"You are my mirror: istorija ir atmintis šiuolaikiniame mene
ENLike in many places in Europe, there is a monument to the victims of World War 1 in the small town of Metz in the eastern part of France. Each period of history has adjusted its inscriptions and even its composition.Today it is called a monument to “the victims of the war“, while its history illustrates a complicated fate of the “memorable places“. The issue of the perpetuation and memory of the past rises, in all its poignancy, in those countries to which history was most ruthless. Not only the countries of the post-communist East, Lithuanian among them, but also some locations of “old“ Europe belong to the map of “sensitive territories” North East France, also called Grand Est, spreads along the border with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Switzerland, and is a mixture of several cultures, primarily of German and French. This part of France, which in the twentieth century turned in to a gaunt industrial region, is barely related to Lithuania, yet in today's life of Grand Est one can recognise some structures of self-perceptions that are common to both. One of them is illustrated by their striving to overcome their transit position between East and West (or North and South). The region's largest cultural project - the construction of Pompidou Centre in Metz - is aimed at this purpose. However, the museum is being constructed on the ruins o f a Roman amphitheatre and this fact gave rise to a considerable discussion. The junction of the old and the new is topical in Lithuania, too, therefore it is not surprising that history and memory became the dominating theme in the joint project of the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius and Grand Est regional foundations of contemporary art (FRAC).”You Are My Mirror”, that took place in June-December of this year. The first exhibition of this project was held in a mediaeval building in the old town of Metz.“The Bright Tomorrow That Never Came” is also the first joint exhibition of the Lithuanian artists of two different generations, Deimantas Narkevičius and Gintaras Didžiapetris. It is devoted to the reflection of the Soviet past. The second exhibition of the project, “Ex voto in Contemporary Art”, was held in the archiepiscopal palace situated next to Reims Cathedral. The idea of the curators Simon Reese (CAC)and Florence Derieux (FRAC of Champagne-Ardenne region) to embed works of contemporary art in historical environment reflected the latest fashion in the world of exhibitions. Works of contemporary art from Lithuania and from the collections of the FRACs of Grand Est speak of the ritual culture and its different shapes in the secular world of today. In this exhibition, “ritual culture” is perceived critically and it is not surprising. Various secular rituals following the principle of “eternal recurrence” are in fact not historical but mythical actions intended to consolidate and maintain the existing order. At least some of the works in this exhibition, among them Eglė Rakauskaitė's “To the Guilty Without Guilt. A Trap. Expulsion from Heaven”, relate cult practices with mentality of contemporary society. Today, more and more often we encounter not the artist-martyr of history, but the artist-critic of history. In the film cycle “Scenes”, Kristina Inčiūraitė writes alternative history of Soviet times, which is composed of collective and personal memories. Some of these films were shown under the vault of Palace du Tau that itself looked as heavy as a history textbook. Arūnas Gudaitis' framed human hair (“Loop”) amidst the collection of the chimeras of Reims Cathedral looked very impertinent: its scale was too human for history (and ambiguous, too, if we recall the ban on exhibiting human hair in Holocaust memorials).Meanwhile, Mindaugas Navakas' ceramic bowl with a piece of rose quartz from Madagascar echoed subtly the ”aura” of the chapel of the palace. History does not exist; every time it is rewritten, even in the steadiest of the monuments. It seems that it is the artists who truly believe in this 1960s-discovery and remain faithful guardians of sensitivity to the past in the encirclement of political amnesia. “Collections Without Borders IX. Foyer: Language and Space at the Border”, the third and final exhibition of the project “You Are My Mirror”, was not open at the time when I was writing this article. It will be held in Vilnius, in the Contemporary Art Centre, which is only one hour away from Grūtas Park. According to an article in the Le Monde, this reservoir of soviet sculptures is a place of “fear”, and not of “memory”. It would be difficult to argue against it - demolished monuments are writing their own history.
