Tania Mouraud. In Honour of a Reborn Pain

May 29 – November 9, 2025 

In Honour of a Reborn Pain is a project by contemporary French artist Tania Mouraud (b. 1942, Paris), who has created a special exhibition for the Vytautas Kasiulis Museum of Art, focusing on Litvak culture and historical heritage. Yiddish – the language through which the artist seeks new ways to write History – is highlighted as a cultural phenomenon. Phrases from poems by Litvak poets Avram Sutzkever, Rivka Basman, and Chaim Grade, and songs written in the Vilnius Ghetto by Hirsch Glickas, Alexander Volkovisky, and Shmerke Kaczerginski, become sources for Mouraud’s works.   

 

The artist’s recent pieces in this exhibition continue her long-standing research into the plasticity of typography, with a specific focus on Yiddish script. Using paper, fabric, and steel, Mouraud brings projections of historical trauma into the present, through a visual language rooted in a distorted calligraphy she herself created from cursive alphabets. Featured works include In the salty immensity of human tears (In zaltsikn yam fun di mentshlekhe trern, 2024), Conversation (Shmues, 2020), the series Glissando (Glitshn, 2023), and Words Search (Mots Mêlés, 2015), inspired by J. Peerce’s Where is the little street? (Vu iz dus gesele) and the song Perlimpinpin by French singer Barbara. Also included are Frieze IV. Two Tears Hang in My Eyes (Deux larmes sont suspendues à mes yeux), drawn from the poetry of Wang Wei (2011–2012); the Outlines series (Pasik, 2024); Imprints (Gaufrage, ongoing from 2023); and The shattered letters (Les lettres éclatées) series, here inspired by Ghandi’s quotes Why Do You Close Your Eyes? (WDYCYE, 2016) and Should It Go on Forever? (SIGOF, 2016). The exhibition also features the film Once Upon a Time (2012), in which the artist conveys a deep sense of dread as she watches trees uprooted by ogre-like machines.  

 

The artist raises provoking questions: How do we respond to the conflicts of our time? How do we act for peace? These rhetorical considerations insist on the necessity of hope and rebellion in the face of violence and injustice. In her own words, she declares: I Still Have a Dream! (ISHAD, 2014-2024).  

 

Tania Mouraud, of Jewish and Romanian heritage, represents a Francophile cultural field. She began her artistic career as a painter before moving into photography, and in the late 1990s, videoart. Her work spans a wide range of personal and ethical themes, particularly suffering and responsibility. Her artistic expression is characterised by a deliberate choice of schematism as a counterpoint to emotionality, as a way to avoid certain pitfalls: “If my paintings are schematic, it’s only because I want to escape from pathos in my search for precision. I like what is clear,” says Mouraud. 

 

In the late 1970s, she participated in several group and solo shows in the USA and built connections with the New York art scene. She co-founded TRANS with Thierry Kuntzel, collaborated with John Gibson, and exhibited at PS1 in New York, where she met artists such as Dara Birnbaum and Dan Graham. Around the same time, she began creating her signature Wall Paintings – monumental black letters forming words and phrases that blur into illegibility. In 1968, Mouraud publicly burned all her paintings, abandoning modes of traditional expression.   

 

Since 1975, transformed verbal phrases and Yiddish characters have been central in her installations, giving them a new graphic appearance. The artist has exhibited in numerous art centres in France, the UK, Canada, and the USA, spanning texts, photography, video art, and sound performances with strong social engagement. In 2015, a retrospective of her work was held at the Centre Pompidou-Metz.    

 

The exhibition in Vilnius is conceived by the artist in collaboration with architect Amandine Mineo (France), a long-term creative partner.   

 

Tania Mouraud is represented by: Galerie Ceysson & Bénétière (France); Galerie Claire Gastaud, Clermont-Ferrand (France); GAEP Gallery, Bucharest (Romania). 

 

 

Architect Amandine Mineo

Graphic designer Ula Šimulynaitė

Coordinator Birutė Pankūnaitė

Translators: Miglė Anušauskaitė, Charles Dobzynski, Rachel Ertel, Aleksandra Fominaitė, Alex Z. Foreman, Akvilė Grigoravičiūtė, Barbara Harshav, Benjamin Harshav, Sabine Huynh, Irena Jomantienė, Laurynas Katkus, Mindaugas Kvietkauskas, Jean-Rene Lassalle, Eliyahu Mishulovin, Tania Mouraud, Zelda Kahan Newman, Roslyn Bresnick Perry, Lina Rimkuvienė, Heather Valencia

Copy editors: Laura Patiomkinaitė, Caroline Giugni

Exhibition organizer Vytautas Kasiulis Museum of Art

Sponsor Prancūzų institutas Lietuvoje

​

1 Goštauto st, Vilnius, Lithuania
+370 5 261 6764.
kasiulio.muziejus@lndm.lt