yr. 2021

2021 01 12 Antanas Zabielavičius has dedicated his obelisk „Жыве Беларусь” (Long Live Belarus), to the defenders of freedom and democracy in Belarus and all of those who continue to suffer under Lukashenko’s repressive regime. The artist hopes that his work will encourage more people to actively support the Belarusian nation and its goal of freedom. Reclaimed street bricks, red and white paper napkins, a kilometer of black rope and the trunks of felled aspens were used for creating the installation.

2021 04 01 – 2022 02 02 A major international exhibition, Humor Has It, opened on April 1, 2021 at the Nam June Paik Art Center in Seoul, Korea in honor of the FLUXUS art (anti-art) movement. The exhibition is also dedicated to several current and future important celebrations – this year’s 60th anniversary of the FLUXUS movement, the 90th birthday of George Maciunas, the 100th of the German FLUXUS artist Joseph Beuys, the 90th anniversary of Nam June Paik and Jonas Mekas’ 100th birthdays.

2021 04 30 – 05 30 Remigijus treigys and Danas Aleksa “Manila is Calling Your Name”. This exhibition brings together two artists and two technologies that deal with the restoration and reconstruction of memory in the media and elsewhere. Place and time are dimensionally important in the work of both artists.

2021 07 13 – 08 14 Wonderful Losers. Fossils. For over forty years, there was not a single filmmaker who was allowed to delve so deeply and openly into the world of professional bicycle racing as director Arūnas Matelis and his crew did in Wonderful Losers: A Different World. In and of itself, this is an outstanding achievement, but it is also possible to build upon it by taking a broader approach to the creative process and repurposing the unused material by giving it new life. PHOTO EXHIBITION. Each year, only ten of the most exceptional photographers are granted the right to ride alongside of the cyclists. (Altogether, a total of 2,000 journalists are accredited for the event). Our crew, which included a photographer, was part of this exclusive group. The director of the film, Arūnas Matelis, personally rode along with other members of the crew. We had come up with the idea to use those photos in the film as a punctuation mark, a flexible means to create the impression of moments that are choppy and frozen in time. Over 14,000 During the editing process we eventually decided to abandon that visual theme, but there remained thousands of unique photographs.

2021 08 17 – 27 Exhibition “Everything is a Game”, Tokijas, Japonija. “Everyday is a Game” consists of various international artworks and aims to demonstrate the diversity of the ideas, artworks and personalities of the Fluxus movement. The selection of the artworks of the exhibition was made primarily with the aim of representing the depth and variety of the Fluxus ideas as well as bringing in some freshness by showcasing the rarely exhibited unique items, rather than merely presenting the works that are already very well known. The exhibition “Everyday is a Game” is a quick run through the changing years, different geographical locations and diverse, outstanding ideas of the Fluxus movement.

2021 10 06 – 10 23 The video installation Getting to Know Jonas Mekas: Letters from Nowhere. The Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center, in collaboration with the Šiauliai State Drama Theater, has prepared an educational video for students, in which students will see: 1. Jonas Mekas himself reading his poems as well as his philosophical insights on various issues 2. Actors of the Šiauliai Drama Theater read Jonas’ poems from Letters from Nowhere. 3. Excerpts from the most famous of Jonas’ films. 4. The thoughts of Jonas Mekas’ student, film director, winner of the National Culture and Art Prize Audrius Stonys about Jonas and his works.

2021 10 06 – 11 06  Create Everything From Nothing Enjoy, or a Psychoacoustic Vaccination Center Most individual avant-garde breakthroughs or collective avant-garde movements and festivals flourished around 1987-1995. (Lithuania regained its independence in 1990). Of course, each was more or less close to the spirit of Fluxus and often to some of its forms, despite the fact that adequate and more accurate information about the American and European Fluxus movements reached Lithuania a little later. In this exhibition we remember moments from the AN-88 and AN-89 happenings seminars, the thoughts expressed by Jonas Mekas about Fluxus and Jurgis Mačiūnas. We will also touch on the origins of Fluxus, which is vividly revealed in Jonas Mekas’ film Zefiro Torna or Images from the Life of Jurgis Mačiūnas (1992).

Art Vilnius 2021. The Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the FLUXUS movement and the 90th anniversary of Jurgis Mačiūnas’ birthday, presents Fluxus LAB  – an app for Apple and Android phones that aims to playfully look at serious things, just as the pioneers of the FLUXUS movement did. We want to make people play and smile. The Fluxus artifacts presented side by side will truly stand as a testament to the fact that – FLUXUS IS A VERY REAL VACCINE TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM DAILY ROUTINE.