Žilvinas Kempinas (born 1969) uses minimal means and materials to create compelling installations, objects, and paintings, in which minimalism intersects with optical and kinetic art. His signature creative material is magnetic tape. The lightness, plasticity, reflectivity, and inherent ability of magnetic tape to transmit information have helped him to create not only visually compelling, but also conceptually significant works of art that stretch the boundaries of sculpture. The installations created with the help of magnetic video tape, the elementary laws of physics such as gravity and wind, and mathematical precision, transform the audience’s understanding of space, create an impression of a poetic gesture, and play with the limits of two-dimensionality and volume. 

In his latest installations, though using other forms of expression, Kempinas continues to explore the viewer’s relationship with space and object – how it changes when the viewer and the object move simultaneously. In this way, time – another equally important aspect of his work – comes to the fore, both realized in the process of understanding the work and perpetuated in magnetic video tape. Lately, the artist has also made experiential video installations in which image and sound surround and draw the viewer into a journey across musical and architectural compositions (‘Skycity’, 2019) or through everyday life being turned into a vivid and surreal experience (‘Springtime’ or ‘111th Street’, 2020).  

Žilvinas Kempinas has lived in New York for more than ten years. He studied at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, and later at Hunter College in New York. In 2007, he was awarded the Calder Prize and the artist’s residency at Atelier Calder. In 2009, he represented Lithuania at the 53rd Venice Biennale with his installation ‘Tube’. Kempinas’s works are included in the collections of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Collection Lambert in Avignon, JPMorgan Chase Art Collection in New York. He has held solo exhibitions at such institutions as Herron School of Art and Design at the Indiana University, IKON Gallery in Birmingham, Leme in São Paulo, Yvon Lambert in New York, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshed (UK), Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, PS1 Contemporary Art Centre in New York. In 2012, the artist was awarded the Lithuanian National Culture and Art Prize. 

The artist is represented by Gallery Leme (São Paulo), http://galerialeme.com/