On May 18th, 7 PM WhiteBox ArtSpace (9 Avenue B, NYC) celebrates the publication of Dance With Me, an album of photographs by Lithuanian-American artist Vytenis Jankūnas, with a discussion between the artist and art critic Eleanor Heartney. Dance With Me records the changing face of New York City during the first year of the pandemic. As a resident of the city for twenty five years, Jankūnas brings a perspective that flows from his simultaneous status as insider and outsider. His photographs conjure the empty storefronts, socially distant protocols, civil unrest and gradual return to a wary sociability that marked the brave new world that emerged from a period that already seems a distant memory. In the process, Dance With Me raises questions of profound importance to all who lived through this unprecedented time: What is a city if it is not its people? When all the usual rules of life are suspended, what new relationships and routines emerge? What does it really mean to be a New Yorker? The pandemic upended life in New York City so thoroughly that a return to former times seems highly unlikely. This discussion will look back at what we went through and forward to a world that will never be the same.
During the discussion there will be a multimedia projection of the video/slide-show based on the photo material of the book with the musical score by the renowned composer Žibuokle Martinaityte. Also at the event a limited amount of books (signed by the author on demand) will be available for purchase (Cash, Venmo or checks please).
About participants:
Vytenis Jankūnas is a visual artist who in his latest work uses mostly photography as a medium for his artistic projects, which include photo and video installations, books and photography shows. He has shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally. Past exhibits include the one-man show “Stuck on the Train / Pakeleivis” at Contemporary Art Centre Vilnius (Lithuania), which was his second solo show in CAC Vilnius and in Art Hall Gallery, Tallinn (Estonia). He won the 1st place in the Self Published Books category of the IPA - int'l photography awards and has been a recipient of the Fellowship award in the category of Painting from the New York Foundation for the Arts (Gregory Millard Fellowship), New York City (USA). Vytenis Jankūnas lives and works in New York City, USA.
Eleanor Heartney is Contributing Editor to Art in America and Artpress and author of numerous books on contemporary art. These include Art and Today, Postmodernism, Postmodern Heretics: The Catholic Imagination in Contemporary Art and Doomsday Dreams: the Apocalyptic Imagination in Contemporary Art. She is co-author of After the Revolution: Women who Transformed Contemporary Art and The Reckoning: Women Artists in the New Millennium. Heartney is a past President of AICA-USA, the American section of the International Art Critics Association. Awards include the College Art Association’s Frank Jewett Mather Award and the French government’s Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Žibuoklė Martinaitytė has been making inroads in the U.S. with her music emerging at festivals and an appearance on radio host John Schaefer's New Sounds. In 2020 she was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship and the prestigious Lithuanian Government Award for her creative work. Her solo CD In Search of Lost Beauty.... released on the Starkland label in 2019, received 2 gold medals at the Global Music Awards for Best Composer and Best Album.
The book Dance With Me is published in 2021 by the Lewben Art Foundation in Vilnius, Lithuania. WhiteBox event is sponsored by the Lithuanian Culture Institute.
To purchase the book: artbooks.lt