Vario kalno valdovės virsmas: "Malachitinė dėžutė" pasaulinėje EXPO'70 parodoje Osakoje

LT1970 m. pasaulinė EXPO paroda vyko Osakoje, Japonijoje. Sovietų Sąjungos paviljone buvo eksponuota "Malachitinė dėžutė", kurią suprojektavo Tadas Baginskas (g. 1936), architektas ir dizaineris, Vilniaus dailės akademijos profesorius emeritas. Šiam projektui dailės kūrinių sukūrė ir kiti žymūs Lietuvos menininkai: Romualdas Mizgiris (g. 1940) ir Algimantas Mizgiris (1940–1990), Kazimiera Zimblytė (1933–1999), Gintautėlė Laimutė Baginskienė (1940–2021), Laimutis Ločeris (1929–2018), Arvydas Každailis (g. 1939). Sovietų Sąjungos paviljono ekspozicijos kontekste lietuvių menininkų "Malachitinė dėžutė" išsiskyrė originalia estetika, atsiskleidė savitas ją kūrusių menininkų braižas. Straipsnyje siekiama atkurti "Malachitinės dėžutės" ekspozicijos dizainą, nustatyti jos vietą Sovietų Sąjungos paviljone, aptarti dizaino koncepciją ir atskirus kūrinius, šio kūrinio ekspozicijos dizaino sąsają su Vario kalno valdovės, Malachitininkės, Malchito tarnaitės, Žaliaakės akmeninės mergelės, įvaizdžiu. Reikšminiai žodžiai: pasaulinė paroda, ekspozicijų dizainas, sovietmetis, metabolizmas, Malachitininkė. [Iš leidinio]

ENIn 1970, the EXPO world fair was held in Osaka, Japan. In this exhibition, "The Malachite Casket" designed by the architect and designer, professor emeritus of the Vilnius Academy of Arts, Tadas Baginskas, was exhibited in the Soviet Union’s pavilion. Artworks for this project were also created by other renowned Lithuanian artists – Romualdas and Algimantas Mizgiris, Kazimiera Zimblytė, Gintautėlė Laimutė Baginskienė, Laimutis Ločeris and Arvydas Každailis. "The Malachite Casket" displayed at the world fair EXPO’70 in Japan was an extraordinary project. Its design was quite a rare example of an interaction of a vision of a mythologized and mystified worldview with a functional display of objects. The images of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, the Malachite Mistress and the Malachite Casket corresponded to the material qualities (minerals) of the objects held in the Malachite Casket and the stylistic features of artworks (fluorescence, gloss, glowing, mysteriousness), as well as the exhibition structure itself, reminiscent of a malachite casket. The relation between the design and the image of the Malachite Mistress in this project is paradoxical and basically reversed – it did not exist at the beginning but was adapted later, when the project was already underway. Despite the reversed order of generating ideas and their implementation, the creative idea, the project title that appeared later, and the conceived image ideally overlapped. The title The Malachite Casket given to the project created associations with both the symbolism (the zone of symbols) of the entire EXPO’70 and the principles of metabolist architecture used in the exhibition plan. Though the image used in the project belonged to another culture, it actually helped the creators to disaffiliate themselves from extraneous Soviet ideology.The geological topic and the design of mineral displays was highly prominent in Baginskas’s creative biography. In an interview, the designer emphasized that he avoided ideologized themes and basically created the design of geology and furniture exhibitions. Besides, even though the project was commissioned by the Soviet Union that held Lithuania under occupation, its creators managed to make an original statement. Already at the beginning of the creative dialogue between Baginskas and Anatoly Vassilyev, when they generated ideas for "The Malachite Casket", their different approaches to the exhibition design – minimalist and theatrical – were revealed. These differences may have been determined by several factors – professional and cultural. Baginskas was an architect and designer, while Vassilyev was a scenographer and theatre artist, thus it was perhaps natural and understandable that some display design solutions were theatrical. Vassilyev treated the display as a theatre stage and sought to present objects and exhibits as props. Baginskas with his wholistic vision of the entire exhibition gave much attention to details. These two approaches to the exhibition as a theatre stage and an exhibition space dictated different perspectives of the gaze and, alongside, of showcasing the exhibits.It would be one-sided to regard the theatrical-conditional and detailed designer’s approach as suitable and unsuitable, good or bad. As Baginskas noted, looking for a compromise and doing a creative collaboration was much more important. From the cultural viewpoint, it should be noted that while creating the design for "The Malachite Casket", Baginskas tended to West-oriented design solutions, more abstract artistic expression and Scandinavian aesthetics. When Vassilyev remarked that his design would have been more suitable for the Scandinavian rather than Soviet pavilion, Baginskas took it as a great compliment showing his resolution to develop the West-oriented Lithuanian design trend. Keywords: world fair, design, display, metabolism, Malachite Mistress. [From the publication]