optics + structure

Optics & Structure, Works by Kazys Varnelis: 1967-1977 was on exhibit from 30 June to 20 August 2017 at the National Art Gallery in Vilnius, Lithuania.

The exhibition surveyed the key period during which my father, Kazys Varnelis II developed his distinctive approach to painting and experimented with constructions in space. Varnelis intended his work for the “White Cube” of the gallery. He saw it as his primary site, producing large, abstract works that aimed to both enliven and respect modernist spaces. For the first time since the 1974 one-man show in Milwaukee, this exhibit celebrates the majority of Varnelis’s high modernist paintings in the sort of setting that it was designed for. I developed an exhibition design in keeping with the principles of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s dynamic spatial composition, which my father admired.

Exhibition curator and designer Kazys Varnelis (me).

Exhibition organizers: Lithuanian Art Museum, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius, National Museum of Lithuania, Kazys Varnelis House-Museum Exhibition lenders: National Museum of Lithuania, Kazys Varnelis House-Museum, Rolandas Valiƫnas

The project was partly financed by: Ministry of Culture of the Lithuanian republic, Lithuanian Council for Culture

Sponsors: Vilnius City Municipality, U.S. Embassy in Lithuania, Exterus, Imparat, Narutis. Media sponsor lrytas.lt