Kristina Inčiūraitė’s solo show at AlbumArte and her musical performance at MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome

September 12, 2019
Author Echo Gone Wrong

17.09-26.10.2019
“Reflecting Women”, a solo show by Kristina Inčiūraitė

12.10.2019
“The Fragment as a Proverb”, a musical performance by Kristina Inčiūraitė in collaboration with Italian choir and Mariko Takagi (Japan).

Both projects curated by Benedetta Carpi De Resmini.

On Monday, 16 September 2019, from 6.30 pm, AlbumArte, an independent space for contemporary art in Rome, will inaugurate the exhibition “Reflecting Women”, the first solo show by the Lithuanian artist Kristina Inčiūraitė in Italy. The exhibition will remain open until Saturday, October 26, and a comprehensive exhibition catalogue will be published with Iacobelli editore.

On Saturday, 12 October 2019, 5 pm. MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts, will present a musical performance “The Fragment as a Proverb”. This musical event by Kristina Inčiūraitė will be implemented in collaboration with Italian choir and the whistling virtuoso Mariko Takagi (Japan). This event will be held on the occasion of The Day of Contemporary Art organised by the Association of Italian Museums of Contemporary Art. 

“Reflecting Women” focuses on the concept of female identity. When Simone de Beauvoir declared that “one is not born but rather becomes a woman”, she implied that gender is in no way a stable identity, a fixed structure, but is built continuously over time. The exhibition, held in the wake of the Golden Lion won by three female artists of the Lithuanian Pavilion in the 58th edition of the Venice Biennale, intends to start the reflection on one of the most controversial issues of recent times – female identity – through the eyes of one of the most renowned artists of the Lithuanian art scene Kristina Inčiūraitė. The title itself indicates a reflection on gender, a genre generally established through the stylization of the body. Reflecting expresses not only the analysis of the female figure, but also a reflection understood as a perception that each of us has through the observation of others. In fact, nobody can observe herself/ himself, except in a mirror, but a mirror can also show a distorted image, like the one that every woman receives and absorbs from the female iconography of contemporary society.

In her works, Kristina Inčiūraitė often explores the condition of becoming a woman, and “Reflecting Women” also deepens every woman’s awareness of her own role, highlighting the social and political issues related to the female figure. Paradoxically, the woman is shown through bodily absence, and the only thing that remains is her voice.

The significance of the voice, the analysis of personal and collective memory is revealed in the artist’s musical event “The Fragment as a Proverb“, in which various popular tunes are subtly performed. In our technologised culture, song recordings have become widespread, and by being constantly repeated, they have become part of our memory. Agnès Jaoui, the screenwriter of Alain Resnais’ film “Same Old Song” (On connait les chanson, 1997), once said that by gathering popular songs for film, she used fragments of songs like proverbs. According to her, the commonplaces rooted in the words of popular songs summarise feelings, and at the same time they impoverish them. By using a reduced form of song (humming or whistling) these problems of ‘impoverished’ experiences come into focus in the project “The Fragment as a Proverb”.

The world premiere of “The Fragment as a Proverb” took place at the Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, in 2014.

Kristina Inčiūraitė lives and works in Vilnius. She makes photographs, objects, performances and sound projects, with particular attention to video installations, experimental films and documentaries. She has exhibited in numerous museums, including the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kiev, the Oi Futuro Cultural Center in Rio de Janeiro, the Konstmuseum in Kalmar, the Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art in Gdansk, the ar/ge kunst Galerie Museum in Bolzano, the Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn, the Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz, the Műcsarnok in Budapest, NGBK in Berlin, the Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain in Luxembourg, the Pori Art Museum in Finland, the National Gallery of Art, the Contemporary Art Centre and Mo Museum in Vilnius, etc.

These projects are promoted by the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in Italy.
Supported by the Lithuanian Council for Culture, i-Portunus (the Creative Europe programme of the European Union) and the Lithuanian Culture Institute.
Organized by AlbumArte, an independent space for contemporary art, MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Kristina Inčiūraitė‘s Studio and Latitudo Art Projects.