Autoportretas Nr. 6 1987

Curator: Well, here we have Šarūnas Sauka’s “Autoportretas Nr. 6,” painted in 1987, crafted with oil paints. What are your initial thoughts? Editor: My first impression? Unsettling. The distorted figure crawling amidst that darkly rendered landscape. There’s a definite psychological weight to it. Curator: The use of oil, heavily applied, speaks volumes about the art’s materiality. Sauka's labor here is evident—the very process of applying such dense layers to the canvas… it reflects an intense engagement. It suggests a context of societal unease perhaps prevalent at that time. Editor: Yes, but the composition… see how the distorted figure leads the eye toward the surreal pickle jar. The contrast is stark, yet somehow integral. It presents a dichotomy, a juxtaposition of the organic and the artificial. Is it successful? Curator: Success isn’t just about aesthetic harmony, is it? The pickle jar…it is ready-made. It implicates questions of mass production. What is it made of, how it has entered in a world where making art is an activity? Are craft and art in collision? How the materials tell us a hidden story about the consumer world, about us. Editor: Perhaps it is not meant to offer comfort but challenge the viewer’s interpretation. I am drawn to the artist's choice of such an unorthodox subject. Curator: Consider that these choices aren’t random; Sauka's engagement with materials—the physical oil paint, a humble pickle jar—places him within a socio-political dialogue of production and consumption, highlighting art's very materiality. Editor: You may be right. Still, there’s something undeniably raw in the brushstrokes that grab your focus away, an immediate expression of anxiety, fear or existential exploration beyond all cultural analysis. I will not let that jar take it all! Curator: Anxiety certainly is there...but so are the choices about how the message will be shown! It speaks for the entire sector to recognize themselves at the same level. That may be, even better...the new world order! Thank you so much for your opinions. Editor: Likewise. A truly disturbing and challenging image indeed. Thank you too.