’ novel Roadside Picnic. Inspired by the Strugatsky brothers’ book, Andrei Tarkovsky made the film Stalker. The element appearing in both works is a fenced off and strictly guarded area. After a mysterious ‘visitation’ in the no-go zone, strange phenomena and natural anomalies start happening there. Although the book heroes, like the gallery viewers, do not witness this visitation, they precisely feel the consequences of the phenomenon from the past.

In their project Jonas Aničas and Tauras Kensminas attempt to link the future with the past, which is supposed to evoke in the observer the impression of an approaching apocalyptic scenario. The gallery becomes an alien and inaccessible space, and the objects placed there are to remind about the unclear but felt presence of the ‘alien’.

Jonas Aničas (b. 1987 in Vilnius) is a young generation, Lithuanian sculptor combining in his installations sculptural objects and photography. The artist’s work is based on activities of conceptual character, multilayered and open to interpretation; he introduces viewers to a puzzle relying on codes and symbols, and engages them in their solving. In his works Aničas tries to consolidate and give a new sense to the objects and environment in the human collective memory, rather than preserve it.

Tauras Kensminas (b. 1991 in Vilnius) is a young generation artist working in the field of sculpture and installation. Sculpture is for him a non-verbal mode of narrating a complex and multilayered story. The contents of his works is a reflection of situations, inner experiences and the results of social and cultural contexts. Kensminas’ installations consist of elements, such as jigsaw puzzles, they stir imagination without imposing a single, correct interpretation of the artwork. His latest works are interdisciplinary: the installations are complemented with texts and sound – short narrations recorded in the audio format balance between fiction and a tale about real events.

The exhibition was organized in collaboration with the AV17 Gallery in Vilnius, representing Jonas Aničas and Tauras Kensminas.
The project is partially funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture