Optimism

 The exhibition Optimism presents an aspect of modernism seen through the prism of the Eastern European city of Kaunas between 1918-1940. Like Tel Aviv at that time, the modernist architecture of Kaunas reflected a momentum of self-definition and the propagation of optimistic ideals in the interwar period: years in which Kaunas was the temporary capital city of the Independent Republic of Lithuania. During this period over 10,000 buildings were erected in Kaunas, making it a modern European city. However, unlike the White City in Tel Aviv, modernism in Kaunas was evolutionary rather than revolutionary. The current exhibition presents a broad and varied modernist heritage, humanistic and eclectic in spirit, through historical research and works of art created to mark Kaunas’s designation as a 2022 European Capital of Culture. The exhibition layout, and the process through which it developed, echo the fundamental question facing town planners at that time: How can an optimistic architecture and vision create an urban identity and cultural narrative still felt today.

Curators: Marija Drėmaitė, Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, Vaidas Petrulis and Viltė Migonytė-Petrulienė

Artists: Martynas Timinskas, Patris Židelevičius, Arunas Periokas & Karolis Lasys, Malgorzata Maria Olchowska, Shay Zilberman, Rokas Mikšiūnas

Curation, design and production at Liebling Haus: Shira Levy Benyemini and Anat Levy