Mission and visions lasting five years

Jolanta Marcišauskytė-Jurašienė interviews the organisers of the “Young Painter Prize” Julija Dailidėnaitė-Petkevičienė and Vilmantas Marcinkevičius

Julija and Vilmantas

The Young Painter Prize (YPP) has been held annually for the past five years. It has come a long way of changes over that time by retaining its recognizable character. Let’s go back to the very beginning. How did the idea of the competition come to life? What aims and expectations did you have and how did they change over time?

Vilmantas Marcinkevičius (V.M.) I graduated from the study programme of painting at the Vilnius Academy of Arts in 1995 and spent 10 years working at the gallery Vartai, observing the twists and turns of the developing art market. That time was marked by the peak years of the Soros foundation, the rise of the “Emission” generation of artists and the arrival of all-mighty projects supported from the Culture Support Foundation. It seems that someone or something else is always the decisive factor, and the artist can only be there and wait for “its bone”. With such thoughts in mind, I had some sort of a vision one evening in the suburb of Pavilnys: there will be no new emission for a time being; time has come for a MISSION.

Many things in the artist’s life happen by accident: the right touch, push to the right side, someone’s positive opinion about you enabling you to move forwards. But you have to be prepared for them, to be actively creating rather than waiting for something. 

Five years ago it occurred to me that I simply could no longer see interesting, new painters. Yes, art underwent certain changes; conceptual art gained a status of a “safe” art, which could be on display in various institutions. Master’s students of painting were very eager to defend their graduation projects based on video art. Painting was as if no longer fashionable and shameful, whereas filming was not something they were good at.

Therefore, such a context triggered the idea to create a project for a young painter, who has not yet earned institutional esteem. Why painter? Because painting is what I can best relate with; I was very interested in its field. After all, you need so little. An exhibition-event. A jury and a real prize. That is what each artist is actually dreaming of. To be noticed and appreciated.

We had a glass of wine with Mindaugas and Nicolas (Mr. Mindaugas Raila and Mr. Nicolas Ortiz – the first sponsors of the YPP 2009). They supported the idea. Without any application, business plan. And it did not matter that it was already the beginning of the economic crisis and there was no tradition of such competitions whatsoever. If it’s for the young, let’s do it! It was such a joy to create something new: everyone was complaining and we were ready to give an award.       

How did my road cross with Julija’s? It was at the Lithuanian Artists’ Association, where I chaired the Painting Section at that time. I then told her: let’s do a prize for young painters. Probably without giving it a second thought (I am kidding) she said: let’s do it. And we did it. That is – she did it. And with due responsibility. With a holiday atmosphere, candles near the door, serious jury, red wine and a concert by Alina Orlova. That year the first prize was given to Andrius Zakarauskas; Jolanta Kyzikaitė, Monika Furmanavičiūtė, Linas Jusionis, Eglė Karpavičiūtė, etc. were noticed as well.

Julija Dailidėnaitė-Petkevičienė (J.D.-P.) Vilmantas’ proposal to hold a competition with a prize fund for young artists first seemed utopian. In contract to recent years, five years ago it was not so popular to speak much, all the more so to support, young artists (in the case of our project, we speak about especially young people – up to 30 years old). I was a young art critic, so I was perfectly aware of the importance of this project in the case of success. It is essential for every artist to be promoted, criticised and to draw any reaction to the intellectual product he or she is creating. 

After we started setting the guidelines for the project, we realised that we could definitely create a platform for young creative people. We shaped the aims of the project – to present the brightest and most promising painters of the younger generation and to create an opportunity for public access to the creation of young artists and to enable the target audience – art collectors, managers and curators – to discover new talents. 

When creating the YPP, we realised that it was not the ultimate aim of the project to organise an exhibition of young artists and to invite art and business representatives. Starting with the first competition, we sought to provide support to the artists, which would stimulate their improvement. I would like to express my utmost respect to the main sponsors of our project Mindaugas Raila and Nicolas Ortiz, who put credit in the success of the project at its early stage and donated their money for the first prize fund. We only had funds for the prizes when organising the first YPP. In the course of the YPP'09, after the award ceremony, we were approached by Dali Van Roiij Rakutyte and Johannes Van Roiij, who offered their support for the project. It was yet another sign that we were moving to the right direction.

Now we have more sponsors: Modern Art Center, Orlen Lietuva, Lewben Art Foundation, delfi.lt, artnews.lt, echogonewrong.lt, The Bajorunas/Sarnoff Foundation, The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania.

I remember the first YPP competition at Pamėnkalnio Gallery. It was already back then that the comment on the need of such competition was accompanied by critical remarks, a comparison with the Eurovision-type format because each author could present only one work for the competition, while others were left as contextual works. Did you encounter / take interest in foreign practices how such competitions were held elsewhere while formulating the concept and the main principles and criteria for the competition?

V.M. Criticism is the second religion after basketball in Lithuania. Everyone is ready to criticise anything. I will put it simply: those who associate the YPP with the Eurovision Song Contest are welcome to create their own Grammy Awards. After all, this event is not for those who criticise; it is for those who participate.

There are a number of painting competitions worldwide, where only one work of art is evaluated. Likewise, there are a number of competitions where the entire collection of the author’s works is assessed. It should be noted that the YPP has no intention to elect the best young painter of Lithuania, now the Baltic States. The jury of the competition elects the best young painter out of those who applied for the competition. Perhaps there are some “silent young geniuses” that we are not yet aware of. But I believe that you can truly realise your own creation in the context of the creation of others only after participating in an exhibition with other fellow artists; you can see whether you are strong enough, whether the road of a painter is truly the right for you, and whether you are capable to communicate with an expert through your works.  

Painting competitions have been held elsewhere for a number of years. They have a very solid budget and teams working on the event all year round. The new prizes seeking not to waste time overwhelm by the size of the prize: Young Asian Prize – USD 100,000. Pinchuk Future Generation Art Prize – USD 100,000. They are in a hurry to show off at full blast and power.

 We could sit down and start criticising what they are doing wrong, but would it be of any help? We can neither compare with them by budget nor exhibition spaces. I could only wish that one day a participant of the YPP would stand next to the winners of these or other competitions and be clearly seen among them.

J.D.-P. When organising the first YPP, we started everything from scratch – we created our own logic and system of the project. Since neither I nor Vilmantas had any experience in the organisation of art competitions, naturally, we analysed the concepts, conditions, voting systems, which are often based on mathematical calculations, of such contemporary art awards as The Turner Prize (held since 1984), Young Belgian Painter Award / Jeune Peinture Belge (organised since 1950 and renamed into Young Belgian Art Prize in 2013) and others. At the anonymous rating stage of the YPP (e-voting) jury members also have to evaluate the artist’s competition project by points. I believe that this moment became a reason to attach a Eurovision label to the YPP competition.

Speaking about why only one work, accompanied by four contextual works, is submitted for the competition, we should single out two reasons. First, the YPP is targeted at a very young category of artists, which is very diverse in terms of experience. Some artists already have a rather rich CV in the fourth year of studies, while others cannot boast about it even after graduating from Master’s studies. Therefore, it is very difficult to assess the entire artist’s creative work with regard to his/her CV, references and reviews because few and not necessarily the best artists can boast about that. Hence, we decided that we had to evaluate the works submitted for the competition rather than the whole collection of works. Besides, it would be very difficult to put it to life because most of the artists are not known at all, still in search of their expression. Thus, with reference to their applications, it is difficult to evaluate artists on a basis broader than one competition work in the background of several contextual works. Spaces are yet another reason. We have no capacities to store artists’ collections for jury members to be able to take a look at them. On the other hand, we do have capacities to show one work of each finalist before opening the exhibition. Trust me, when we only see the works from photographs at the first stage, we often get puzzled after seeing the original – there are also cases when a really good work can look far worse in photographs than in reality; or vice versa. Therefore, for the jury to see the originals, we have been holding discussions of jury members in the exhibition space showcasing all the finalists of the YPP of that year since the first year of the competition.

What encouraged you to invite the young painters from the Baltic countries to participate in the competition? What did it give to the Young Painter Prize in your as the organisers’ opinion?

V.M. I will be honest – the passive participation of the young Lithuanian painters in the first and the second YPP competition was rather perplexing. It seemed to me that a possibility for a young artist to participate in an exhibition, to present personal works in a catalogue, perhaps even win prize money or a residency – it was everything what you could dream of. Unfortunately, the growth in the number of applications was rather sluggish; the same participants applied for the competition; painting tendencies showed no diversity. Perhaps this is how it should be; after all, we are speaking about the Lithuanian field of painting and nearly the same age group. Liveliness and sharpness were lacking. That is how we decided that the young painters from Latvia and Estonia could slightly “shake up” the situation. It would enable the acquaintance with a different view, other contexts, bring healthy competition, and artists themselves could exchange their thoughts about one of the most traditional fields of art.   

J.D.-P. In the first year the YPP competition was not very big. 28 artists applied for it. In the second year the number of applications was slightly higher but there were a number of artists from the previous year. We realised that our age limit might not bring us new pearls in the immediate future. It was a solid prize and the participation of Lithuanians in the project was not numerous and enthusiastic. We started thinking that we needed a challenge or, in the case of our project – competition. Whereas the Baltic region, as opposed to Central Europe and Scandinavia, did not offer any bigger events for the support of young artists, we decided to invite the applications of the young artists from Estonia and Latvia. I believe that we made it to the point. The active participation of Estonians and Latvians encouraged more Lithuanian artists to apply as well.       

It is indeed very pleasant to acknowledge that every YPP project held until now met our expectations. Most of the artists participating in the YPP were noticed by curators, collectors and gallerists. The YPP competitions were followed by a number of group and personal exhibitions inviting the YPP finalists and the winners from the three Baltic States.    

The competition has already celebrated its fifth anniversary. I cannot remember that back then, when the competition was first held, there would be as many competitions for young artists as there are today (Sculpture of the Year Competition, Young Designer’s Competition, etc.). A more vigilant YPP observer can see that the same artists often apply for the competition and get to the final (of course, there are also new faces every year). Don’t you have doubts about the continuity of the competition or the competition of such type?

J.D.-P. The growing number of new competitions for young artists is a good tendency. All the more so that I often get questions about the expansion of disciplines in the framework of the competition. We are not planning to do that, therefore, we are happy to know that the process is evolving in parallel. The YPP competition, on the other hand, is growing. The 5-year experience opens an opportunity to re-think and possibly change something over a long term. Nevertheless, the YPP format, the way it has been to this day, meets our expectations. We gather a professional jury every year. After all, the application forms of all participants go through the hands of very important figures from the Lithuanian and foreign world of art. Heads of various institutions and art critics were members of the jury: Sophie Lauwers (Centre for Fine Arts BOZAR, deputy director, Belgium), Lolita Jablonskienė (head of the National Gallery of Art, Lithuania), Dr. Raminta Jurėnaitė, Laima Kreivytė (art critic, Lithuania), Johannes Saar (director of the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Estonia), Kęstutis Kuizinas (Contemporary Art Centre, director, Lithuania), Hafthor Yngvason (director of the Reykjavík Art Museum, Iceland), Jolanta Marcišauskytė Jurašienė (Modern Art Centre, Lithuania), Neringa Černiauskaitė (editor of artnews.lt, Lithuania), Solvita Krese (Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, director, Latvia), Milda Žvirblytė (National Gallery of Art, Lithuania), Virginijus Kinčinaitis (Šiauliai Art Gallery, Lithuania); art collector Viktoras Butkus; curators: Evaldas Stankevičius (Contemporary Art Centre, Lithuania), Teresa Østergaard Pedersen (Museum Jorn, Denmark), Dovilė Tumpytė (National Gallery of Art, Lithuania), Vita Zaman (co-director, Vienna contemporary art fair Viennafair), Diana Barcevska (Latvian National Museum of Art, Latvia); gallerists: Ivonna Veiherte (Gallery 21, Latvia), Thorkild NB Nielsen (Galleri NB, Denmark); artists: Eglė Rakauskaitė, (multidisciplinary artist, Lithuania), Kaido Ole (painter, Estonia), Vilmantas Marcinkevičius (painter, Lithuania), Gintaras Makarevičius (multidisciplinary artist, Lithuania), Vygantas Paukštė (painter, Lithuania), Linas Liandzbergis (painter, Lithuania), Rūta Katiliūtė (painter, Lithuania), Žygimantas Augustinas (artist, Lithuania), Algirdas Griškevičius (painter, Lithuania), Jonas Gasiūnas (painter, head of the Department of Painting at the Vilnius Academy of Arts), Patricija Jurkšaitytė (painter, Lithuania), Prof. Arvydas Šaltenis (painter, Vice-Rector for Arts at the Vilnius Academy of Arts).

I work with residency programs every year. Over five years the YPP winners were given an opportunity to create and improve themselves in residencies: BMUKK (Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture of the Republic of Austria) awarded a three-month residency at Laudon including a scholarship for two years in a row; a two-month residency was given by Nida Art Colony of the Vilnius Academy of Arts; the YPP was awarded a two-month SIM residency in Reykjavík, Iceland. The winner of 2013 won a two-month residency in Nordic Artists’ Centre Dale, Norway, with a monthly NOK 8,000 scholarship.

Of course, it is only statistics. However, all the names and residencies show that pretty much has already been accomplished. We want to do even more.

V.M. I agree with Julija that the organisation of various competitions is a very positive thing. I do not see any reason to question the YPP format that we have developed over those years. It is excellent that there is still space for multidisciplinary artists, who do not fit in the concept of traditional painting. After all, we all have a right to our own “holiday”, when art professionals take a closer look at a specific field of art. Our sponsors confide in us and, to tell the truth, they are proud of the event that we have all created. We discuss new challenges as well. 

 We can often hear the opinion from the young painters themselves that a traditional division into disciplines is redundant and we should create an opportunity to study arts without choosing a specific department and discipline and by choosing them according to an individual artistic idea. This idea has been flying around for quite a while and the death of painting has been declared for a number of times. What makes you stick to the concept of traditional painting in the YPP?

V.M. The traditional concept of painting is actually the concept of the YPP. A young artist can study wherever he or she likes, to demolish academies and departments. But I have not seen anywhere in the world that contemporary painting of young artists stopped existing. No one forces to refuse something in arts or to select something under duress. Everything has a right to exist, to be seen. For example, Phaidon publisher releases the series of Vitamin P, D and S with due pride and in good taste by dividing the disciplines into painting, drawing and sculpture; others can publish a mix about contemporary artists. If you like – you can play a flute; if you like – you can take a place next to a DJ’s digital controller. Everyone has a right to choose. A different question should be posed: are you capable of capturing the audience? How relevant is your work during that particular quarter to that particular art critic from Europe or another part of the world? Do you go hand in hand with the tendencies of the time or you choose the other way? Those declaring the death of painting are gradually getting ready to lay in a casket themselves. Painting is as alive as it used to be. 

What is most difficult about the organisation of this competition? After all, it is organised by very small forces. How do you manage everything?

V.M. I will tell you the easiest thing in this competition – it is finding the sponsors. Actually, they find the YPP by themselves; usually, they try to contribute to this event by themselves. You could say that it is impossible but this is how it is! Our forces are bigger than four or six hands. It is very pleasant to believe in the newly-born idea and to make it grow. I am surprised how many things Julija is able to foresee, how well she is in handling the flow of information and communication. How and why her magical letters open the doors to the YPP winners to the residencies in Vienna, Reykjavík or NACD in Norway. What is more, the host country provides fair scholarships to artists. I can do nothing but thank Julija for that. 

After the YPP was born, the public attention to painters indeed became more intense. Many memorised certain names, made contacts with galleries and found their first buyers after the first competition already; they are active in holding their exhibitions. All that is thanks to the competition held only once a year. But how do you see the YPP in the Lithuanian institutional context? Have you received support, gratitude? Do you seek cooperation on your own initiative?

J.D.-P. I realise how deep I am into this competition. Therefore, it is rather difficult to evaluate this project in the Lithuanian institutional context. From the very beginning, the YPP declared that it is a non-institutional initiative. We wanted to remain independent for the young artists not to think that some institution can affect the evaluation of works (we could sense such doubts for a number of times in certain conversations with artists, YPP participants). We communicate with art institutions; we also discuss the concept of the YPP project. I consider any advice, criticism, encouragement or participation in project events as the support of the YPP.  

 Project events are attended by a number of people. Of course, there are a number of sceptics among them. However, even they support the YPP by their coming – it means that the project is interesting and necessary.  

V.M. A journalist from The New York Times in Vilnius asked me whether we could consider it a revival of painting in Lithuania. I don’t know, maybe not. But once we talk about it…once you are asking about it…We see and hear new names; it means a lot. Galleries try to lure painters to their spaces. Meno Niša, Vartai, Gaidys work with the YPP winners and participants. YPP authors hold solo and group exhibitions in Lithuania and elsewhere. A winner in the YPP quits his job in construction because the prize and people’s confidence in his art obliges him to create. What else do we need? The YPP has recently presented a program at ViennaFair New Contemporary 2013. Young authors become a part of contemporary art processes.

What are your plans for the competition in the future? What are you dreaming of?

V.M. A dream? To achieve that the next Vitamin P album includes even several authors from the YPP!

Thank you for the conversation.