Robertas Antinis chooses ephemeral materials when creating an installation, because the book has not been written yet and the author enjoys doubts. Beyond the form of the artwork, the artist is more interested in the sensation he evokes, the palpability and survival of which is like a snowball melting in a man’s hand, as the author himself said. The artist is not even sure if he wants to write that “Book”. Because it is like life itself, where there is no solution, only doubts. “Book” is not a statement. It’s like an open thought that asks to be exptended by the viewer. Robertas Antinis is interested in the relationship between him and the extender, between image and word. It’s like guessing the future, when things are processes and opportunities.
On the ground floor, viewers will discover the author’s blogs. Here the author is the researcher, the research tool, and the object of the research. A fluids of experience and reactions become data. The embryo of the “Book” is being studied.
On the first floor, the perceivers – the readers – will find themselves next to themselves – becoming a work and its creators, at the same time expanding the concept of the artwork and its creation. You will be able to watch yourself from the side.
On the third one – the book will start to read the viewer.
If the book, in the most traditional sense of the word, creates a branch in the essence – expands life with stories and knowledge, then Robertas Antinis’ “Book” inverses and engages. Proposes to look at oneself as the characters, the actors in their history, creating and becoming now. The author does not oblige anyone – he allows them to write it in his own way.
Curator of the exhibition Arvydas Žalpys.
Robertas Antinis – sculptor, creator of videos, installations, performances and happenings. He was born in 1946 in Kaunas. In 1965 graduated from the School of Applied Arts in Riga. In 1970 he graduated from the Latvian Academy of Arts where he obtained a degree in industrial art. After his studies, he returned to Kaunas and taught at the Kaunas Faculty of the Vilnius Academy of Arts. During 1989–2009 he participated in the activities of the group Post Ars. He had been awarded with the Lithuanian National Culture and Art Prize (2002), the Cross of Officer of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas (2002). Member of the Lithuanian Artists‘ Association since 1974, a honorary Member of the Latvian Sculptors’ Center (1999).
