| Abstract [eng] |
The subject of the documentation and preservation of twentieth-century visual culture in Lithuania is very specific and has hardly been analysed. Yet it is highly urgent, as artworks become heritage objects very quickly, before the eyes of one generation. The mural painting based on the motifs of Lithuanian folklore, created by Birutė Žilytė and Algirdas Steponavičius at the Pušelė children’s sanatorium in Valkininkai (1969–1972), has been acclaimed as one of the most remarkable works of Lithuanian modernist art of the second half of the 20th century. In 2015, this work was put on the list of state-protected heritage. In this case study, the mural is discussed not from the aesthetic viewpoint, but as an object of twentieth-century artistic heritage. Referring to the sources – the data provided by those involved in the history of creating the murals – the author aims to specify and present comprehensive information about this work, which can be useful in terms of heritage preservation. The issues discussed in the text are: the process of creating the Valkininkai murals and the painting technique, damage to the murals and the conservations performed by Steponavičius and Žilytė, Kęstutis Stoškus’s photographs of the painting, and the actions of Lithuanian cultural activists in seeking to save the Valkininkai ensemble. In 2016–2018, by the efforts of Audrius Klimas and Vilniaus Galerija, the murals were photographed, and Birutė Žilytė took part in their digital reconstruction. The reconstructed painting printed on aluminium composite sheets was displayed in various ways – as a movable exhibition or an artistic installation. In analysing the history of the Valkininkai painting, the author of the article also reveals the problems of a more general character that are encountered when trying to save and actualise art treasures of the recent past: authenticity issues, author’s conservation, documentation of a heritage object and dissemination of images through digital media. Should only the original painting created at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s and restored several times by its authors or, according to the contemporary standards of visual art, also its digital reproduction corrected by Žilytė be considered an original work? Can we recognise this copy as an independent object of contemporary art? In the opinion of the author of the article, only the original painting at the Pušelė sanatorium should be considered an authentic work. A digital photocopy can be maximally close to the original, but it cannot convey an absolutely identical image. Yet the authorised reconstruction of the murals supplemented with new details can also be deemed original, in terms of being a new object or installation of visual art of the 21st century. This opinion can surely remain an object of discussion. Various approaches to this phenomenon depend on the reference point of their proponents and their aesthetic views, and can change in the course of time. |
