Krišs Salmanis, Savā nodabā, birch, vinyl LP, record player, needle, lashing belt. Installation view, Vartai gallery, 2016
In the beginning of September the opening of exhibitions by Krišs Salmanis and Julijonas Urbonas took place at Galerija VARTAI. Exhibitions will be open until October 15, 2016.
‘Cumspin’
Julijonas Urbonas
Cumspin is a model of gravitational design made by Julijonas Urbonas for the Contemporary Culture Centre of Barcelona (Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona).
Julijonas Urbonas is an artist, designer, scientist, and engineer. Building on scientific research, the artist examines the ways the manipulation of bodily reactions to gravitation can evoke extraordinary physical and mental experiences. The artist, who grew up at an amusement park and later became the head of one, has developed a keen interest in so-called ‘gravitational aesthetics’. It became the essence of his creative practice and artistic research, and is the core topic of the installation Cumspin.
Cumspin (2015) is an orgasm enhancing funfair machine. Based on the principle of a centrifuge, it exposes the love riders to variable gravitational forces. Not only does such an extreme sex environment introduce new love positions but also pushes the peaks of pleasure to new dimensions.
Spinning in one of the eight spherical capsules, the lovers may control the centripetal force by changing the distance between the axis and the capsule. The farther from the axis, the greater the force that pushes them against the wall. The riders have to coordinate their movements with the forces to control the flow of the blood in their bodies. Pumping in and out of the love parts heightens intercourse or masturbatory sensations. And directing the blood to the lower extremities causes the sudden loss of oxygen to the brain accompanied with euphoria. The latter in tandem with orgasm brings into being a sensation that is beyond any definition of pleasure. Hypergravitational orgasm.
Julijonas Urbonas has a BA in Visual Design and an MA in Design from the Vilnius Academy of Arts, and has been studying for a PhD in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art in London since 2007. He is currently the Vice-Rector for Art at Vilnius Academy of Arts. The artist’s work has been exhibited in Lithuania and internationally, and has received many awards, including the prestigious Award of Distinction in Interactive Art, Prix Ars Electronica 2010. The artist’s projects can be found in private and museum collections such as the permanent collection of the Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe (ZKM).
Julijonas Urbonas, Cumspin, 2015, stainless steel sheet, silkscreen, 90 x 120 cm
Julijonas Urbonas, Cumspin, exhibition view, Vartai gallery, 2016
Julijonas Urbonas, Cumspin, 2015 (model, scale1:50), Custom electronics, electromechanics, LED display, stainless steel, 32 x 120 x 120 cm
‘Poems and things’
Krišs Salmanis
Krišs Salmanis is a conceptual artist whose works question identity, materiality, and the role of the artist and art in contemporary culture. He uses materials and techniques ranging from sculpture to animation, from trees to his own body. However, it is neither the media used, nor the unifying themes, but rather the method employed that characterizes his work the most.
What in Salmanis’ work can be perceived as irony or humour, is in fact a mental exercise, intellectual activity, wit as a twist of thought. An important aspect of it is formulated best by Kurt Vonnegut’s idea of the complicated futility. The making of Salmanis’ work is often seemingly unnecessarily time- and effort-consuming. It is a kind of idiosyncratic craftsmanship, which, even if unnoticed by the spectator, is a vital component of the final piece. In this show two approaches come together – the visually romantic, rustic, sentimental, and the visually reduced. However, they do not clash, since both are about trying to cope, about finding scraps of sense in often minute fragments of contemporaneity. Poems and things gives an insight into his oeuvre where numbers rhyme, trees listen to music and buildings collapse out of pure sentimentality.
Krišs Salmanis (b. 1977) is one of the most prominent contemporary Latvian artists, known for his works with photography, video, installations, animation and graphics. Among many other venues, the works of this artist have been exhibited in the National Museum of Art (Riga), Art in General (USA), Galerie fűr Gegenwartskunst (Germany), the Contemporary Art Centre (Lithuania) and the Berlin Film Festival. Together with Kaspars Podnieks, Salmanis represented Latvia in its Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013). K. Salmanis’ artworks have been acquired by Latvian National Museum of Art, the Latvian Museum of Contemporary Art, the Central and East European videofilm archive Transitland, the Estonian Museum of Art, as well as being included in various other private and public collections.
Krišs Salmanis, Landscape. The right strokes in the wrong place, 2014. Installation view, Vartai gallery, 2016
Krišs Salmanis, Landscape. The right strokes in the wrong place, 2014
Krišs Salmanis, Danto’s peak, 2012, plaster, 18 x 11 x 9 cm
Krišs Salmanis, V, 2009, trees, wire, pulley, podium, 400 x 40 x 310 cm, installation view, Vartai gallery, 2016
Krišs Salmanis, Forget me not 1a, Forget me not 1b, Forget me not 2a, Forget me not 2b, 2014, pencil on paper 21 x 30 cm
Krišs Salmanis, V, 2009, trees, wire, pulley, podium, 400 x 40 x 310 cm, installation view, Vartai gallery, 2016
Krišs Salmanis, Savā nodabā, birch, vinyl LP, record player, needle, lashing belt. Installation view, Vartai gallery, 2016
Krišs Salmanis, Savā nodabā, birch, vinyl LP, record player, needle, lashing belt. Installation view, Vartai gallery, 2016
Krišs Salmanis, Savā nodabā, installation detail, Vartai gallery, 2016
Krišs Salmanis, Digital haiku (to be read in English), 2010, pencil on painted lead, 8 x 8 cm
Krišs Salmanis, Colour samples. Bullfinch, Colour samples. Hoopoe, Colour samples. Eurasian blue tit, Colour samples. Common crane, Colour samples. Common chaffinch, 2016, watercolour on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Krišs Salmanis, Urn, 2016, plasticine,15,5 x 8,5 cm
Krišs Salmanis, Kamiyama blues, 2015, indigo dyed set of artist’s clothes, poem Approx. 20 x 30 x 10 cm
Krišs Salmanis, Long day, 2012, animation loop, installation view, Vartai gallery, 2016
Photography: Arturas Valiauga
