Linas Kaziulionis | The Game of Agreements

On Friday, 26 June at 18:00, the LDS Gallery "Arka" invites you to the opening of Linas Kaziulionis's painting exhibition "The Game of Agreements". During the event, a presentation and guided tour of three newly opened exhibitions at the gallery will take place. Linas Kaziulionis has been investigating the logic of disinformation and conspiracy theories for several years – how they arise, why they spread and why we believe them. His earlier works were created around a fictional chemical that allegedly acts through food to influence human thinking and make us more easily controlled. The new series analyses the rituals of play – the places and ways in which people relax, while simultaneously making important decisions. "The Game of Agreements" is a series of paintings about golf – as a space of power. This activity is slow, disciplined and demands concentration. Formally, nothing happens in it – a ball, a few strokes, some grass. For that very reason it has become an ideal setting for conversations that not everyone is meant to hear. Deals, alliances, informal agreements between those whose friendships cost the world more than private jets. The game is both an instrument of power and a respite from it. In both cases – a human need for which there is no substitute. In his book Homo Ludens (1938), Johan Huizinga argued that play is the primary source of culture: older than art or religion. Ritualised games – from the Olympics to a hand of cards – have always been not merely entertainment, but a means of making decisions without formal protocol and of drawing hierarchies without public declarations. Golf, particularly popular among US presidents of all eras, has unquestionably served as the scenography for planning new world orders. The sad irony – you play and talk about new military campaigns as though it were a game. Kaziulionis plays golf himself – and that is important to know when viewing his works. He is not an ironic observer from the outside. The artist knows perfectly well how to navigate among the bag of clubs or the holes – he himself rests where others discuss new alliances or billion-dollar deals. In the exhibition, the painter invites viewers into a theatrical space – to feel the grass underfoot, to count the mystical eighteen balls and mirrors, and to meet oneself as a player in reflections. Golf serves as an apt reminder that there is no point in competing with others; the only path to success lies in focusing on one's own hole – one's own goal. Kaziulionis's painted golf is a space of power – at once an incubator of disinformation and a territory of calm where the weary person of this world can pause, recharge and play again. This is not a contradictory place, but a reality where everything happens simultaneously. In the painting cycle "Games of Agreements", Kaziulionis raises his favourite questions: who truly controls the world's game, and do we even know that we are participating in it? – Ornela Ramašauskaitė, art market expert, artXchange Global Linas Kaziulionis (b. 1993) is a painter and street artist, a Master's graduate of the Vilnius Academy of Arts (VDA), who won the prize for best young Baltic painter in 2022. The artist has held solo exhibitions in Lithuania (Vilnius Town Hall, Pamėnkalnis Gallery, Tumas Gallery, Trakų Vokė Manor) and abroad – Čiurlionis Gallery in Chicago (USA), H-Gallery in Paris (France), SLA Gallery in New York (USA), EU Representation in Brussels (Belgium); he has participated in group exhibitions in Japan, Iceland, Belgium and elsewhere. Linas Kaziulionis is equally active in painting on canvas, where he is valued for his recognisable vivid painting style, mastery of colour, and insightful themes, as well as in large-format mural painting. The exhibition is part of the creative programme of Gallery "Arka" and the Lithuanian Artists' Association. The organisation's activities are funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture. The exhibition runs until 26 July. More about the exhibitions: www.arkagalerija.lt Contact: Gallery "Arka", Aušros Vartų g. 7, Vilnius Email: [email protected]

Adresas: Arka - dailininkų sąjungos galerija