ŽILVINAS LANDZBERGAS EXHIBITION "THE SMOKE OF A PRAYER"

The idea for the exhibition was inspired by discussions on the relationship between artists and cultural institutions – museums, art centres or galleries. In other words, while considering the fate of works that link authors with these organizations. The question is – who would or should take responsibility in determining the future existence of artworks – their survival, perpetuation and display?

A large-scale spatial installation by Žilvinas Landzbergas‘ "Hidden Sun" (2018) was specially created for the group exhibition curated by Claudia Fontes at the 33rd São Paulo Biennial "O pássaro lento" ("Slow Bird"). After it was over, the work – impressive, preoccupying, as if a drawing in space turning into an architectural unit full of non-Lithuanian tropical greenery that comes through the windows to be watched by curious spectators, however, remains only in a form of a photographic documentary.

Like a number of similarly destined works which had required enormous efforts, time and financing of both the artist and the institution, this piece of work is later quietly sinking into an unheated warehouse. Shown only once, the work becomes an event, devaluing its material form. Without or with a perspective? This time – to resurrect Žilvinas' "Hidden Sun" – the starting point of the exhibition, the organizers leave the further development of the idea to the artist, eager to receive the author's position and statement.

Žilvinas Landzbergas was born in 1979 in Kaunas. In 2004, he graduated from the Vilnius Academy of Arts, in 2005-2007 he studied at the Institute of Independent Artists De Ateliers in Amsterdam. Since 2003, the artist participates in exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad. In 2017, he represented Lithuania at the 57th Venice Biennial. In 2018, he took part in the Biennials of São Paulo and Riga. In 2011-2013, he headed the art project space "The Pleasant 6". Žilvinas Landzbergas was awarded the main prize of the modern and contemporary art publishing house "Thieme Art" in 2008. Since 2018, the artist has been cooperating with the gallery "Meno parkas".

The exhibition is a part of the project “The Gallery Meno parkas – 25“
Partner: M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art