Yury Shtapakov and Aleksandra Gart

Yury Shtapakov and Aleksandra Gart (Russia) are taking part in Artists-in-residence programme at KCCC 2014 05 05–05 16.

During the residence Yury Shtapakov and Aleksandra Gart gave educational workshop and prepared a print exhibition “Alive and Unalive”.

At 18 h on Friday, June 6, Klaipėda Culture Communication Centre (KCCC) Exhibition Hall (Didžioji Vandens Street, 2) is to hold the official opening of “Travel Agency”. This is the title of the new project, aiming at events that will present the Centre‘s artists in residence. The exhibition series will start away with exposition called “Alive and Unalive” by graphic artists Yury Shtapakov and Alexandra Gart, the Centre‘s guests from Saint Petersburg, Russia, who resided in Klaipeda this month.

Works by the artists who found inspiration in the port city that they have visited are on display in the exhibition in the cabinet on the first floor of the Exhibition Hall.

The authors of “Alive and Unalive” appeal to the viewers‘ imagination by offering us to carry out our independent reading of minimalistic symbols spread on the surface of a white sheet. It shows a clean matrix with no details, resembling Suprematist compositions, the remnants of burnt-down buildings, the Fachwerk façades of Memel and modern metal constructions: the thought and the world are turning around an eternal mutual exchange of life and death.

Yury Shtapakov is an expert in experimental graphics with a wide spectrum of skills and activities. His works have been acquired by the State Hermitage museum (Saint Petersburg, Russia), Krakow National museum (Krakow, Poland), and MoMa Museum of Modern Art (New York, USA), while the books hand-made by the artist are stored in the public libraries of Saint Petersburg, Alexandria (Egypt), Riga (Latvia), as well as in the State Library of Saxonia (Dresden, Germany) and Berlin State Library in Germany. Yury Shtapakov has organized 17 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 250 group exhibitions.

Alexandra Gart has started her creative path quite recently, but has already taken part in more than 30 group exhibitions and now, in cooperation with Yury Shtapakov, she has been actively developing the work of their own creative studio ″Graphics Room″.

The goal of the KCCC residence that has been operating since 2009 is cooperation between artists fromKlaipėdaand other cities and towns ofLithuaniaand other countries, while the main topic of their artistic work this year is activation of cultural life inKlaipėdaand the enhancement of the port city image.

This year’s, KCCC residents include artists from Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Germany, Georgia, Iran, and the United States. Their works and activities are presented in public spaces of the city, KCCC exhibition halls and creative workshops.

The residents involved in ″Travel Agency″ are suggested to reflect on the Klaipeda region and the city, to write diaries and keep their ″route accounting″, which equates the residency to travel agency engaging in cultural journeys.

The topics of the artworks are going to explore two issues: the first relates to the cultural identity that we derive from the personal and collective experience; the second deals with representations of personal experience stories and the construction of conceptual “message” by means of not formal documentation, but a cultural event that causes the reaction of the local community and incorporates it into the process. The project highlights the quest for Utopia in architecture, the time slip, gender and national identity.

The project is supported by the Lithuanian Council for Culture. The Exhibition Hall is open from Monday to Saturday, from 11h to 19 h. The exhibition “Alive and Unalive” will be open until 6 July.