Pakui Hardware & Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė will represent Lithuania at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024

Contemporary art duo Pakui Hardware (Neringa Černiauskaitė and Ugnius Gelguda) and the modernist painter Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė (1933-2007) have been chosen to represent Lithuania at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024. The Lithuanian Pavilion will be organised by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art and curated by Valentinas Klimašauskas and João Laia.

 

The exhibition, which will bring together the very different experiences of these artists, will investigate the various fevers currently shaking humanity and the world. Pakui Hardware cites Rupa Marya and Raj Patel’s book Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice as their inspiration: the concept of inflammation becomes a metaphorical starting point to discuss the systemic harm done to humanity and the earth itself. The book’s ideas helped Pakui Hardware establish a dialogue with the historical work of Rožanskaitė, who examined the connections between the body and medicine back in the 1970s. According to the authors of the book, inflammation is a healthy bodily response to unhealthy conditions. Therefore, rather than ‘cure’ individual sick organs, we should cure the very systems – economic or social – that cause chronic diseases to be transmitted from generation to generation. In this book, as well as in the forthcoming collaboration between Pakui Hardware and Rožanskaitė, the human and planetary scales are combined. It’s not only our bodies that are ‘on fire’, but also the planetary body.

 

The exhibition will explore the inflammation of (post)human bodies under the current economic and social conditions. Rožanskaitė’s paintings and the installation by Pakui Hardware will be connected by the themes of medicine and hospitals, as well as natural, cosmic, and industrial landscapes. The combined exposition will not only convey the interconnectedness of bodies and environments in crisis, but will also try to find a certain balance in the metabolic systems and help to ‘cool down’ the burning human and planetary bodies.

 

The architectural duo Ona Lozuraitytė-Išorė and Petras Išora-Lozuraitis will implement their vision during the installation of the exhibition. Their post-natural landscape, in which ordinary natural materials will be replaced by industrial and hybrid ones, will choreograph the movement of the audience through the Pavilion and offer unexpected ways to experience the kinetic, immersive installation featuring objects-bodies and paintings.

 

‘We are very excited and proud that the Lithuanian Pavilion of the next Venice Biennale will be produced by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art,’ said Dr. Arūnas Gelūnas, the director of the museum and commissioner of the Pavilion. ‘Working with Pakui Hardware is always a creative and intellectual adventure, and the sensitive integration of Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė’s paintings into the fabric of the project will present an interesting study of memory. The entire Pavilion team is looking forward to starting work.’

 

Lithuania has been participating in the Venice Biennale since 1999. The Lithuanian Pavilion has been awarded a special mention four times, and in 2019 it won the Golden Lion.

 

 

Project commissioner: Dr. Arūnas Gelūnas, director of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art

Exhibition curators: Valentinas Klimašauskas and João Laia

Exhibition designers: Petras Išora-Lozuraitis and Ona Lozuraitytė-Išorė

Project producers: Evaldas Stankevičius, Eglė Mikalajūnė

Communication strategist: Stefanija Jokštytė

Executive architect and project producer in Venice: Mindaugas Reklaitis

The project is financed by