Upcoming exhibition
Bedugnybė
Margiris Buržinskas
- Exhibition
- Opening
- Venue
- VDA Gallery Akademija
Pilies g. 44, Vilnius
The exhibition brings together works from an earlier phase of kinetic sculpture and the current research into Lake Bedugnis. Its title emerges from the phase of practice grounded in observing the lake, while the notion of bottomlessness opens connections with earlier works.
Supported by
- Vilnius Academy of Arts
- M. K. Čiurlionis Scholarship
Exhibition text
Bottomlessness can be experienced when looking into water whose bottom cannot be seen, as the horizon disappears, or while creating, when it is still unknown where the process itself will lead. It opens up in the tension between boundless uncertainty and life's need to create points of reference within it. These points of reference are supports at work in the relationship between a person and their environment, allowing them to understand the world and their place within it. Objects, words, memories and meanings become such supports. When they no longer suffice to establish the limits of an experienced phenomenon, even something finite can open up as boundless. Unable to find its end, a person can no longer deny its infinity.
Life is constant movement. In bottomlessness, the mind loses its familiar points of reference and is therefore compelled to improvise — to create temporary meanings and supports where no ground has been given in advance. In this way, it creates a justification for its own existence. Art-making becomes an expression of this existential improvisation — a way of living in bottomlessness and continuing to move without eliminating bottomlessness itself. This movement requires dedicating one's attention, energy and imagination to something whose outcome cannot be known in advance.
In this movement, objects, meanings and points of reference gradually lose their finality, revealing the bottomlessness that has always lain beneath every form. I call this process sinking. As external supports disappear, a person encounters what they themselves bring to their relationship with the world: their body, experience, sensitivity, desires and limits. Yet even the self remains a temporary point of departure from which sinking can continue.
The works in the exhibition become temporary stopping places in this movement — moments when it is possible to pause and see what has emerged from an encounter with bottomlessness. Every form that is created offers support, yet it can also become the beginning of a new descent. What appears to be an answer at one moment opens up to questioning again at the next.
Margiris Buržinskas was awarded the M. K. Čiurlionis Scholarship to stage this exhibition.