HUMAN RIGHTS AND ART – LITHUANIA Pt.2
-by Justina Špeirokaité (Curator at Improper Walls)
Back in March, we published interviews with Lithuanian artists Agnietė Lisičkinaitė, Eglė Kazickaitė and Greta Gudelytė on Human Rights and Art in Lithuania. You can read the interviews here. The artists are in the XX Art Flanerie festival's 2021 programme, as part of a three city collaboration and are presented by the LT.art Vienna project.
Another great artist joining them is Živilė Žvėrūna, who will join the live mural painting at Schwendergasse Public Gallery this July.
Just after the infamous traditional family march, which took place a couple of weeks ago and during the hopeful excitement of passing a gender-neutral partnership law, artist Živilė Žvėrūna talks about how art reveals the morality of our society.
Do you think that raising awareness on human rights issues is one of the tasks of culture?
I think the language of culture and art is universal. I believe that the task of culture is to question and to seek the limits of its freedom. Culture is not just a product. It is one of the most important tools of speech that should help us to become freer, more tolerant. Many iconic classical works used to irritate and anger society, but in the end, these works also acted as a catalyst and broke down the stigmas of society. Monet's famous Olympia of 1863, for example, caused a real scandal. Such indecent nudity was a mockery of the moral standards of the time. Today, reproductions of this painting can be seen on many everyday souvenirs, from mugs to mobile phone cases. And in 1989, the Guerrilla Girls, a group of artists, unveiled a poster featuring a very similar figure to Monet's painting, but with the question 'Do women have to be naked to get into the Met Museum?’ It is very interesting that through works of art we can see the moral cross-section of our time, which is always multi-layered and complex.
What is the relationship between your art and human rights issues?
Through my work, I am learning to understand the rights of the frog in the broadest sense. Sometimes we don't even know how limited we can be, and creativity helps us to transcend those limits and frees us, it has a therapeutic effect.
