Deimantas Narkevicius - The Unanimous Life
Kunsthalle Bern 24.10. - 06.12.2009
in the center of Deimantas Narkevičius work is an examination of the past, the communist countries which he studied by using found footage and autobiographical narratives. His films are reflections on specific facts and historical oddities, mostly with indirect references to the experience of real socialism in Soviet Lithuania and other countries in the post-war Europe.
for his interest in history leads to Narkevičius biographical reasons. The upheavals associated with the fall of the Berlin Wall Lithuania shaped, left a vacuum of vision. The communist state existed for Narkevičius outside the Western concept of history as it was his stated goal of creating the new company, which - if this has been reached - would be forever. With the end of the Cold War the citizens of Lithuania have been returned in the historical consciousness, but lacked the vision. Narkevičius sees his search for a vision as a typical attempt of a post-communist society. are thrown together in unfamiliar territory have a future, by subjecting the Ruins of the past researches phenomena that had remained hidden behind the ideology.
Deimantas Narkevičius was born in 1964 in Utena, Lithuania and lives and works in Vilnius, Lithuania. International recognition came in 2001 as he learned his home country on the 49th Biennale of Venice represented. Despite his training in the classical medium of sculpture Narkevičius working in film and video and installations. Sculpture and architecture remained mainly in its connotation as a monument to a field of interest of the artist. The starting point The Head (2007) was Narkevičius' interest in the formal language of an ideologically committed art. examined free of its political significance Narkevičius the influence of thought and beliefs of a society to shape their development and landscaping. Accordingly, the film shows Energy Lithuania (2000), the architecture of a power station as an installation and manifestation industrial thinking and deals with the romance of this positivist ideology. The film Scena (2003), which was inspired by the modernist architecture of the Contemporary Art Center makes again the discrepancy between form and function clearly: although the building was designed as an exhibition pavilion, but the ambitious programming of the present staff of the CAC alienated the institution of its claim to a home for everyone ' be.
An abandoned missile base in Lithuania is the backdrop of the film The Dud Effect (2008), in which the potential launch Narkevičius recreates an R-14 missile. Although this weapon during the Cold War remained only a threat from both sides, the artist sees a need for education. The film had inspired him The War Game (1965) by the British filmmaker Peter Watkins, the collective concern of the Western world, given the possibility of a nuclear attack had on the subject. In the former Eastern bloc was, according Narkevičius feel too little of this fear and he sees the lack of interest in the work-based, which he catch up with the movie tries. Peter Watkins, who lived some time in Lithuania, was interviewed for the film of Narkevičius A Role of a Lifetime (2007). Opposite to Watkins' statements about the documentary combines Narkevičius the interview with images from an amusement park and an amateur film of the English seaside town of Brighton. The installation explores the relationship between representation and documentation, subjectivity and artistic responsibility. Also Legend coming true , the film that was shown at the 2001 Biennale, makes use of three levels of narration. The story of a Holocaust survivor of the Jewish ghetto of Vilnius is a romantic story the city of Vilnius and a Yiddish song combined.
But Narkevičius uses found footage material not just to question the representation content of film documentation per se. At the same time remember the pictures of the creations of an inspired painter. It shrinks Narkevičius not to create a nostalgic 'atmosphere, and his films failed subtexts, which dare to call into our sensitivity to the cultural self-assurance time, what-wenn' question. He points to the traditions of possible narratives that structure the actual fragments in our perception of history. The 16mm film Europe 54 ° 54'-25 ° 19 ' (1997) shows a tracking shot that begins in the former home of the artist and through the city to the geographical center of Europe. The fact that the center of Europe in Lithuania is located, belongs to the general education of every Lithuanian citizen and is a curious phenomenon in the ideology of the young Lithuanian dar.
Deimantas Narkevičius - The Unanimous Life is the result of a collaboration between the Museo Reina Sofia Madrid, the Van Abbe Museum Eindhoven, the Kunsthalle Bern, the Hessel Museum of Bard College, New York and the National Gallery of Art, Vilnius. The exhibition was curated by Chus Martinez and Bern by Philippe Pirotte adapted.
A comprehensive book focuses on the background to Deimantas Narkevičius' remarkable film-making and includes texts by Manuel J. Borja-Villel, Philippe Pirotte, Chus Martinez, Christa Blümlinger, Boris stands, Gerald Raunig and Dieter Roelstraete.
www.kunsthalle-bern.ch
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