Photo – Matas Janušonis ©
Matas Janušonis about the exhibition: “Backyard mainly refers to a state where feelings, memories and visions find their order and place. Here you can feel calm and arrange things however you want, unrestrictedly and without being distracted. This is in contrast to the front yard, which is representative and visible to everyone, where it usually matters how you look from the outside.
My works are the intertwining of representational and kitsch decorative elements, images in general, and my formal commentaries about them. As if I am filtering the images of mass consumption and transforming them until they acquire a shape that would fit to be placed in my backyard. You look at how it fits in with other things already in the yard and sense some sort of interface, continuity.
Photo – Matas Janušonis ©
The exhibition reveals two poles: it is like front and back, open and closed, insiders and outsiders. Architecturally, the duality is also resonated in objects in space: two halls, one of which is further divided into two equal triangles. They are similar in their area, but one is as if inaccessible …”
Matas Janušonis (born 1994) is currently doing his Master’s degree in sculpture at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. His works have been presented at ArtVilnius, Positions Berlin and viennacontemporary; they are in the collection of the Lewben Art Foundation (a non-governmental organisation managing a representative art collection) and MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art Krakow.
Photo – Matas Janušonis ©
Matas Janušonis’ audio installation “Gate” is the winner of the audience award at the exhibition of the Contemporary Art Centre for the CDecaux Prize 2018.
“Backyard” is part of the Gallery’s project Art Space for Young Artists. It is an ongoing art project launched in 2011, covering young artists’ exhibition cycles and promoting their initiatives and continuity of artistic ideas.
The project is co-funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.
