Pakui Hardware and Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė INFLAMMATION
Schedule
Wed May 08 2024 at 10:00 am to 06:00 pm
Location
Salizada Sant'Antonin, Sestiere Castello, 30122 Venezia VE, Italia | Venice, VE
Advertisement
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 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.
Pakui Hardware is a duo formed by artists Neringa Černiauskaitė and Ugnius Gelguda in 2014. Solo exhibitions of Pakui Hardware’s work have been held at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, and MUMOK Museum of Modern Art, Vienna. Pakui Hardware has participated in the Istanbul Biennial, the 13th Baltic Triennial in Vilnius, the Biennale Gherdëina in Urtijëi, Italy, and the Kaunas Biennial, as well as exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Basel, the MAXXI in Rome, the National Gallery of Art in Prague, the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius, the Ujazdowski Art Centre in Warsaw, and the BOZAR Museum in Brussels. In 2023 the duo was also invited to curate the annual program at La Casa Encendida Centre for Contemporary Art in Madrid.
In the oeuvre of the modernist painter Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė (1933–2007), unnamed omnipresent disease, sterile operating rooms, hospitals, sore flesh–themed assemblages, paintings, and objects irradiate chronic inflammation of the cosmic flesh. Throughout her career, Rožanskaitė turned her attention to ecological, social, historical, and political concerns. Her works address female bodies in the Soviet medical system, Soviet deportations to Siberia, and themes of care.
A catalogue accompanies the exhibition, published by Mousse Publishing. Edited by Pakui Hardware, Valentinas Klimašauskas, João Laia, and Egla Mikalajūnė, it is richly illustrated and includes texts by Arūnas Gelūnas, Valentinas Klimašauskas, João Laia, Petras Išora-Lozuraitis, Ona Lozuraitytė-Išorė, Estelle Hoy, and Inga Lāce.
? Pavilion of Lithuania
60th international Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
Chiesa di Sant’Antonin
Castello 3300
30122 Venice
https://www.labiennale.org/en/noticeboard/453
Open Tue-Sun, 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) ir 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
? Financed by: Lietuvos kultūros taryba
? Partners:
carlier | gebauer
Plasta Group
? Sponsors:
Exterus
Law firm COBALT
Girteka
Glassic
Linen Tales
Noewe Foundation
Nord Cranes Systems
Piritas
? Media sponsors:
LRT
JC Decaux Lietuva
Artnews.lt
? For media enquiries:
International media
Anne Maier, Send/Receive
[email protected]
+49 170 290 7585
Lithuanian media
Rūta Statulevičiūtė-Kaučikienė
[email protected]
+370 667 08 548
Advertisement
Where is it happening?
Salizada Sant'Antonin, Sestiere Castello, 30122 Venezia VE, Italia, Castello, Sestiere Castello, 3494, 30122 Venezia VE, Italia,Venice, ItalyEvent Location & Nearby Stays: