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Copyright of Logos: A Journal, of Religion, Philosophy Comparative Cultural Studies & Art (08687692) is the property of Logos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Spaces of Creation is the property of Spaces of Creation and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the article The structure features of poetry images in the contemporary art of Aldona Keturakienė written by Raimonda Kogelytė-Simanaitienė, the last decade of the creative artworks which were exhibited in personal exhibitions-projects have been analysed. Aldona Keturakienė is a well-known ceramic artist and professor at the Kaunas faculty of Vilnius Academy of Art. The path of creativity for Keturakienė started in the middle of the 1980s when the artist tried some different spheres of pottery. In her time she created decorative and domestic crockery, monumental art pieces for the interior, along with figurative plastic art. But probably the most important thing is the fact that even nowadays when the spectrum of plastic abilities is increasing and changes in pottery are emerging, Aldona Keturakienė was almost every time at the vanguard of Lithuanian pottery. Since the year 2000 Keturakienė has had over 10 personal exhibits-projects, which were characterised by integrity and with the deliberate decision of installation. The article states that recent exhibitions have highlighted the artist's penchant for metaphoric theme, reflected with personal memories and the reflections of events in life. The projects also show an original composition - the plastic visual structure. This structure has been highlighted by analysing the artistic qualities of the active pottery work and the space ratio, the works' mobility and frequency, the use of a modular piece in art work, the meaning and hypnotism of colour which is certainly typical for the artist's exhibitions and also for the individual works in it and governs the work figurativeness, forming and helping to reveal the artist's creative semantic field. It was stated that the artist's ceramics are very diverse: it balances in wide range of contradictions such as, spatiality - statics, brittleness - monumental. Artists' works are always based on an idea and Keturakienė herself, as a lecturer and as an artist undoubtedly remains an important personality among Kaunas ceramics artists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Displays of feminism in Lithuanian visual arts of the 1990's were rather sparse. Works of art analysing a woman's world and its problems were created and displayed in group and personal exhibitions, though no woman artist or group of artists chose feminism as a long-term conscious or politically minded creative thinking and acting strategy. The works of art with feministic features were often based on the artist's personal story and experience, but didn't raise the essential questions of Western feminism, such as the position of the women-creator, feminine (as opposed to masculine) expression, a critique of the institutional politics of buying, displaying art and cultural export (representing abroad) in gender aspect, the questioning of creating women's image in classical and contemporary art. The position of prominent female artists of the end of 20th c. Eglė Rakauskaitė's, Jurga Barilaitė's, Laisvydė Šalčiūtė's, Violeta Bubelytė's and others was grounded in reflection on personal experience and women's identity: the exploration of birth, puberty, maturity, motherhood and one's own body and allowed to adopt various methods analysing their work. Though feministic theories were present in the Lithuanian academic art discourse of the 1990's, women artists themselves avoided and even shunned the feministic tag, thus the methods of analysing their work also were indirect. Nevertheless, in the first decade of the 21st c. a regular and conscious feministic reconsideration of art history can be detected. The women artists, with a few exceptions, continued the abstract reflection of femininity, but precise and conscious feminist moves are observed in the curated exhibitions - in the curated museum processes and in projects and initiatives based on strategies prevalent in feministic cooperation. The model of exhibition being grounded in the reconsideration and recycling of art history (the subject of this article) is, in my opinion, one of the most important feminist methods of contemporary art critique. I consider the female curator output as a transformed principle of (re)writing history, which is an inherent continuation of the work by Western feminist art historians of the 1970's and 80's, who through their publications, books, monographs, and albums have placed women artists in the public eye. The difference is that this new (re)writing is happening not in the written texts (two-dimensional space), but in the discourses of exhibitions (three-dimensional exhibition halls and live discussions, where viewers with varied experience meet). Thus the purpose of this article is to reveal feminine strategies of constructing art history through curated feministic exhibitions of the latter decade in Lithuania. The article reviews projects by curators Laima Kreivytė, Elona Lubytė, Rasa Andriušytė-Žukienė, Ieva Dilytė and group/non-hierarchic curated projects (group Cooltūristės and temporary gatherings of artists for a single exhibition) and outlines the three prominent types of Lithuanian feminist curator activity of the beginning of the 21st c. 1) the questioning and critique of art history and the principles of its formation and also a declaration of subjectivity (Last minute excursion into Lithuanian art, initiated by group Cooltūristės, 2010, an excursion conducted by Laima Kreivytė) and one of the Kaunas biannual exhibitions (RewindHistory, 2011, curator Rasa Andriušytė-Žukienė); 2) the questioning of the stereotypical woman's image in arts, i.e. a critique of the power of gaze (exhibition The Power of Gaze, curated by Ieva Dilytė (2007, Vilnius Picture Gallery of Lithuanian Art Museum) and exhibition Woman's Time: Sculpture and Film curated by Elona Lubytė and Laima Kreivytė (2010, National Art Gallery, consultant - Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, documentaries chosen by film historian Živilė Pipinytė); 3) the creation/construction of new art history, new art criteria and standards, and new general point of view (Project Mis(s)appropriation by group Cooltūristės, 2005, presented at the Kaunas biannual exhibition Textile '05, and women artists' exhibition PasiJOS at the Architects' House in Kaunas in 2008 (both curated by Laima Kreivytė) and women artists' exhibition PostIdea, shown at several exhibition spaces in 2012 (Exhibition hall Titanikas of Vilnius Academy of Arts / Art Gallery of Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas / Panevėžys City Gallery). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decade of the 20th century, Lithuanian art gradually became part of new geocultural contexts. One of them was that of Eastern Europe. This integration was effectively facilitated by the network of Open Society Fund branches and contemporary art centres established by George Soros. The Lithuanian Soros Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA, active in 19931999) disbursed grants to Lithuanian artists and art institutions, documented the work of the most renowned artists, organised annual exhibitions of contemporary art and made a significant contribution to the development of international relations: it sought to help local artists join international collaboration networks, promoted their work abroad, and encouraged them to take part in international projects. The local attitudes toward the activity of the SCCA reflected the general tension in Lithuanian art at that time which had been catalysed by the decay of the value system that had taken shape in the Soviet times and the formation of a new symbolic hierarchy. Contemporary art exhibitions brought to Lithuania from abroad also had a hand in accelerating the internationalisation of Lithuanian culture. According to the method of organisation employed, it is possible to break the foreign art exhibitions that were presented in Lithuania during that period into three types. The first are the travelling exhibitions that were initiated and funded by various foreign cultural and international institutes. The second type is composed of projects conceived as a result of direct collaboration between Lithuanian and foreign art institutions, often involving the exchange of exhibitions and artists. The third type, which is essentially an indicator of the maturity of the reformed Lithuanian art institutions, are those projects which presented artists from other countries and were initiated by these institutions themselves. The international programmes policy of the main Lithuanian art institutions was still under development in the 1990s. It was only in the second half of the decade that a prospective strategy for contextualising foreign art within the local situation, which would highlight those references useful for the self-consciousness of Lithuanian art and culture, took shape. The reception of foreign art exhibitions in Lithuanian art criticism of the period simultaneously reflected the gap that existed between local theoretical discourse and the current issues of Western art, and the local artistic community's growing need to not only become acquainted with those cultural values that had been out of reach for a long time, but also its need to internalise and localise those values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Spaces of Creation is the property of Spaces of Creation and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)