{"id":1901,"date":"2023-06-29T17:58:14","date_gmt":"2023-06-29T17:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nugu.lt\/us\/?p=1901"},"modified":"2024-01-29T02:06:55","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T02:06:55","slug":"partially-swamped-institution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nugu.lt\/?p=1901","title":{"rendered":"Partially Swamped Institution, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius, 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

July 27\u2013September 24, 2023
National Gallery of Art, Vilnius<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Across cultures and landscapes, the swamp spells crisis. It is bad nature that undoes the elementary order by mixing up soil, air, and water into a bottomless formlessness resistant to being mapped and depicted. Home only to vermin, nothing can be built or cultivated in its chaotic fecundity, which even threatens to make a mess of time itself by preserving the bodies and materials that come to rest there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Embracing\u2014and reversing\u2014such negative mythologies of the natural world, Partially Swamped Institution <\/em>sees hope and futurity in the swamp. The exhibition restages major works from the last decade by Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas, including River Runs<\/em> (2012), Mushroom Power Plant<\/em> (2017), and The Psychotropic House: Zooetics Pavilion of Ballardian Technologies<\/em> (2015-16). Archives of earlier projects are also presented, some of which date back to the time of transition following the fall of the iron curtain. From early feminist readings of the (post-)Soviet psyche to community-based activist art and assemblages of art and science, the exhibition traces the changing phases of the Urbonases\u2019 oeuvre. A regard for what we would today call environmental citizenship, however, has been a premise of their collaboration all along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Characteristic of how the artists play with social forms and processes, Partially Swamped Institution<\/em> is an exhibition that leaks agency and permits contingency. Straddling human and not-so-human bodies, it includes workshops, living entities, and robots \u2013 and in an extraordinary gesture, brings the swamp to the museum, as one has been constructed in the courtyard of the National Gallery of Art. This piece of live contraband tangles urban and natural ecologies, and invites the institution to act as a caregiver for a community of organisms that becomes both a device for action and a meditation on new forms of coexistence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An off-site protagonist is a bog in southern Lithuania, Me\u0161kos \u0160ikna \u2013 in English, the Bear\u2019s Ass. The Urbonases have foraged Me\u0161kos \u0160ikna for imaginings to introduce in their museum swamp, and it was the destination for field trips during the exhibition period. Besides that, it also carries a fitting toponym for countries that are the butt of imperialist expansion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition\u2019s title evokes American artist Robert Smithson\u2019s Partially Buried Woodshed<\/em>, a classic of land art that became an impromptu memorial for the students who were shot dead at its location by National Guard soldiers during anti-war protests in 1970.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such intense points of confrontation suggest cultural and democratic institutions that are exposed and vulnerable, but also how ecosystems are \u2013 or ought to be considered as \u2013 political subjects. The swamp is a dynamic multiplicity of beings and materials, elements, and terrains that defies the division of the world into constructs of \u201cnature\u201d and \u201cculture\u201d, offering an unexpected chance for new sense-making and for life to emerge out of chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Curator Lars Bang Larsen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exhibition architects: Jurga Daubarait\u0117, Jonas \u017dukauskas<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coordinators: Giedrius Gulbinas, Mindaugas Reklaitis, Au\u0161ra Trak\u0161elyt\u0117<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Designer NODE Berlin Oslo<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exhibition collaborators: Adesola Akinleye, Vinzenz Aubry, Remigijus Daubaras, Antanas Gerlikas, Natalia Grom, Nicole L\u2019Huilier, Terry T Kang, Simona Ka\u010dinskait\u0117, Laima Kristina Kazlauskien\u0117, Jonas Kubilius, Kotryna Markevi\u010di\u016bt\u0117, Beatri\u010d\u0117 Mockevi\u010di\u016bt\u0117, Egl\u0117 Nedzinskait\u0117, Giedrius Pilkis, Gail\u0117 Pranck\u016bnait\u0117, Tobias Putrih, Jan St. Werner, Aust\u0117ja Tavorait\u0117, Indr\u0117 Umbrasait\u0117, Rytis Urbanskas, Gabriel\u0117 Urbonait\u0117, MIT Climate Visions<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Installation team: Leonas Abromaitis, Gediminas G. Akstinas, Audrius Antanavi\u010dius, Norbert Hinc, Andrius Ivanovas, Vidas Jur\u0161\u0117nas, Vsevolod Kovalevskij, Almantas Luko\u0161evi\u010dius, Tomas Orlovas, Jurgis Pa\u0161kevi\u010dius, Dainius Markevi\u010dius, Andrius Melys, Vytautas Narbutas, Ilona Virzinkevi\u010d, Kazimieras Sli\u017eys, Vadim \u0160amrov, Ma\u017evydas Truklickas<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copy editors: Alexandra Bondarev, Kristina Pilitauskien\u0117, Kristupas Sabolius, Au\u0161ra Simanavi\u010di\u016bt\u0117, Carolyn A. Shea<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Special thanks to Juozas Augutis, Lorena Bello, Julian Bonder, Haozhen Feng, Augusta Fi\u0161eryt\u0117, Raimonda Grumadait\u0117, Lolita Jablonskien\u0117, Julija Kir\u0161ien\u0117, Evaldas Makrickas, Vladas La\u0161as, Barbara Lavrenova, J\u016brat\u0117 Send\u017eikait\u0117, Aist\u0117 Vali\u016bt\u0117 ir Daumantas Plechavi\u010dius, Gintaras Rapkauskas, Gustavo Madrid Vazquez, Nerijus Zableckis, Arvydas \u017dalpys<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sponsors and supporters: Lithuanian Council for Culture, LRT, Vilnius 700, Telia, Durpeta, UPS, Exterus, Fundermax, Balo\u0161a, Vytautas Magnus University, Vilnius Academy of Arts, The Nature Research Center, Foundation for Peatland Restoration and Conservation, Lithuanian Museum of Ethnocosmology, National Museum \u2013 Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Gintar\u0117 Grig\u0117nait\u0117, Andrej Vasilenko

List of Works at the Partially Swamped Institution (Exhibition Guide)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

a retrospective exhibition focusing on the new environmentalism<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-projects"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/nugu.lt\/?author=1"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/nugu.lt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Lietuvos-nacionalinis-dailes-muziejus-Fot.Gintare-Grigenaite-2023-07-27-101-322x214.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["projects<\/a>"],"unlinked":["projects<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 3 years ago","modified":"Updated 3 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on June 29, 2023","modified":"Updated on January 29, 2024"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on June 29, 2023 5:58 pm","modified":"Updated on January 29, 2024 2:06 am"},"featured_img_caption":"Partially Swamped Institution, 2023","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nugu.lt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nugu.lt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nugu.lt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nugu.lt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nugu.lt\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1901"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/nugu.lt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2150,"href":"https:\/\/nugu.lt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1901\/revisions\/2150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nugu.lt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nugu.lt\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nugu.lt\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nugu.lt\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}