Space travel: 'Cosmos. Lem. Jewellery', an internation jewellery exhibition at the Museum of Applied Arts and Design Museum of the LNMA
Exhibition opening at 5 pm 15 March, 2024
At 5 pm 15 March the Museum of Applied Arts and Design of the LNMA invites to the opening of an international contemporary jewellery exhibition Cosmos. Lem. Jewellery. The participants of the exhibition reflect on the links of the Cosmos and the work of Stanisław Lem, a renowned 20th-century science fiction writer, futurologist and philosopher. The exhibition at the museum is open for public until 7 April.
“At the time when human existence appears as especially precarious, the artists focus on the Cosmos, literature, and their inner self. Though the Cosmos signifies something out of reach for humans, it has always attracted human eye and has been a source of inspiration. On the other hand, pieces of jewellery, however small in size, at a closer look can open for us a cosmos of ideas”, Dr Jurgita Ludavičienė, curator of the exhibition, says.
The world traveling exhibition brings together the artists from different countries
The international contemporary jewellery exhibition presents Cosmos-exploring- artwork by 97 artists from Poland, United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Austria, Netherlands, Estonia, Spain, Japan and Lithuania, including among them, some internationally acclaimed creators.
The travelling exhibition is organized by the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design. It was already presented in Gdansk, Wrocław (Poland), Mariaheide (Netherlands), and has now arrived in Vilnius. It is later expected to travel to Vienna, London and Huston.
Alongside with the contemporary jewellery, the Museum of Applied Arts and Design of the LNMA will put on Igoris Piekuras’s paintings from the collection of the LNMA. They were produced in the 1960s –1980s, when the Soviet Mir space programme marked the beginning of the space race, while the US NASA space programme Apollo (1958–1972) defined the main era of the spacecraft development and a vision of new explorations of space. At the same time Lem wrote his best-known work.
Cosmos as the opposite of chaos
The exhibition Cosmos. Lem. Jewellery is an attempt by its curators to revive the interest of the artists and the viewers of their work in the future and the space, inspire them for new creative explorations and the search for new ideas and new orders.
The word “cosmos” in contemporary European languages usually means the universe. In ancient Greece, however, it was the antonym of chaos, with a primary meaning of order, and then, of beauty.
Jewellery artefacts, say the curators, accompanied all human cultures from their earliest stages: they were used as amulets, as symbols of status, as manifestations of faith; from the mid-20th-century, jewellery is an integral part of the arts. In the times of globalization and travel, jewellery pieces can meet an important need for an intimate contact with the work of art and function as a means of image creation. It is quite likely that a piece of jewellery can easily accompany astronauts on a space voyage, becoming for them a very special object of ars proxima.
The work by Stanisław Lem as a source of inspiration for jewellery artists
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) is a Lviv-born Polish writer, futurologist, philosopher and an artist who tried to define the place of humanity in the universe and to include the history of Earth civilisation into the history of possibly multiple cosmic civilisations, which he believed were created by evolution through trial and error. His books, among them, Solaris, have been translated into over 40 languages. Alongside with other accolades, he has been decorated with the medal Gloria Artis, and is a recipient of the Order of the White Eagle, top recognition for his merits to Poland. An asteroid and a Polish scientific satellite are named after Stanisław Lem.
The legacy by Lem is an open work, a source of ever new interpretation possibilities, where the balance between information and its abundance is bordering on the impenetrable. Thanks to this openness and to the original ways of designing futuristic visions, his literature has become a bottomless resource of unrestrained inspiration, this time for the jewellery artists of many countries.
The exhibition Cosmos. Lem. Jewellery is waiting for visitors from 15 March through 7 April at the Museum of Applied Arts and Design of the LNMA (Arsenalo St 3A, Vilnius)
Cosmos. Lem. Jewellery
Organised by Wrocław Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Arts and Design
Curators Giedymin Jablonski, Agata Danielak-Kuida
Coordinator Jurgita Ludavičienė
In partnership with the Lithuanian National Museum of Art
3A Arsenalo st, Vilnius, Lithuania
+370 5 212 1813;
+370 5 261 25 48; +370 5 262 80 80.
tddm@lndm.lt
