The Art of Failure

Exhibition

Deimantas Narkevicius

For Deimantas Narkevicius (born in 1964 in Utena, Lithuania) the fall of the “Iron Curtain” is more than a mere chapter in history books. He experienced the crumbling of the socialist utopia and the subsequent upheavals first-hand.

 This experience—what had appeared static suddenly screeched to a grinding halt, bringing about a shift of perspectives and assessments, replacing an old reality by a new one—is the most salient feature in the numerous works created by this Baltic artist. “Once in the XX Century” shows the putative dismantling of a Lenin monument in Vilnius. However, closer inspection reveals that the footage taken from amateur films as well as Lithuanian television has been edited such that a fake story is told. Frantically cheered by the crowd, the iron sculpture is transported to the site on a truck, hoisted by a crane, and finally put on the pedestal again. Can we turn back time all that easily? Or is failure something relative anyway, something conditional upon the given vantage point from which a historic moment is viewed?