Exhibition 'Träger' by Robertas Narkus at CAC, Vilnius

2017 04 07 — 2017 05 28 at Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius
Author Echo Gone Wrong
Published in Events in Lithuania

RN_jb_639x380The artist’s first solo exhibition at the CAC is organised by applying and emulating a business model: it is initiated as an enterprise, a start-up, a technology fair or a gang. Artworks appear as artefacts, trophies and tools – side products, settings and props of this live drama with its particular philosophy, myths, culture, notional products and solutions. The overall project, in artist’s own words, aims at grasping a shift, a beginning of a new era, and enthusiasm and pessimism that follow the ongoing advancements of science, technology and economics.

“A city cathedral expresses the abstract, static, firm power, its structure representing spirit of the bygone eras. But nowadays power is technological, fluid and decentralised. Its dominant characteristics are indeterminacy and spontaneity. In digital utopia the symbol of empowerment is a shapeless cloud.” The artist asks: “Will technoliberalism fulfil a promise that once we set ourselves free from work we can fully dedicate ourselves to creativity and spiritual growth? Or maybe the new era is the new Middle Ages, where science, art and the extent of economic freedom are all defined by an omnipresent network of power, and the only way out is the vengeful system of self-destruction produced by that same network?”

Robertas Narkus (b. 1983 in Vilnius) is cofounder of Vilnius Institute of Pataphysics and organiser of artists’ day centre ‘Autarkia’, experimental engineering camp ‘eeKulgrinda’ and platform for art and business collaborations, ‘The Visionary’. Narkus defines his art practice as “management of circumstances in the economy of coincidences”.

Robertas Narkus. Träger
Curators: Virginija Januškevičiūtė and Audrius Pocius
2017.04.07–05.28