Kunsthalle Bratislava will present a solo exhibition by the internationally respected Lithuanian artist Žilvinas Landzbergas at the beginning of July. His exhibition project is produced specially for the Kunsthalle LAB space. Art lovers have already been able to see Landzbergas’s work at the prestigious Venice Biennale in 2017, where he presented his installation R in the Lithuanian national pavilion. The opening of his exhibition entitled The Fog, curated by Lýdia Pribišová, will be held on July 4 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Kunsthalle LAB space.
Žilvinas Landzbergas often transforms exhibition spaces to situtations with their own space and time. Forging connections among diverse elements, he creates stories where he works with references to Baltic mythology, often with an ecological significance which he confronts with the present-day consumerist culture. He combines non-durable materials such as paper, cardboard and black ink with objects found in nature, which represent an enigmatic aspect of mythical thinking in his work. The mysterious, sometimes even nihilistic mood of Landzbergas’s work is always accompanied by gentle humour and irony.
Architecture plays a prominent part in this artist’s productions, given that many of them are site-specific installations. Often they emphasise the elements of the structure in which they are presented; they are reminiscent of architectural models. Here Landzbergas plays with measure – he increases and diminishes and tries to strip the architecture of its utilitarian function so as to favour emotion; he helps us to an intense feeling of our bodies and our movement. The architectural installations in conjunction with light and also frequently with sound, and linked with specific materials (wood, paper, transparent materials, resins), evoke a feeling of glowing, healing warmth in the viewer and create a special hypnotic world. And so it is with The Fog at Kunsthalle LAB. As the curator Lýdia Pribišová says: “The installation works with the transparency of the glass windows of the exhibition space, thus fusing the displaying interior with SNP Square. It evokes a museal diorama, a view into another far-off world.”
Landzbergas also worked with transparency and light in his installation R, presented in the national pavilion of Lithuania at the Venice Biennale in 2017. He took inspiration from the motif of the letter R, which represents ideas such as respect, romantic, real, rhythm, reference... For him it is the most complex letter in the alphabet, integrating as it does an entire spectrum of geometrical shapes and meanings.
In his current work for Kunsthalle LAB Landzbergas takes as his starting-point research by the Brazilian psychoanalyst and theoretician of culture Suela Rolnik, who has studied indigenous cultures and examined their perception of the invisible in connection with contemporary culture. The exhibition’s title The Fog also means, in a transferred sense, the concealment of meaning. Hence “contact with the invisible” is precisely what Landzbergas focuses on. In Kunsthalle LAB he presents a site-specific installation consisting of diverse natural and artificial elements, where he uses a variety of materials alluding to multi-layered contexts, thereby creating works which he calls social portraits.
ŽILVINAS LANDZBERGAS (*1979 , Kaunas, Lithuania)
Works as a curator and teaches at the Academy of Art in Vilnius, where he is completing a doctoral study. He frequently collaborates with a variety of artists on his wide-ranging works. He has presented many permanent works in public space (in Utrecht and in Vilnius). In 2008 he won the main prize of the art publisher Thieme Art. In 2017 he represented Lithuania at the 57th Venice Biennale with the installation R.
LÝDIA PRIBIŠOVÁ (*1980, Bratislava, Slovak Republic)
Is a curator and art historian based in Bratislava. Since 2006 she has been an editor of Flash Art Czech & Slovak Edition, and since 2015 editor-in-chief. During the years 2013 – 2015 she worked as projects coordinator in tranzit.sk . In 2012 she established the non-profit platform PILOT. In 2007 and again in 2011 she was co-editor of the Slovak section at Prague Biennale and in 2019 at the Kaunas Biennale in Lithuania.
ŽILVINAS LANDZBERGAS: The Fog
Curator: Lýdia Pribišová
Opening: Thursday, July 4 from 6 p.m. to 8 p .m. at Kunsthalle LAB
Duration: July 5 –September 1, 2019
Venue: Kunsthalle LAB