Kostas Dereškevičius
November 17, 2023 / December 13, 2023
A CARELESS LIFE
On November 17 (Friday) at 6 p.m.in the KADS Baroti gallery (Didžioji Vandens st. 2 / Aukštoji st. 1, Klaipėda), the exhibition of paintings by Kostas Dereškevičius (1937 – 2023) "A CARELESS LIFE" opens.
In 1969, director Dennis Hopper and his colleagues created the film “Easy Rider”, which immediately became a cult. Simply put, it's a road drama about two bikers traveling through the southern states. Film critics have assigned this work to the social landscape genre, which tells about the pains and topical issues, tensions and problems accumulated among the youth of the 1970s.
It would seem that such a comparison is not entirely adequate, but the work of Kostas Dereškevičius (1937-2023), who graduated from the State Institute of Fine Arts (now Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts) at a similar time (in 1967), can also be safely called nothing else but a "social landscape". In the seventies of the last century, at the very height of Soviet stagnation, the painter, who formed a unique (not without the influence of pop art which was popular at the time), specific plasticity and subject matter, was characterized by ruthless observation. Banal, even boring household details did not escape his sight - a windowsill, an electric pole or a substation, a balcony railing, a fragment of a shuttle bus window. K. Dereškevičius saw and recorded the existential edges of routine as if he was intoxicated by hallucinogens and wandered through remote areas of the countryside. His painted life seems carefree and, at the same time, full of unspoken, sometimes difficult to hide pain. This state is embodied in the composition of "Adele - Gasoline Seller" (1972), in the canvas of "Minibus to Dresden" (1976) and other paintings. Therefore, it is recommended to hear the sarcastically ironic (so characteristic of this artist) sense in the title of the exhibition.
Baroti gallery presents classical, chrestomatous works of K. Dereškevičius, donated by him to the Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts - the institution where he studied and taught for many years. /Art critic Vidas Poškus/
Art critic Vidas Poškus will present the exhibition.
