The Gruodziai family were the revivers and continuers of the traditions of free Lithuanian manors. After decades of Soviet occupation, they were the first in our country to take on the mission of educators with their own funds, gathering forces in art and other arts, inviting groups of art professionals, giving them the opportunity to come, live, and create here every summer in Aukštaitija, to show their skills.
The exhibition curator Gintautas Kažemėkas says: “The long-matured collection of paintings by Dalia and Gintaras Gruodziai, part of which is exhibited here at the Antazavė manor, raised the question of how the artist depicted the world twenty years ago, saying this is what the world is like, and how now, when reality itself generates images about the world and man.
Being in the world itself is a reason for art. Then painting becomes like a person who stopped, looked out the window, asked nothing, heard no answer, made no decisions, planned nothing, but still something happened here, and that something changes us – the viewers of art.”
Indeed, the Bikuškis manor, located not far from Antazavė (about 30 km), has been a phenomenon of professional culture since 1999. Every year, plein airs were held here, in which young authors and older, well-known art classics participated on equal terms.
Mostly modernists: abstractionists or free figurative painters, who drew and painted the manor environment and real landscapes. There were about a hundred painters who participated. There were also women graphic artists, men’s sculptor symposiums. At the closing celebrations of all plein airs, guests were welcomed and exhibitions of new works created here were held.
In total, there are now several hundred works in the Gruodziai collection. Currently exhibited at the Antazavė manor are national prize laureates: Valentinas Antanavičius (1936-2024), Dalia Kasčiūnaitė, Žygimantas Augustinas, Eugenijus Cukermanas. Also shown are Arūnas Vaitkūnas (1956-2005), Elena Balsiukaitė-Brazdžiūnienė, Mindaugas Skudutis, the recently deceased Aleksandras Vozbinas (1958-2021). And many others.
Gintautas Kažemėkas about the artists says: “In the contemporary world of artificial intelligence, which is created according to the artist’s demand, pure painting also has its demand: to tell as little as possible about the author and his talents and leave room for another person to appear next to the work. If the other stops in front of the painting, the contact becomes a wonderful place between two strangers.”
The little garden, recently moved from the Bikuškis manor to the Antazavė manor garden, has borne a sweet, rich-flavored berry. The Gruodziai collection exhibition at the Antazavė manor will be open until 2027 01 13
The event starts at Antazavė manor on September 12 at 3 p.m.
Information from the exhibition organizers
