The City in Itself

About

Pranas Griušys. The City in Itself

An exhibition “The City in Itself” by the known Lithuanian painter Pranas Griušys, will open at the Meno Parkas Gallery (Rotušės a. 27, Kaunas) on Thursday, the 1st of April, without an opening reception event. Exhibition will feature works analyzing the city of Kaunas in which he has been living for almost 40 years. Exhibition curator Jurgita Rimkutė-Vainiuvienė.

“The starting point of the painting project is the statements of two philosophers, the classics E. Kant and A. Schopenhauer, about the images of the "thing in itself" and the will as a blind force acting in this reality. The above definitions and statements are, in my view, appropriate for describing the concept of city. Not even a concept, but a city as a living, ever-changing derivative of human activity. Instead of the slogan of today's consumer society "here and now", Schopenhauer's method of seeing, perceiving and depicting the world "here and now" is used, when the "moment of a decisive instant" conveys unique and unadulterated information and images about the city as such in itself. The unexpected and paradoxical relatioships of city‘s images, the surprising situations and modes of the city residents become the content of the painting project. In this case, about thirty strange observations of city states and realistic images transferred on canvas, are presented. The paradoxical landscapes and images of the city which evoke various associations, the metamorphosis of ordinary city symbols, the synthesis of interwar cultural heritage and modern signs, which broadens the perception and interpretations of the world around us. As the city is full of unexpectedly strange states and subtle images of magical realism, each observation, I think, is distinctive, unique, as well as speaks of beings and images visible in everyday life of the city and inseparable from the state of the city in itself. Such a relationship with the reality of the city allows to present a wide and unexpected diversity of it in terms of both motives and artistic solutions.”

- Pranas Griušys

Pranas Griušys (b. 1955) – Lithuanian painter, lives and works in Kaunas. In 1982 graduated from the State Art Institute in Vilnius (now Vilnius Academy of Arts) with a degree in painting. Since 1982 works at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, Kaunas Faculty, currently a professor at the Department of Painting. Since 1988 member of Lithuanian Artists‘ Association. Participating in exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad since 1982. Author‘s works are in collections of National M. K. Čiurlionis Museum of Art, Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Vytautas the Great War Museum, Tretyakov Gallery, private collections in Lithuania and abroad.

The exhibition will be open until 25th of April.

The exhibition is financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture and Lithuanian Artists' Association.