Events and ideologies that until recently were perceived as anachronistic, obsolete and banished from existence, have presented themselves again in full force, in a violent attempt to reshape the European and the global political, social and economic landscape of the 21st century. The exhibition highlights the array of anachronic modes and techniques of narration employed throughout Narkevičius’ moving image oeuvre to unsettle both the ideological-filmic constructions of the subject and time as well as the reductive or simply complacent readings of twentieth-century history, which (until recently) disregarded the latent ramifications of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The latest work Wailing Waters takes the viewers back to late-nineteenth-century Lithuania, constituting a cinematic universe in 3D, wherein the modern and indigenous ways of relating to the world, in an anachronic manner, co-exist simultaneously. It is the second time that the work of Deimantas Narkevičius is to be shown in Luxembourg. The first was the single presentation of Europa 54° 54` – 24° 19` in the context of Manifesta 2 in 1998, the second edition of the ‘European’ biennial whose principal aims were to represent and reflect the new, unified European art landscape post-1989. The works of Deimantas Narkevičius contest the concept of common historical memories. The artist breaks up linear timelines and uses unorthodox cinematographic techniques to question the conventional narration of historical records and recollections. His films show an entanglement of references from the Soviet and post-Soviet periods in Lithuania to autobiographical and biographical elements, as well as clear, but always subtle, hints to cinema history. Deimantas Narkevičius’ work also sheds new light on the current political situation, in the Baltic region and well beyond its borders. The museography of the exhibition was designed by the architectural firm 2001, offering an architectural alternative to conventional black boxes. The various projection modules offer modes of viewing and listening, specially adapted to the different formats of Deimantas Narkevičius’ film works.
The Konschthal of Esch is proud to co-fund the production of Wailing Waters, implementing its stereoscopic presentation.
