It’s Getting Harder. Mindaugas Navakas
Location: Kumu courtyard
The exhibition “It’s Getting Harder” by Mindaugas Navakas, a classic of Lithuanian contemporary sculpture, in the courtyard and near surroundings of Kumu, consists of the newest works of the author and has been specially prepared to suit the architectural environment of Kumu. These are large format, in some cases even gigantic, mostly rusty metal objects that create a new atmosphere in the near surroundings of the museum.
Navakas as a sculptor – an architect of capacities and spaces – has always been into a postmodernist dialogue, developed in the process of restructuring between a chosen environment (public, institutional or alternative) and associative cultural meanings and active plastic capacities of his artwork. In it there lies an amalgamation of metaphysical threat, existential anxiety and playfulness, accompanied by irony. Every time he confronts challenges of a creative or production-based nature, the author seeks for “a bit of fun for himself”. Within the project “It’s Getting Harder,” designed for the external and internal space created exclusively for the Kumu Art Museum, and completed in the representative surroundings of Kumu, massive sculptures made of rusted steel, remade from large scale tanks and construction disposal containers, are exhibited. They are contrasted with objects constructed from china dishes and plastic tubes for plumbing. In the entryway of the museum, there are two videos displayed, associated with and representing the artist’s views of the process of creativity. By means of the expression of contemporary art, the author invites the spectator on a journey of rethinking the issues of universal consumerism and institutional powers.
Mindaugas Navakas is one of the most productive Lithuanian artists, whose works carry the influence of the classic modernist sculpture tradition and conceptual art. Navakas was born in Kaunas in 1952, and he lives and works in Vilnius. Since 2008 he has been a professor in the sculpture department of the Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts, where he had worked as a lecturer since 1977. Beginning in the same year, he has actively taken part in solo and group exhibitions in the former Soviet Union, Europe and elsewhere. In 1993 he had a solo exhibition in the Tallinn Art Hall. In 1999 Navakas represented Lithuania in the national pavillion of the Venice Biennale. Navakas has won numerous international art prizes, including the Baltic Assembly art award in 1999.
Navakas has explained the background of his work in the following way:
(…) I find rust very beautiful. It reminds me of suede. In my hippie youth, a suede jacket was the most desired item of clothing, and it was absolutely impossible to get one. For me, rust is also associated with blood. In my childhood, I was often given a not particularly tasty chocolate called “Hematogen,” which was supposed to fortify the blood and enrich it with iron. And, of course, rust is an obvious sign of disintegration, destruction, the past and the end.
(…) The category of anxiety is crucial here. Anxiety is always present. It is hardly related to outer changes or an unstable environment; it is deep, existential. It is an important impulse, an engine in action, a constant escort. I came to the conclusion that creation is not particularly related to the artist’s peace of mind. Perhaps it is the curse of an artist – you are doomed to be in an intermediate state because, if you leave this state, you may lose your creative impulse. But then the world would be a little more boring.
Curator: Elona Lubytė (Lithuanian Art Museum)
Supporters:
Lithuanian Institute, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania to the Republic of Estonia.
