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 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.
Inflammation is commissioned by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, presented by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, and financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.
Arūnas Gelūnas, Commissioner, Director-General of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art: “Participation at La Biennale di Venezia is extraordinarily important on several levels: for artists, it opens up new career opportunities; for the producing institution, it is an excellent medium for networking; and for the state, it signifies international prestige. This year, the Lithuanian National Museum of Art presents the talented contemporary art duo Pakui Hardware and artist Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė with the project Inflammation, transplanted from the historical Arsenal of Arms in the city of Vilnius, known for its thirty-seven Baroque churches, to the Sant’Antonin church in Venice.”
Valentinas Klimašauskas and João Laia: “In this installation, Pakui Hardware envisions the planet as an ailing body. In so doing, they design an environment that is both a map of our times and a cosmological setting marked by prolonged inflammation. This is augmented through the dialogue with Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė, a longstanding reference in the artists’ practice. Although we may feel abandoned today, the installation serves as a reminder of our shared condition of inflammation and, at least speculatively, suggests possible healing and hope.”
Neringa Černiauskaitė and Ugnius Gelguda (Pakui Hardware): “Inflammation allows one to perceive what is not seen by the naked eye: history inscribed in human and planetary bodies, systems that are the real root of malady, suppressed internal burning. Yet, once recognized, this can be a starting point on the way to convalescence—if only we could start taking the interconnectedness of things, living and inanimate alike, into more serious consideration. The installation invites the viewer to enter a certain state of mind and body, perhaps a little feverish and dizzy, in order to feel the web of life, which consists of a multitude of entities and fields, from medicine to hybrid nature, and from nervous systems to fractured sounds of technological scanning.”
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. ISBN 978-88-6749-615-0
Lithuania has been participating in the International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia since 1999. The Lithuanian Pavilion has been awarded a special mention four times, and in Biennale Arte 2019 it won the Golden Lion.
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 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) 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
+49 170 290 7585
Lithuanian media
Rūta Statulevičiūtė-Kaučikienė
+370 667 08 548
Special thanks: Algė Andriulytė, Micola Clara Brambilla, Laura Gabrielaitytė-Kazulėnienė, Norbert Hinc, Andrius Ivanovas, Lolita Jablonskienė, Milvydas Kezys, Povilas Laurinaitis, Simonas Mackevičius, Aušrinė Mačėnienė, Jolanta Marcišauskytė-Jurašienė, Gediminas Mikelaitis, Mindaugas Reklaitis, Arūnas Steponėnas, Marco Scurati, Mažvydas Truklickas, Jonas Volosčenka.
