In the cult classic movie Being John Malkovich, the failed puppeteer finds a portal into the head of John Malkovich and commercialises it by selling tickets to it as if the actor is just an amusement park. One could claim that every art exhibition is something of a doorway into the artist’s psyche, but some draw you in more than others. Such is the exhibition ‘Time in Wood’ by Česlovas Lukenskas, one of the founders of the Lithuanian neo-avant-garde, currently on at the Pranas Domšaitis Gallery in Klaipėda.
Both the material of wood and the more generalised narrative structures serve as formal ties that bind this exhibition together. In a sense, wood as a medium seems a more honest, more transparent way to communicate with spectators. There’s a certain stereotypically false association with folk art, which may hinder the perception of the artwork. However, if one delves deeper into the meaning of these works of art, the contrast between materials and ideas can give the observer the joy of unexpected discovery. The artist goes deep into the microcosm of the collective memory, including human cultural and natural biological history, like a researcher analysing the data that tree rings hold. Images of firewood, ‘Stands of Nothing’ full of richly encrusted surfaces, full of sawdust, lumber, hay and other residues of living plants, hang on the wall in the spirit of Anselm Kiefer’s mirrors of ‘Drawers of Silt’, lying on the floor. The latter sprout wheat and sunflowers during the exhibition, once again reminding us of the inevitable vitality of nature.
The video pieces Breathing and Breathing II by Česlovas Lukenskas possibly show more of an existential than a physical suffocation, although the claustrophobic aspect of both is heightened. The video from 1993 is followed by one from 2019, which is strangely prophetic, bearing in mind how the pandemic obstructed our breathing in every sense. Lukenskas, who is so fond of finding inspiration in our daily existence, manages to capture here the absurdly aggressive will to live, and the almost poetic surrender to impending death. The transition between these two stages is intriguing, delivering extra oxygen to our brains. Maybe we do not require to see the missing frame; but rather become aware not only of the materiality of the air we are breathing, but the very materiality of ourselves. Perhaps Duchamp said it best: ‘… my art would be that of living […] each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral.’
The series ‘Motographics. Album of Drawings’ consists of drawings in graphite on paper using mechanical means (a whirligig). According to the artist, the purpose of these works is to reflect preserved time spent drawing, rather than to portray or transmit anything. Instead of directly manipulating the spirals, the artist still creates a drawing by defining its parameters. Or else the drawn circles cannot be conceived independently of the critical subject drawing, which is not intended, but our minds still seek to find associations with the real world. In this instance, microscopic organisms, reproductive cells, and X-ray pictures of worms and snakes come to mind. However, we have to remain faithful to the abstraction. Both association and abstraction act as a channel for each other. As a result, both are restricted to the same degrees of passing time. For the spirals of the drawing, as for the time of the artist, a limit or constraint might be critically activated as a site of negotiation. Within this process, different pressures take place interchangeably. A great depiction of a brand-new, unexplored universe can be ruined by the impulse to draw something recognisable. An outcome can only ever be predicted, and can easily turn upside-down. The impetus or force that initiates a process also has the capacity to destroy it; production can become chaotic in the absence of the decision that determines when to stop or change direction.
It is a rare occasion when the artist actually leaves room for the observer’s imagination. That’s an act of mutual respect and trust, when it’s understood that not everything needs to be depicted. There are some things that are better left unknown. The series ‘Icons for Painting with Thoughts’ does just that. Wood offcuts after industrial treatment are hung on the wall as potential icons. The natural internal patterns of the wood on the outside can act as references; or, on the contrary, be completely erased by the negation of the spectators’ glances. It reminds us of the sophistic passage from Alice in Wonderland when Alice said that she saw nobody on the road and the King remarked that he only wished he had such eyes: ‘To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!’ And though common phenomena called face pareidolia, the illusion of seeing facial structures in regular items, can often have religious overtones, people who recognise religious imagery in doors, furniture and other lifeless objects are most definitely believers themselves, otherwise they would have completely different associations. Thus, we can view Lukenskas’ ‘Icons …’ as an attempt to gain an insight into the minds of the viewers.
Lukenskas’ minimalist approach to the highly religiously charged imagery continues in his series ‘Cremates’, where the key ideological symbols of recent centuries get the ‘ordeal by fire’ treatment in the true sense of the word. Exhibited in Allan McCollum-like aesthetics, these pieces speak unapologetically about the inherent dangers of any collective doctrine. Thorough guides and instructions for creating perfect functioning societies almost always backfire in their creators’ faces. The transition from signs that mean something to signs that refute that meaning marks a significant turning point. In the final stage, there are only signs that point to the total annihilation of all meaning.
Perhaps it could be said that ‘Time in Wood’ is a kind of reaction to the loss of material substance in minimalism and conceptual art, as well as the diminishing significance of physicality in the age of digital overload. The exhibition reflects the impenetrability of the mysteries of the Universe, death, rebirth and the human place in the cosmos, as well as more recent fears about losing to the temptations of virtual reality and the threats of metaverse possibly replacing our physical world with simulated ones, since everything seems to be previously killed and revived in advance just in case. Continually straddling the margins between the individual and society, the natural and the man-made, and the decipherable and the indecipherable, Lukenskas’ series questions the place of God/Logos in a world of nihilism, while taking a critical stance in relation to both. Just as we are welcome to invade the mind of Česlovas Lukenskas, someone else could be seizing our minds at any given moment. So tread lightly.
The exhibition ‘Time in Wood’ of work by Česlovas Lukenskas is on at the Pranas Domšaitis Gallery (Liepų St 33, Klaipėda) until 2 April 2023.
Photography: Gintarė Grigėnaitė