CLIMAX BY KAZIMIERAS BRAZDŽIŪNAS

The Rooster Gallery invites you to the exhibitions Climax and The Lamb by painter Kazimieras Brazdžiūnas. The exhibition diptych will be displayed at two venues: exhibition The Lamb – at the Rooster Gallery (12 Šv. Brunono Bonifaco St.), exhibition Climax – at the Lewben Art Foundation (6-12 Bernardinų St.) from April 14 to 30. The opening hours of both galleries are: IV–VI 4 p.m.–7 p.m., VII 2 p.m.–5 p.m.
The opening event will take place on April 14, 6 p.m., at the Lewben Art Foundation space, featuring dj’s Eivydas K and Cyber.

You’d like to think that there is something more in these works of art, something above reality, you’d love to romanticize them, but in reality it is a challenge. For the audience, it bears imagination, beauty, and a sort of enchantment. For the artist, it is a test, an overcoming, and a study.

The works of the painters cited in the canvases were followed by long studies – of models, composition, accompanying symbols, and narratives. A long road and all kinds of hard work on the way to the result – the climax of it. But what we see in front of us in the exhibition is the manipulation of this long, hard work.

In some places, the old masters and classics are replaced by contemporary images, rapidly changing, not nonfading, but instead flashing icons. Its culminating, critical, tension point is replaced by sensation. So much for that – let’s say it’s a climax that ends in a matter of seconds because it’s replaced by another one, essentially dissolving the resolution of what should be the real culmination. After winning no triumph in the salon, this is merely a triumphant stance.

We return to someone who not only creates/manipulates large canvases through physical withdrawal, he also creates with detachment from the subject. Precisely prepared canvases, characters that seem to be cut out with a scalpel, create another level of aesthetic and symbolic sterility. Perhaps this deception, which forces the viewer’s imagination to wander through dream-like states and narratives or through recognizable iconic images, also deceives the painter himself. Finally, he becomes the bare one, trying to distance himself by all possible means, to cleanse his work of himself. Trying to simply choose a task. The idea that an artist suffers in order to create beauty seems incongruous in this case, but these two paths collide in a particular way.

And even the butterfly that has landed on a character’s nose becomes simply a solution, not a sign. The piece is solved, the climax is reached, and it’s time to move on to the next one. Faster than before, while committing betrayal of itself through the act of choice. Solving other tasks, which only the viewer will fit into the framework of his or hers fantasy, while the artist will go in search of other problems, other ways, as if trying to clean up, to solve everyday life problems like an equation. Only one thing goes missing – patience, and the climax without it – just a sensational scream from the stage.

Kazimieras Brazdžiūnas (b. 1991, Kaunas) – painter, curator who, in his work, usually uses quotes and rethinks other artists, contemporary culture and symbols, doing so by using spray paint. However, in this exhibition, the visitor will not see Brazdžiūnas’ own artworks, the exhibition captures the journey and change of one of his works “M.R agnus dei”, which now belongs to the MO collection. Exhibition “The Lamb” will run parallel the exhibition “Climax” (Lewben Art Foundation), where you can view the painter’s recent works. In 2018 the artist received a master’s degree in painting at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. Since 2012 the artist curates and participates in group exhibitions and art projects. His work has been exhibited in more than thirty exhibitions in such galleries as “The Rooster Gallery”, “Vartai”, “Pamėnkalnis gallery”, “Meno parkas” and elsewhere. In 2018 he founded the art platform of young Lithuanian painters “Counter-Argument”. In 2021 Brazdžiūnas won the special mention of the Young Painter’s Prize. The artist’s works have been acquired by Lewben Art Foundation, MO Museum, and other private collectors.

Text: Emilija Vanagaitė, Artūras Mitinas,
Design: Rytis Jonikas, Laurynas Vaitkus,
Sound: Eivydas Kantautas,
The Project is kindly supported by Lithuanian Council for Culture and Vilnius City Municipality