2015 04 07 – 05 10. Exhibition „BLACK ROSES“

The name for this exhibition came about by chance. Titles being considered for the show seemed artificial and meaningless. Finally, while meandering through memories of YouTube, a popular song from 1994 jumped out. The song was “Black Roses” performed by a group with the same name.

“Black Roses” was a rarity in the 1990’s but also typical of the time. The song explored the idea of generational change – how each generation perceives the times in which it lives, its styles and view of the world and how this perception changes – for the same generation or a younger generation – after ten or twenty years.

The works presented in this exhibition are by artists who have been creating for a quite some time, however, they can still be classified as debuting artists. The age of the artists is not the most important factor. The name of the show can be interpreted as the lining of the retrospective (for my generation or any other), however, it can also be understood as not having any lining at all, but as a deliberate affectation since the exhibition does flirt with “affectation”.

Technically speaking, the exhibition unites or even puts at odds visuality and conceptualism: intent, image, language and action. However, the “conflict” should not be taken at face value because the show’s curator has dropped the artists into a pre-arranged simulated situation or series of situations and presented them against a background screen of unobtrusive ideology at the same time without distorting or overshadowing the work of the artists.

And, my last comment. The first question that comes up is: “Why is it an exhibition of female artists?” “Why not”, is a possible answer. “Why is it that when it is an all-male exhibition, this question doesn’t even come up, but when it’s an all female one, it does?”

Kęstutis Šapoka

Curator

Artists: Monika Dirsytė, Eglė Grėbliauskaitė, Milda Laužikaitė, Gabrielė Šermukšnytė, Gedvilė Tamošiūnaitė, Daina Pupkevičiūtė & Vaida Tamoševičiūtė, Greta Vileikytė, Jurgita Žvinklytė

Secret Exhibition Partner: Young Poor Artists