Authors: Augustina Banytė, Monika Janulevičiūtė & Antanas Lučiūnas, Laimė Kiškūnė & Thorben Gröbel, Liudvika Sonia Koort, Niklaus Mettler, Robertas Narkus, Emilija Povilanskaitė, Liz Wendelbo.
Affected Distances presents Lithuanian and foreign artists who explore the medium and theory of scents in their work. The artists rethink social, economic, digital, and sacred narratives, using scents as a starting point or the main form of expression. One of the principal physical senses becomes a purified value, a tool to perceive a work of art and an object of research in contemporary art.
Curator Milda Dainovskytė: “Something I never recognized started with a plastic transparent ball that I rubbed against a rough carpet. My fingers got sticky, covered in fluff and bitter. Could I hear it again? Yet I can feel it fading over time, remaining pink, heavy, and hollow in my memory. A scent spreads like a sound through the space, filling the cavities in the walls and sinking into the curtains. It bounces off the waving hands and travels in the opposite direction, leaving a whisper in our memories.”
Affected Distances is one of the exhibitions of Laconica – a biennial of visual art taking place in Vilnius since 2021. The biennial is conceived as a space and a platform for artists who develop minimal or minimalist language in their work, using such keywords as reduction of form, abstracted narrative, refined ideas and expression. The events of the 2021 Laconica looked into the links between monochrome and minimalist poetry. This year’s exhibitions focus on the phenomena of colour and scents (olfactory art).
Milda Dainovskytė is a curator and artist, who usually implements her curatorial projects in architecturally or locally distinctive spaces. Her works are based on historical archives, focusing on the local context, specific territories, and scents.
The exhibition’s architect is Vytautas Gečas, a designer and artist working in the field of conceptual design. Experimenting with context and the subject’s perception, he uses complexity, fragmentation, layering, and mixed references.
Graphic designer: Tadas Karpavičius.
Project manager: Kotryna Džilavjan.
Organiser: Pamėnkalnio Gallery.
Co-producer: Vartai Gallery.
Partners and sponsors: Meno Niša Gallery, Hemphill, Strategic Staffing Solutions International, Elska Coffee, Lithuanian Artists’ Association.
The organizers extend their sincere thanks to Antanas Gerlikas.
