Anachronisms - 24.09.2022 - 15.01.2023
Deimantas Narkevičius (born 24 May 1964 in Utena, Lithuanian SSR) is one of the most consistent and widely recognised Lithuanian artists on the international art scene. Originally trained as a sculptor, Narkevičius has mainly worked with film and video. Employing documentary footage, voice-overs, interviews, re-enactments and found photographs, his films submit historical events to the narrative structures of storytelling and cinema. In his artistic practice Narkevičius examines the relationship of personal memories to political histories, particularly those of his native Lithuania. For the artist, history itself has become both material and methodology.
The works of Deimantas Narkevičius contest the concept of common historical memories. The artist breaks up linear timelines and uses unorthodox cinematographic techniques to question the conventional narration of historical records and recollections. His films show an entanglement of references from the Soviet and post-Soviet periods in Lithuania to autobiographical and biographical elements, as well as clear, but always subtle, hints to cinema history. Deimantas Narkevičius’ work also sheds new light on the current political situation, in the Baltic region and well beyond its borders.
Video: SKIN.