Central European Men

Central European Men is a project by Aida Čeponytė and Valdas Ozarinskas with focus on the everyday style of Lithuanian men. One part of the project is documentary video recorded by Aida and Valdas. Their friends and colleagues talk about their favorite clothes or outfits hanging in their closets and comment on their attitude towards fashion and self expression. The work reveals different personalities, ranging from shy to imposing. This documentary material is an affectionate and uncompromising document of an era. the conversations of artists and their protagonists are combined with a gentle self-irony directed at oneself and the phenomenon of masculinity, its local and sometimes comical manifestations, limited cultural and financial opportunities of that time. ON the other hand, behind the veil of humor, a sincere desire to look good, the need for individuality, the enjoymenet of the right to make decisions nad the feeling of participating in the Western world emerge. The video material presented had been edited in cooperation with the co-author of the piece Aida Čeponytė and project curator Gerda Paliušytė. The video material features Rolandas Rastauskas, Tadas Balčiūnas, Saulius Paukštys, Gintaras Kuginys, Arūnas Baltėnas, Saulius Pilinkus, Darius Gerasimavičius, Gediminas Laurinavičius, Girvydas Duoblys, Donatas Jankauskas and Dainius Liškevičius.

Valdas Ozarinskas, Aida Čeponytė

Artist duo Valdas Ozarinskas (1961-2014) and Aida Čeponytė (1965) were highly productive in the 90s. While mostly having worked in conceptual architecture and design, designing public buildings and their interiors, they also made films, installations, set designs, and organized art actions and events. Their works are characterised by a utilitarian aesthetics, an interdisciplinary approach, exploration of the relationship between public and personal spaces, subversion of domestic and gender roles and collective practices. Their most significant works include the interiors for the bars NATO’s (1995) and Full Metal Jacket (1996), the Lithuanian pavilion for EXPO 2000 (with arch. G. Kuginis and M. Bučienė), video films Red (1997) and A Man and A Woman (1999), Poison Girl (2001), and the fashion collection Central European men (2001).