Monika Radžiūnaitė

Artist's country of origin: Lithuania

Monika Radžiūnaitė is going deep into stupidity like into a human phenomenon by using the Medieval iconography, symbols and stories. She is using this combination because the historical scope of the Middle Ages has melted in time.

Stories which have not been documented and are forgotten and the objective to fill in the gaps cause the mistakes to occur which influence our beliefs and perception of reality. One mistake which has made a significant mark in art is the horns of Moses. Due to a translation mistake made by St. Jerome in his translation from Hebrew, Moses has horns. In this way a tradition to depict him with horns has emerged, although in the original text it should have been rays of light. A lapsus of the translator has become a tradition of Christian iconography formed in the late Middle Ages and one English monk had even dedicated the entire chapter for the description of the theological meaning of Moses’ horns. In this way he had created a meaning for a mistake which has led not into a loss but simply into a different result. She is trying, in a similar way, to turn intentional mistakes into a meaningful result.