Žilvinas Landzbergas. Exhibition “The Fog”, 2019, Kunsthalle LAB, Bratislava. Photo Martin Marenčin

In the work of Žilvinas Landzbergas (born 1979), the importance of material, colour, and light, and the references presented in them, combine to form an indivisible conceptual piece. In his early work, materials are treated as references to social contexts, and the object-things made from them create social portraits. Landzbergas’s installations transform spaces into situations with their own time and place, where connections between different elements are created according to the logic of fairytales: the linear narrative is replaced by sequences of transitions and references that do not provide definitive answers. In his work, he also weaves his personal experiences, which remain inaccessible to the viewer, in with his reflections on (and criticism of) social and historical contexts. 

In his later work, where conceptual continuity is particularly important, Landzbergas turns to mythical thought, the demiurgic – conceptually creative – origin, contemplating them in the context of contemporary (consumerist) culture. In this way, cheap, unsustainable materials, and synthetic colours that introduce elements of kitsch into the general structure of his work are found alongside objects created from natural materials such as wood that bespeak an unattainable bygone era of mythical thought. The mysterious and even sometimes nihilistic mood of Landzbergas’s work is always accompanied by subtle humour and irony. Lately, the artist has expanded his practice as a curator – the exhibition ‘Watchmaker’ shown at Pamarys Gallery in Juodkrantė in 2020, curated with Marija Repšytė, displays a recognisable trace of the artist’s creative method. Carefully selected and conceptually exhibited works of folk art, subtly arranged alongside contemporary works of art, become yet another way of expanding the boundaries of tale-telling and historicity – or even to question the existence of these very boundaries altogether.  

Landzbergas studied sculpture at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. In 2005–2007, he participated in the De Ateliers postgraduate artists’ residency in Amsterdam. In 2017, he represented Lithuania at the 57th Venice Biennale. Landzbergas has had solo exhibitions at such institutions as the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius and Modern Art Oxford in the United Kingdom. His works have been exhibited at international group shows at the Kunsthalle Bratislava, W139 in Amsterdam, the São Paulo Art Biennial, the Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA) in 2018, the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, the Liverpool Biennial, and De Hallen Museum in Haarlem. 

The artist is represented by Galerie Fons Welters (Amsterdam): www.fonswelters.nl