2013-07-03 Alchemy XXV. Invisible Women

One French TV channel showed recently how Orsay Museum in Paris was renovated. The ‘kitchen’ of the art church revealed in the broadcast locked attention of various curious people most probably: not only art admirers but also specialists unrelated with art – managers, technicians, builders, perhaps even alpinists.

It seems that France is far, it is not related either with Alchemy or with Lithuanian life of today. Still, this time the team of Rytis revealed a similar mysterious world to us. They looked at Lithuanian galleries and museums from the angle that does not promise anything interesting according to our expectations.

Nine women who spend days surrounded by art works and culture heritage objects from Tuesday to Sunday will be shown in the broadcast. They take care that culture would be handed over to future generations by guarding exhibits of museums.

Still, when we walk in exposition halls, we do not notice the supervisors and their work. They sit, stand and walk sometimes. Usually they do not say anything or scold us, if they say something. Perhaps this is the reason we do not see them or don’t want to see them.

Alchemy incites us to look at these “eyes and ears” of museums as personalities. We may see each of them in the most vivid colours. Stories of these ladies join together and turn into a wonderful illustration of today which we may read as a journalistic research written in stanzas.