Exhibition "VILNIUS. Topophilia", 5 October – 26 November 2017
Exhibition "VILNIUS. Topophilia", 5 October – 26 November 2017, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius.
Vilnius. Topophilia
Images of Vilnius from the collection of the law firm "Ellex Valiunas"
"Vilnius is characterized by a surprising, hardly rationally explainable feature, a certain magic through which people fall in love with this city as if it were a living being. Many painters and graphic artists have been painting the architecture and images of Vilnius for more than two centuries" (Czesław Milosz, Abėcėlė, Vilnius, 2012, p. 106).
Vilnius was loved to be depicted by artists of various nations, local artists, and guests, and the Greek word "topophilia", which means "love of place", is suitable to describe their work. The exhibition "Vilnius. Topophilia" reviews the development of iconography in the capital of Lithuania in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: how the city and its depiction changed over two centuries, what fascinated the artists, how their gaze was influenced by the historical, political, social, cultural, artistic context, the purpose and purpose of the works. The exposition, which chronologically illuminates the stages of the depiction of Vilnius, consists of four parts: the period of the nineteenth century is presented by "The Passion of Documentation of Monuments", the beginning of the twentieth century - "Subjective Gaze", the interwar period of the twentieth century - "The Creation of the Myth of Vilnius", the second half of the twentieth century - "The City of Modernists". A number of works depict famous, iconic objects of the capital, but even Vilnius residents who know the city well can expect enigmatic images and unexpected discoveries in the exhibition.
The exhibition features over 200 graphic and painting works, and in addition to famous artists Vincentas Slendzinskis, Jurgis Hopen, Bronislovas Jamontas, Adomas Mendziblockis, Viktoras Vizgirda, Vytautas Mackevičius, Jonas Švažas, Petras Repšys, there are lesser-known artists who are loyal to Vilnius and have discovered unexpected corners of the city, such as Jonas Gintautas-Dzievaltovskis, graduates of the Art Department of Stephen Batory University Romanas Jakimovičius, Valentinas Romanovičius, Adolfas Poplavskis, Leonas Kosmulsky, Zbignev Kalishchak and others. The exhibition also exhibits "vilniana" by foreign authors - works by Polish (Ignacy Pinko, Wilhelm Ossecki, Zofia Stankiewicz), German (Alfred Glatz, Alfred Schlemm), French (Leon Jean-Baptiste Sabatier), English (Frederick Arthur Farrell) or their cycles have never been shown in Lithuania. The exhibition presents the collection of the law firm "Ellex Valiunas", which contains the largest private art collection in Lithuania on the theme of Vilnius; The exposition of the exhibition shows part of this collection.