News
2024-04-15
The Pavilion of Lithuania at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
The Pavilion of Lithuania at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia stages “Inflammation”, an installation by artist duo “Pakui Hardware” that features paintings by Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė (1933–2007). Opening on 20 April 2024, the immersive, site-specific project explores the inflammatory effects of current economic and social conditions on human and planetary bodies.
The Noewe Foundation has been among the sponsors of the pavilion for several years in a row, continuing its commitment to supporting the Pavilion of Lithuania at the Venice Biennale once again this year.
The Pavilion of Lithuania at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia opens with the installation Inflammation. The project is the result of collaboration between three duos: Pakui Hardware, which consists of artists Neringa Černiauskaitė and Ugnius Gelguda; the curators Valentinas Klimašauskas and João Laia; and the architects who created the architectural part of the Pavillion Ona Lozuraitytė-Išorė and Petras Išora-Lozuraitis.
Occupying the Sant’Antonin church, which hosts a pavilion for the first time, the exhibition presents modern figurative paintings by the late Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė alongside a site-specific installation comprising aluminium and glass sculptures by Pakui Hardware. The sculptures resemble an enlarged nervous system with pulsating hotspots of inflammation and resonates with Rožanskaitė’s paintings, which depict bodies ravaged by unnamed diseases, sterile operating theatres and medical consultation rooms, viscera-like assemblages, and machines. Drawing on the visions of artists from two generations working in Lithuania in different contexts, Inflammation addresses shared themes of medicine and landscapes—whether natural, industrial, or cosmic. The presentation conveys the interconnectedness of bodies and environments in crisis.
The architects of the exhibition environment, Petras Išora-Lozuraitis and Ona Lozuraitytė-Išorė, created a unified hybrid techno-organism. This environment includes a surface of hybrid soil, which refers to the condition of a natural body that has been infected and inflamed by synthetic matter. The exhibition conveys the fact that inflammation is by definition a systemic condition, whether it relates to the body or nature, and that systems are fundamentally linked. Inflammation invites audiences to examine the connections between our bodies and the planet, which are becoming increasingly clear.
Pavilion of Lithuania
60th international Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
Chiesa di Sant’Antonin
Castello 3300
30122 Venice
Open II–VII, 11am–7pm
Access from vaporetto station San Zaccaria A
Producer of the exhibition: Lithuanian National Museum of Art
Artists: Paku Hardware (Neringa Černiauskaitė, Ugnius Gelguda) and Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė
Curators of the pavilion: Valentinas Klimašauskas, Joao Laia
Commissioner of the pavilion: Arūnas Gelūnas
Exhibition environment and landscape architects: Išora x Lozuraitytė Studio for Architecture
Light artist: Eugenijus Sabaliauskas
Design: Vytautas Volbekas
Coordinators: Evaldas Stankevičius, Egla Mikalajūnė
Architect coordinator: Eglė Jagminė
Public relations‘ producer: Rūta Statulevičūtė-Kaučikienė
Commissioned by: Lietuvos Respublikos kultūros ministerija
More information here.
