{"id":25480,"date":"2026-07-16T12:50:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T09:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lndm.devmerit.com\/nacionaline-dailes-galerija\/parodos\/aurelija-maknyte-channels\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T12:50:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T09:50:24","slug":"aurelija-maknyte-channels","status":"publish","type":"paroda","link":"https:\/\/lndm.devmerit.com\/en\/national-gallery-of-art\/exhibitions\/aurelija-maknyte-channels\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurelija Maknyt\u0117. Channels"},"content":{"rendered":"

On 24 July at 6 pm, the exhibition \u2018Channels\u2019 by\u00a0Aurelija\u00a0Maknyt\u0117\u00a0will open in the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Art (NGA,\u00a0Konstitucijos\u00a0Ave. 22,\u00a0Vilnius), part of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art (LNMA).\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This exhibition is the first comprehensive presentation of the artist\u2019s work, surveying an artistic practice spanning\u00a0nearly three\u00a0decades and\u00a0showcasing\u00a0both well-known pieces and works that have rarely, if ever, been\u00a0exhibited\u00a0before.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Maknyt\u0117\u00a0is one of the most distinctive figures in Lithuanian contemporary art. Her creative practice constantly intertwines the history of everyday life, nature, and technologies. Although her works\u00a0emerge\u00a0from daily observation, collecting, documentation, and years of research, they rarely result in finished exhibits. Incompleteness, process, and the opportunity to continually rethink accumulated material are among the key principles of\u00a0Maknyt\u0117\u2019s\u00a0work.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the exhibition\u2019s main themes is light. In the NGA\u2019s Great Hall, natural daylight meets the light emitted by television screens, electric bulbs, and flickering video projections. Fragments of\u00a0Maknyt\u0117\u2019s\u00a0series\u00a0<\/span>Light Therapy I\u2013III<\/span><\/i>\u00a0\u2013 recreated especially for this exhibition \u2013 reveal the artist\u2019s long-standing interest in light as both a prerequisite for the emergence of the technological image and as an artistic\u00a0medium in its own right.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Television and television sets\u00a0constitute\u00a0an equally important part of\u00a0Maknyt\u0117\u2019s\u00a0body of work. For over a decade, the artist amassed a personal television archive, recording excerpts of television\u00a0programmes\u00a0and\u00a0films onto VHS tapes and using them to create video works, fictional autobiographies, and new narratives. For her, television was not merely a source of imagery, but also a form of cultural memory. The exhibition also revisits the experimental project\u00a0CAC TV, in which\u00a0Maknyt\u0117\u00a0was involved as a camera operator, editor, and creative contributor.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The exhibition also reveals another important direction in the artist\u2019s work: archives and collections. VHS tapes, photographic films, floppy disks, slides, video recordings, and found objects accumulated over decades become not only repositories of memory, but also potential artworks. In\u00a0Maknyt\u0117\u2019s\u00a0practice, collecting is not merely a form of documentation; it is a way to think about the world and forge new connections between\u00a0seemingly unrelated\u00a0things.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nature plays a pivotal role in the exhibition. Observations of plants, animals, and the landscape, conducted over many years on the plot of land by the\u00a0\u0160irvinta\u00a0River that the artist calls \u2018Earth\u2019,\u00a0become an integral part of her creative work. Objects derived from the natural environment are displayed in the courtyard of the NGA, while a replica of the Main Hall has been constructed on the banks of the\u00a0\u0160irvinta\u00a0River\u00a0especially for the exhibition.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Aurelija\u00a0Maknyt\u0117\u00a0(b. 1969) is a Lithuanian artist living between Vilnius and the\u00a0\u0160irvintos\u00a0district. In the early 1990s, she studied design at the\u00a0Tel\u0161iai\u00a0Higher School of Applied Arts and later completed the then-newly established Bachelor\u2019s and\u00a0Master\u2019s\u00a0programmes\u00a0in Photography and Media Art at the Vilnius Academy of Arts.\u00a0Maknyt\u0117\u00a0has frequently participated in exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, including the \u2018Parallel Progressions\u2019 cycle (2001\u20132003), the international performance festival \u2018Dimension 1\u2019 (2006), \u2018Art Pause\u2019 (2002), \u2018101.3 km: Competition and Cooperation\u2019 (2006), \u2018Urban Stories. X Baltic Triennial of International Art\u2019 (2009), \u2018Lithuanian Art 2000\u20132010: Ten Years\u2019 (2010), \u2018The Nineties\u2019 (2012), \u2018Lithuanian Art 2012: 18 Exhibitions\u2019 (2012), and \u2018Blood and Soil: Dark Arts for Dark Times\u2019 (2019).\u00a0Maknyt\u0117\u2019s\u00a0work has also been featured in group exhibitions such as \u2018Loose Ends\u2019 at the National Gallery of Art (NDG, 2019), \u2018The Sweet Sweat of the Future\u2019 (NDG, 2019), \u2018The Origin of Species: 1990s DNA\u2019 at the MO Museum (2019), \u2018Chronometers\u2019 at the\u00a0Klaip\u0117da\u00a0Culture Communication Centre (KKKC, 2018), and \u2018The\u00a0Body of the Letter\u2019 at the\u00a0Sod\u0173\u00a04 project space (2016), among others. To date, she has held three solo exhibitions: \u2018Parents\u2019 Room\u2019 (Artifex), \u2018Deficit\u2019 (Gallery 101) (both in 2015), and \u2018Cabinets\u00a0of\u00a0Nature\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>at the Vilnius Town Hall (2020). Her works are held in the collections of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art and the MO Museum.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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