AFFECTED DISTANCES
Vartai gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania, 2023
Part of the international art biennial LACONICA
GROUP EXHIBITION Affected Distances presents Lithuanian and foreign artists who explore scent as a medium and theory 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 recognised 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 keywords such 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).
Curated by MILDA DAINOVSKYTĖ
Exhibition architecture by VYTAUTAS GEČAS
Photo documentation by LAURYNAS SKAISGĖLA
Authors: Augustina Banytė, Monika Janulevičiūtė & Antanas Lučiūnas, Laimė Kiškūnė & Thorben Gröbel, Liudvika Sonia Koort, Niklaus Mettler, Robertas Narkus, Emilija Povilanskaitė, Liz Wendelbo