Sculpture Yard

These sculptural objects, first presented in Antanas Gerlikas’ solo exhibition ‘Dunes’ at the CAC in 2016, are reconstructions of structures seen by the artist in a dream. They arise as a monument to the voice from the dream and here function as a road sign for communication with something far away, high above, and anywhere but here.

Photograph: Andrej Vasilenko

Donatas Jankauskas–Duonis’ works often turn into anthropomorphic characters – anthropoids that reinterpret the art of M. K. Čiurlionis or protagonists of the film Planet of the Apes, or other massive zoomorphic figures, that have temporarily transformed many streets or buildings. Jankauskas–Duonis’ sculpture, King Kong’s lost sneaker, which has found its place in the CAC yard, returns to audiences in Vilnius, having been previously presented in the exhibition, organised by the Modern Art Centre (currently – MO Museum), as a farewell to the Lietuva Cinema Theatre and in the Pakrantė Centre for Creative Industries.

Landzbergas’ steel net and tin sculpture embodies an abstract tool resembling a trumpet or a nail, which is directed towards the inscription ‘ŠMC’ (CAC). It is reminiscent of a type of signage typical of modernist factory buildings, which not only state the name of an institution but also illustrate the work or products produced by the factory. This sculpture was created on the occasion of the CAC exhibition ‘Random Rapid Heartbeats’ (curator Kęstutis Kuizinas), which took place at the Tallinn Kunsthalle in 2016 – an institution with a similar function to the CAC. For a few hours it was exhibited on the roof of the modernist kunsthalle, which was built between the two World Wars, and became a prank whereby the CAC ‘took over’ the Tallinn Kunsthalle, while drawing attention to the commonality of the community of the two art institutions and two states.

Photograph: Andrej Vasilenko

Navakas’ sculpture in the central part of the yard is made from various kinds of granite, which employ contrasting techniques of surface processing: cutting and burning of huge stone pieces combined with glazed surfaces. This six-part sculptural composition, weighing more than 50 tonnes, creates a consonant architectural unity in the CAC Sculpture Yard. The mass of the work evokes viewers’ fantasies and speaks about the importance of the notion of size to the artist. Relations between the sculpture’s parts and the rigorous materiality create a playful contrast with the paradoxical and openly ironic title of the work.

Photograph: Andrej Vasilenko

Reminiscent of a pergola by its shape and function, Dèpendance was designed in collaboration with architect Linas Lapinskas. The integration of airport runway lights, formerly used in Vilnius Airport, touches upon notions of orientation and guidance. In a multi-layered historical context of the country, the work reflects on the complex past while projecting a sense of direction and care into the present and future. An almost identical work was simultaneously installed in Ramybė Park as part of the Kaunas Biennial in 2019.

Photograph: Andrej Vasilenko

Maria Loboda explores concepts of the transcendental and their manifestations within diverse belief systems, arcane objects, archaeology, architecture, religion and art. Her sculptures are puzzles, which consist of marks denoting experiences of transition and transformation. Loboda creates riddles and enigmatic spaces that lead deep into the layers of forgotten historical narratives and refer to the current state of things. Her sculpture for the CAC Sculpture Yard comprises a collection of such elements and includes the beech – one of the most archaic Northern trees – as well as steel, semiprecious stones, and notional water – all of which carry manifold references to ancient and modern mythologies. Their junction in the shape of a dysfunctional fountain play with the possibility of awakening the dormant or phantasmal vigour of this Vilnius courtyard.

Photograph: Andrej Vasilenko

Vaiva Grainytė’s Stars Full of Bacteria is the first text-based sculpture to be shown in the CAC Sculpture Yard. The poem-epilogue, written by the artist, writer, poet, and winner of the Venice Biennale Golden Lion, forms part of her collection of poetry Gorilla Archives, published by the Lithuanian Writers’ Union Publishing House in 2019. 

Stars full of bacteria
Will sour the sky.
Stars will turn the sky
Into an infinity of kefir.

The haiku (translated by Rimas Užgiris), dealing with transformation and having acquired a sculptural form in this space, depicts the situation of the present time – a subject of constant change.

Photograph: Andrej Vasilenko

Beatričė Mockevičiūtė associates her work with an opportunity to experience what is often translucent and ephemeral in everyday life. The CAC Sculpture Yard presents part of the artist’s ongoing project Asukas. The project was first launched in 2018 in the Lithuanian Composers’ Union House, and later presented in the CAC Reading Room and terrace in 2019. The title of the series, Asukas – a Finnish word meaning ‘resident’ – here symbolises a translucent everyday character that unites the architectural creations of Alvar Aalto and Vytautas Edmundas Čekanauskas: urban surfaces and traces of light.

Photograph: Andrej Vasilenko

Chair for the Invigilator is a series of elevated chairs based on those used by lifeguards on bathing beaches. Often of improvised design, they epitomise the pragmatic creativity admired by the artist. Serapinas’ chairs are intended for use by the exhibition invigilators: normally invisible in the crowd, they appear as if enthroned, bestowed with a theatrical status that allows them to survey the audience below. The artwork was commissioned for the 58th Venice Biennale “May You Live in Interesting Times” (curator Ralph Rugoff), where it was first presented in 2019.

Photograph: Andrej Vasilenko

Audrius Bučas’ sculptural installation V_X was created using glider wings manufactured at the Prienai Sports Aviation factory. As conceived by Valdas Ozarinskas – the longtime exhibition architect and interior designer of the Contemporary Art Centre – these wings were installed in the ground-floor foyer of the CAC in 2005. They functioned as the institution’s reception and ticket office until the building was closed for major renovations in 2022.

Photograph: Andrej Vasilenko

The installation by the artist-duo Pakui Hardware has been created specifically for the air quality control station in the CAC Sculpture Yard, and plays with the tools of city advertising aesthetics. It creates an ambiguous and slightly ironic invitation for viewers to become acquainted with new accessories of the future – various breath filters that protect citizens from constant air pollution. The artists have used drawings of several filter patents and proposed some examples of the accessories of the future.

Architects: Ona Lozuraitytė and Petras Išora
Photograph: Gintautas Trimakas

Brazilian sculptor Felipe Braga’s continuous work, Functional Work #4 (Day for Night), was originally displayed in the group exhibition “Unanimous Night” held at the CAC in Summer 2017, is a copy of Lina Bo Bardi’s original design of display easels created for the São Paulo Museum of Art in 1968, and covered with perforated thermal insulation film. Alongside the architect’s project, the work also reflects on a remark made by Claude Lévi-Strauss in 1920, concerning radical changes in Latin America cities and how the superficial joyfulness of their rapidly erected neighbourhoods’ contrasts with the original urban environment. The blue-tinted film, commonly used on commercial buildings today, simultaneously reflects and filters the environment, transporting both authors’ ideas into the problematics of contemporaneity: the themes of gentrification, shallow planning strategies and dissolution of communities.