Universal Circularity, or Donatas Jankauskas-Duonis’ Exhibition ‘The Seasons’

‘Did the birth of Homo sapiens coincide with the birth of art?’

The curator Audrius Pocius opens Donatas Jankauskas-Duonis’ exhibition ‘The Seasons’ with this question posed by the philosopher Georges Bataille, referencing the Palaeolithic cave paintings in Lascaux, and inviting viewers to take a map and descend, like archaeologists, into the artist’s imagined ‘cave’, the 16th-century underground chambers of the Medūza gallery, which has opened to the public for the first time for this exhibition. Richard Strauss’ symphonic poem Thus Spoke Zarathustra echoes somewhere in the background, just as we enter a dark and cold, almost prehistoric underground space, where visitors are greeted by the blinking gaze of … monkeys.

These creatures are a recurring theme, almost a signature theme, in Duonis’ work. The artist’s monkey howls beside the Iron Wolf in the Sapieha Park, it baths in a tub in Paupys, and it climbs the wall of the sculpture garden at the MO Museum. The animal functions both as a comic figure and as an object that questions human nature. This exhibition is no exception. Through humour, it poses essential existential questions, and grounds the viewer (both literally and metaphorically) in raw experience. What sets a human apart from a monkey? What is the relationship between prehistoric cave paintings and contemporary culture?

These ideas are echoed, and the aforementioned monkeys are ‘activated’, by the massive, cave-like bas-reliefs towering in the underground labyrinth, where abstract symbols and patterns emerge, open to each viewer’s interpretation. Still, the cultural motifs are hard to miss: a cross, musical notes (or perhaps dancing figures?), and even hints of cartoon characters. This reflection of contemporary culture, situated in a space that feels like distant prehistory, evokes a gentle sense of the collective unconscious, where the boundary of millennia blurs in the context of art, and the visitor suddenly realises that they themselves are that monkey, trying to grasp the world. All the more so because the material of the artworks is fragile and tactile; we feel we could easily leave a mark upon it. And perhaps we have? Here, time does not exist; the past and the future merge into one primal space of human origin, into the soil from which everything blooming on the surface grows. On a hidden screen embedded in a bas-relief, a flower blooms and drops a seed, the monkey, which falls with a splash into some water, where another flower unfolds, and the cycle begins again. A wall of modern bricks is visible through a crack in the layer of ancient markings, and beside the contours mimicking prehistoric paintings, we see the imprint of a tyre … Unwittingly, the exhibition’s title ‘The Seasons’ takes on a meaning far beyond the traditional four: it becomes a reflection of the cyclical nature of humanity itself, universal, repeating and eternal.

Notably, there are no labels or captions next to the artworks, and over time it becomes clear that this exhibition is less about rational analysis and more about feeling. It invites exploration and play, fittingly so, as the art critic Jonas Valatkevičius has described Duonis as one of the most sensual artists of his generation, while the artist himself has said that his work is meant for children. In several spots, plush toy monkeys climb the brick walls like mischievous tricksters, encouraging visitors to approach the exhibition with a smile. The discovery of hidden spaces with the help of a map evokes a sense of adventure, of play. Perhaps that is exactly what our ancestors were doing as they drew in caves – playing.

Yet beneath this veil of light humour lie deeper and more sombre layers of reality. One work stands apart: a dress enclosed in glass, positioned at a dead end in the labyrinth. It echoes the image of a monkey seen near the exhibition’s entrance, spinning on a screen, dressed in elegant clothing, an image that connects to the commentary by the curator Audrius Pocius. The text recounts the story of a chimpanzee called Petra, which was captured in 1904 in West Africa and trained to behave like a human. Dressed in a suit, Petra ate with a knife and fork, smoked cigars, and performed on roller skates on stages around the world. It is believed that this phenomenon inspired Kafka’s 1917 short story ‘A Report to an Academy’, which describes the forced metamorphosis of an ape into a human, a transformation inevitably accompanied by pain and suffering. In the same way, the dress waiting in the cave seems to foretell the framing, or perhaps self-framing, of the monkey-human’s identity, prompting viewers to reflect critically on this so-called step in evolution.

Interestingly, the exhibition space, a dark, cold and silent underground labyrinth with no mobile phone signal, functions as an artwork in itself. The pieces are an inseparable part of it: the bas-reliefs merge seamlessly with the underground walls, creating a natural sense of continuity, sometimes even making us wonder whether a visible form is a deliberate artwork, or simply a part of the original structure, like the nails embedded in the masonry in certain places. Most likely, it is both. A true instance of mimesis. The dim lighting highlights the texture of a work, and allows it to shift, depending on the viewer’s angle, while the underground silence, interrupted occasionally by distant footsteps or a cautious whisper, fosters an intensely intimate connection with the space. As we wander through its winding corridors, the thought arises intuitively that this labyrinth probably extends further and further out of sight, like a network of roots encircling the entire Earth.

The materiality of the works deserves separate attention, as Duonis boldly employs silicone, polyurethane and polyurea, calling himself a carver of air bubbles. Symbolically, these are construction materials: durable, but not as hard as stone or concrete; reinforcing the impression that the artist is ‘building’ culture underground. It is also significant that the media used are synthetic, artificially manufactured in factories and shaped to fit human needs. Through this specific choice of materials, the work balances between the seemingly natural, primal atmosphere it creates, and the subtle intrusion of artificiality, a marker of human culture seamlessly integrated into the space. Even more diverse media are used to create the monkeys, the exhibition’s central figures, which appear carved, drawn, and animated in motion. Once again, they serve as a reminder that they are ever-present and omnipresent, an enduring epicentre of humanity, inseparable from the present moment.

I leave the exhibition wrapped in a strange sense of calm, as if for a moment I had forgotten the concepts of time and individuality, and ascend the stairs back to reality. As Duonis puts it: ‘The exhibition ends with light.’ And yet it hardly feels right to call this labyrinth an exhibition; it is more of an experience, a meeting between the modern and the primal monkey. Their symbiosis invites us to immerse ourselves in the realms of universal human desire, to explore the surroundings with childlike curiosity, until a trickster-like humour gives way to deeper reflections on the nature of Homo sapiens, and the archaic underground space silences the mind before the all-encompassing circularity of nature. ‘Monkeys understand everything; they just don’t tell us,’ Duonis smiles. ‘That’s where the true power of existence lies, in their little heads.’