Solo exhibition of YPP'09 winner Andrius Zakarauskas
Maironio st. 3/ Vilnius
2010.10.14 - 2010.11.20

Michelangelo in his Sistine Chapel fresco, in the motive of Creation of Adam, has painted the God‘s creating finger, which later became a symbol of power of the Creator. In the 5th decade of XX c. the devouring process of creation was most clearly materialized by the figure of Jackson Pollock. Georg Baselitz’s painting using his finger continued the ideological line of an artist as the creator and an artwork as a creation. The same line was prolonged by artist of the young generation Andrius Zakarauskas (born in 1982, Kaunas) in his own way. He represented an artist’s finger painting in a heavenly light blue background – „Fingermalen (“Painting Using Fingers” (2008). In the beginning of his creative work Zakarauskas drew his inspirations from movie, television and art history. Recently, for quite a period of time the painter is contemplating on a question what the painting is and what role it occupies in the hierarchy of the contemporary art. His creative work is an anatomy of the painter, painting and the power of painting.  

By identifying with the creator, the object of creation, the spectator and the process of painting, Zakarauskas transforms these fundamental „participants“ of painting into plots of the paintings, where they acquire their own aims. He allows the participant parts to stand independently. The painting art, constant discussion of language of painting, of being present in art and transformation in painting – it is the trick of tautology, determining the record of Zakarauskas as one of the representatives of conceptual art. Since repetition, according to artist and art tutor Benoit Maire is a condition for a conceptual art.  

The creative work of Zakarauskas is full of apotheosis and demonstration of the artist’s power. He as if reverses the romantic myth of an artist, who slaves for his own calling, upside-down by multiplying his own depersonalized alter ego (one or several) on canvas. He gives them roles of the main characters: the figure of an author and a dab - constituent parts of the motive and plot.  Visual language of Zakarauskas could be perceived in several ways.  If we look at the phenomenon of relation between the painting and the painter hooked by the author from the pragmatic point of view - the plots of Zakarauskas might testify of a frequent superiority of power of the author’s “name” over the creative work.  The canvas of Zakarauskas would be empty and meaningless if the figure of him had not participated. It is possible to express in a biblical way: the creator creates in accordance with his own image; therefore the creation will always carry a part of the creator in itself.  
Whichever point of view is chosen, the “I” in canvasses of Zakarauskas – is not a servant of the Big art. It acts as demiurge and dictator.  The figures of himself (personifications of painting) that are painted in the earlier creative work of Zakarauskas are monumental, often looking to a viewer from “the sight of a frog”, reminding of the grand totalitarian dictators’ look. This is not accidental. By demanding the spectator “to learn to understand painting” and “to submit to its power”, the author has painted dictatorship gestures: vigorously bunched “Kumštis” (“Fist”, 2009), raised up hands and a commanding finger showing down in the work cycle “Mokykis tapybos” (“Learn of Painting”, 2008). The signs of mightiness and an absolute satisfaction are present in the cycle “Aš ir kiti tokie, kaip aš” (“Me and Others like Me”, 2009).

In recent works of Zakarauskas the “propaganda” flag of manifestation painting cult is lowered. Thoughtfully he is coming back to the question what painting finally is. The earlier tactics of art is further developed: an approach of his figure as a painting element (line, spot) and the main motive. Zakarauskas deconstructs a stereotypic image of the painter painting in his studio.  For instance, he strains his own and a girl’s figures (two different springs) as a landscape horizon line and represents his others alter egos moving towards it (No title (yet), 2010). The studio as if disappears and the author settles in the painted landscape. Rationality, logically based construction of image, demonstration of the author’s power and mightiness, manifestation challenge for common perception of painting – features, typical to Zakarauskas’ creative work can be perceived as a prolongation of problematic questions of classical “masculine” painting. Traditionally in art history the decision of essential (serious) painting questions was attached to the sphere of masculine concerns. Possibly, this kind of consciousness of the painter is alive up to the present day. The attempt to outwit, to re-create and questionize painting might still be vital.  The becoming of painting and tautological games between the creation and the creator concepts are prime features of Zakarauskas. Gradually varying, they still stay the main heroes on the painter’s canvasses.

Jolanta Marcišauskytė-Jurašienė